What to Eat in Ayutthaya and the Central Plains

Ayutthaya was the capital of Siam for about four hundred years, from the fourteenth century until it was destroyed in 1767. Today its temple ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most popular day trips from Bangkok. Most visitors come for the history, but the old capital and the countryside around it are also among the best places to understand central Thai food.

The city sits on an island where three rivers meet, the Chao Phraya, the Pa Sak and the Lopburi, in the middle of a wide, flat plain of rice fields. Water has shaped everything here, including what people eat.

The rice bowl of Thailand

The Central Plains, the floodplain of the Chao Phraya and its tributaries, are often called the rice bowl of Thailand. For centuries the river's yearly floods fed the paddies, and the region's wealth in rice is a large part of why the great capitals of Siam grew up here.

The cooking reflects that abundance. Central Thai food is built around jasmine rice, eaten with a spread of shared dishes. Coconut palms provide milk and cream for curries and sweets, palm sugar rounds out sauces and dips, and the result is often a little sweeter and richer than food from the North or Northeast. Rivers, canals and flooded fields supply freshwater fish, prawns and vegetables such as morning glory and water mimosa.

Grilled river prawns

Ayutthaya's signature dish is gung mae nam pao, grilled giant river prawns. These are large freshwater prawns with long blue claws, split and grilled over charcoal until the shells turn orange and the flesh is just firm.

The prize is the head. Inside it is a rich, orange-yellow fat, called man gung, which Thai diners scoop out and eat with rice or mix into the sauce. The prawns are served with nam jim seafood, a sharp dipping sauce of green chilli, garlic, lime and fish sauce.

Riverside restaurants around Ayutthaya specialise in them, usually selling the prawns by weight. They are not cheap, and the largest ones command a premium, but a shared plate eaten by the river is one of the classic meals of the region.

Roti sai mai

Ayutthaya's best-known sweet is roti sai mai. The name means silk thread roti, and it comes in two parts: a stack of very thin, soft, pale crepes and a bag of fine, fluffy strands of spun sugar, rather like candy floss, often in pastel colours. You roll a little of the sugar inside a crepe and eat it like a wrap.

The sweet is usually associated with Ayutthaya's Thai Muslim community, and roti in general came to Thailand through Muslim cooks. Stalls selling it line the roads into the city, and bags of it are a traditional thing to take home to friends and family.

Boat noodles and the river

Boat noodles, kuay tiew ruea, belong to the waterways of the Central Plains. Before roads, much of daily life in this region happened on rivers and canals, and vendors cooked and sold noodles from small boats, handing bowls to customers on the bank or on other boats. The bowls were small so they could be passed across safely.

Ayutthaya is one of the places most associated with the dish, alongside the canals north of Bangkok. The broth is dark and deeply savoury, made with pork or beef and spices, and often enriched with blood. Some shops in the area still cook from a boat moored inside the restaurant, as a nod to where the dish began. Order a few small bowls rather than one, and try both pork and beef.

Freshwater fish and central classics

Beyond the famous dishes, the everyday food of the region is worth seeking out at markets and rice and curry shops. Freshwater fish appears in many forms:

• Pla chon pao, snakehead fish packed in salt, grilled whole and eaten with herbs, noodles and a dipping sauce.
• Pla duk foo, catfish flaked and fried into a crisp, airy tangle, served with a sour green mango salad.
• Gaeng som, a sour curry soup made without coconut milk, often with fish and vegetables.
• Tom khlong, a smoky, sour soup of dried fish, tamarind and herbs.
• Pla salit, dried gourami, fried until crisp and eaten with rice and rice soup.

The old capital was also a cosmopolitan trading city, home to communities of Chinese, Persian, Portuguese, Japanese and many other merchants. Their influence on Thai food, from egg-yolk sweets to the spices of massaman curry, is often traced back to this period.

Markets of the old capital

Ayutthaya has busy local markets on and around the island, selling fresh produce, river fish, curries, sweets and prepared food. In the evenings, night markets set up stalls of grilled meat, noodles and desserts. These are where local people shop and eat, and they are a better guide to the region's food than the tourist-oriented floating markets that have been built nearby.

For older market towns, the wider Central Plains have several worth the trip. Sam Chuk in Suphan Buri province is a long-established riverside market district of old wooden shophouses, known for traditional snacks and sweets. Nakhon Pathom, west of Bangkok, is home to Phra Pathom Chedi, one of the largest stupas in the country, with markets around it, and its Nakhon Chai Si district is famous for pomelos. Further south-west, Phetchaburi is known for its palm sugar and for khanom mo kaeng, a baked coconut custard.

A food day trip from Bangkok

Ayutthaya is about 80 kilometres north of Bangkok, close enough for an easy day out. A simple plan:

1. Take an early train north from Bangkok. The journey is relaxed and takes around one and a half to two hours.
2. Hire a bicycle or a tuk-tuk on the island and visit the main temples in the cooler morning.
3. Stop for a few bowls of boat noodles at lunch.
4. Spend the late afternoon at a riverside restaurant for grilled river prawns.
5. Buy roti sai mai on the way out, and catch an evening train or minivan back to the city.

Ayutthaya rewards the kind of slow day that its food suggests: long meals, plenty of rice and an afternoon by the river, much as people in this part of Thailand have eaten for centuries.