Thai Hospitality and Table Manners

Thai hospitality is something special that you will get while your visit in Thailand. A Thai always greet a guest at home or office with glass of water. In any of the restaurants in Thailand, the waiter will server you a glass of cold water first even if you done place any order for your food. Thai’s are very particular about leaving their shoes outside the home before entering to the home and they expect the same from their guest. You have to maintain the same in all Buddhist temples. Even some of the Thai restaurants also maintain this decorum. In these traditional restaurants guests are served on floor. Thai’s prefer to seat on the floor and not on the chairs and they use the floor as table where they can serve the meal. Thai’s prefer to sleep on the floor over a mattress and don’t like to use beds. Even some rich families use large short teak wood table for dining.

In Thailand table manners and dish preparation and presentation is very unique, unlike in other countries. You will get a set of fork and spoon to have your main course and soup spoon with the soup bowl. Thai’s normally don’t use knife as the food is shredded into pieces in general. You have to use chopsticks if you are going for noodles. Although you can use you normal fork and spoon in case you not that comfortable with the chopsticks. Knifes and forks are given when ordering western dishes such as steaks.

Like in other parts of the world the deserts are served at the end. In a distinctive Thai dinner, you can have several dishes served at the same time and in some cases they are also cooked on the table, which is called fondue style. Thai’s take bits of every preparation and use them as topping for the rice and then they have it in style. Thai’s normally like spicy food.