SUKI Isn’t SUKIYAKI

When you come to Thailand you may go straight to the high-end or popular restaurant or bistro that you found in reviews or your guidebooks. But if you have to stay in Thailand for awhile such as a transfer employee or a foreign employee, you can’t eat like that every meals, right?

So, your obvious choice of eating places that you can’t escape from must be “Kab Khaw Raan Paa” (aka local bistro). That means you have to risk your luck for it. Because it’s no way you will know the food would be toothsome or toothless.

Before I drag you more around, let me lead you to the point.

The reason I talked about these stuffs is those places is the place you would find this conflicted menu. 10 years ago, even Thai people themselves also have this kind of misunderstanding. In the menu of Thailand’s local bistro, you can find “Suki” dish. However, this “suki” isn’t a short term of sukiyaki which is a Japanese food. It’s a completely different dish.

When SUKIYAKI is more likely a stir-fried dish between sliced beef or pork and salty-sweet sauce, SUKI is a hotpot fulled with light soup and plenty of ingredients that is more similar to SHABU hotpot in Japanese food culture.

Sukiyaki, Japanese food

Suki hotpot, in Thailand.

The most important thing of this menu and “must-have” in this dish is “Yee Tofu Dipping Sauce”. The dish will be thumbs up or down depending on the cook’s skill in making this sauce.

The tastes of sourness and sweetness have to moderate in your mouth while a little bit of saltiness will make them outstanding. The sourness of pickled garlic is going to get very well with yee tofu, the sweetness and fragrant of roasted sesame seeds gain your appetite and the attack of the spiciness of the chili will conduct those ingredients like the great conductor of the fantastic symphony.

It sounds too good to be true, right? How could only this sauce change a simple boiled fresh veggies and meats to be that good? You must listen to this. In 1986, a specialty sukiyaki restaurant called “MK restaurant” opened for the first time at Central Ladprao Department Store during a time when Thailand was experiencing a lot of crises. However, this specialty restaurant has been able to expand more than 400 branches across the country. The famous food of the restaurant is. “Suki sauce” that has been so popular that the shop produces and sells them separately in bottles.

Moo Gra Ta with Suki sauce beside

Moreover, in every “Raan Moo Gra Ta” (Aka local Thai pot grilled food garden and buffet), Suki sauce is the must-have. Suki was adapted to be a single dish and you can order in almost every local eateries or food stalls in Thailand.

Single dish of Suki

Interesting, ha?

So, remind yourself about this dish. If you come to Thailand, you have to try once!

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