Your Culinary Adventure Starts Here!
Lovers of Asian food have come to the right place!
Global Taste offers Southeast Asia's best custom culinary tours and food travel experiences. Our terrific culinary tours of Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos bring you the best in Southeast Asian culture and its revered cuisine. Our Southeast Asian adventures blend incredible eating and cooking experiences with vivacious cultural activities.
Some Food Vacation Highlights:
- Eat the best cuisine in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos!
- We sample local and seasonal fruit, unique regional specialties, and up and coming Thai wine with the help of guest connoisseurs.
- Learn to cook authentic Thai, Laotian, and Cambodian cuisine with top chefs in fantastic cooking schools!
- Enjoy custom guided visits of historic ruins, terrific temples and gorgeous national parks.
Southeast Asian Culinary Tours
Our guided food and drink tours are offered at remarkably low prices. Take a closer look at our Asian Food Tours and Thailand Culinary Travel Itineraries to see the different options we have.
You can modify our pre-built itineraries to suit your wants and needs. Southeast Asian culinary tours with Global Taste can conform to fit your taste and budget.
Affordable Customized Tours and Culinary Travel
Our Custom Asian Culinary Tour Builder allow you to tailor every aspect of your Asian food vacation. Our custom culinary travel and food vacation builder offers incredible flexibility, with a wide range of price options.
Whether you choose discount guesthouses or 5 star luxury accommodations you are in good hands. We select our hotels like we select all aspects of our tours, with great care that ensures the highest quality. When you choose Global Taste as your culinary travel specialists, you are guaranteed to love your cuisine and culture experience.
Enjoy Asia's culinary and cultural treasures with Global Taste
Take a close look at Southeast Asia's culture and cuisine
Customize your Thai Food Journey
Our Asian Custom Culinary Tours allow you to tailor every aspect of your travels in Asia. Our innovative custom culinary travel and food tour programs offer a wide range of price options, destinations, and activities. You can add cultural excursions, great beaches, and adventure travel to your Asian cooking experience!
Interested in Southeast Asian food tours, Thailand's cooking school programs, Thai culinary vacations, or a holiday for Thai food lovers? Check our Asian Culinary Experiences for great ideas.
Eating in Asia!
Plain and simple: eating in Southeast Asia is a source of great fun! Even if there were no other attractions, the gastronomic delights would be reason enough to visit!
Go on vacation with us after your Majorca Can Picafort holiday and eat some of the best food on the planet!
Rice
The great staple food of Southeast Asia. In fact, in the Thai language one never says, "Let's go eat." Regardless of what will actually be eaten, the expression is always, "Let's go eat rice!"
You might be surprised to learn about all the different varieties of rice. If you know where to look you can find rich sweet black rice desserts. With a sense of adventure and the help of a seasoned guide, you can find delicious red rice cooked in hollowed bamboo.
The most common variety in Thailand is jasmine rice, renown for its pleasant fragrance and flavor. In Laos and northeastern Thailand sticky rice is more common. In Laos, upwards of 50% of all food consumed is sticky rice!
Yum! What is that delish' dish?
As with any cuisine, the essence of Southeast Asian cuisine can be boiled down to its ingredients. Asian food in general, but Thai cuisine in particular, make use of a cornucopia of different ingredients.
Vegetables range from greens such as morning glory to white water lily stems.
Noodles are made from a variety of ingredients and are prepared in dozens of different ways.
Noodles are most commonly made from rice, wheat, egg, mung bean, or a combination of ingredients.
Meats are carefully prepared and range from delicious standards like crispy red pork to the more exotic (and delicious!) spicy deep fried frog.
Seafood is a dream: fresh river fish prepared dozens of different ways, sautéed mussels, jumbo soft shell crabs in a perfectly spiced coconut curry... I'd write more but this is making me hungry!
Spice of Life
Thailand benefits greatly from a tropical climate, great river systems, and plenty of coastlines. This means that a great variety of fresh food is available year round.
This freshness plays a big role in the delicousness of Thai food. The other factor that makes Thai food so distinctive is because of the herbs and spices involved. Thai food is renown for its strong, yet delicately balanced flavors.
To name a few, Thai chefs cook with coriander, garlic, peppers, fish sauce, shrimp paste, galangal, turmeric, Thai basil, lemongrass, and coconut.
One of the great aspects of our tours is that we sample food and drinks from each of Thailand's regions. There are many significant differences. For example, the south makes great use of cashew nuts, dried chilies, and seafood, while the Central Plains are notorious for meticulously prepared 'Royal Thai' cuisine.
Cambodian food, caught in the crossroads of Vietnam and Thailand, is finally no longer overlooked in the culinary world. Cambodian Amok, coconut fish wrapped and steamed in banana leaves is a positively delicious dish that will have you asking for seconds. 'Loc lac' will be among the most tender beef dishes you are likely to ever try.
Laotian food also has highlights. You get to eat sticky rice, unripe papaya salad, and grilled chicken with your hand! People declare Laotian grilled pork and chicken to be among of the best in the world - rightfully so! For the adventurous - deep fried insects!
Fruits and Desserts
Many of the world's tastiest fruits can be found in tropical Southeast Asia. We aren't talking about mere 'keep doctors away' fruit; we're talking about highly addictive, unbelievably fresh and delicious fruit.
Stinky durian, sticky rambutan, sweet mango, mangosteen (aka "The Queen of Fruit"), crisp rose apple, and the unbeatable pomelo are just a few of the many delicious fruits in Thailand. Legend has it that if you live in Bangkok for a year, you can try a different fruit everyday.
Last, but not least, are the desserts. Most deserts are commonly made from sugar, eggs, coconut milk and sticky rice. One such example of a Thai dessert would be the satisfying "Poor Man's Dessert Pancake."
Other desserts, like mango and sticky rice, depend so much on local methods and overall freshness that they are hardly tasty outside Southeast Asia; here in Thailand tropical fruit and sticky rice desserts taste like manna from heaven.
Drink Up!
With that tropical sunshine it is an absolute necessity to have plenty of cold beverages on hand. In Southeast Asia, and Thailand in particular, you have a number of terrific options to help you cool off.
First off, let's mention Thai iced tea. This delicious and fragrant tea is usually served with sweet milk. There are a number of different subtle flavors and types of teas in Thailand - one favorite is with the Taiwanese style tapioca bubbles!
Another favorite of visitors and locals alike are the fruit shakes. To name just a few, you can order watermelon, orange, banana, pineapple fruit shakes. Dozens of fruit concoctions are possible!
Local conouisseurs consider it a 'must' to drink coconut water. This cool beverage is slightly sweet and can be had in its original coconut shell!
In Good Spirits!
Beer wise, you could do much worse than Thailand's Singha, Laos' Beer Lao, or Singapore's Tiger Beer! In fact, if you aren't careful, Dark Beer Lao could become one of your favorite all-time beers!
Whiskey is the spirit of choice. The most popular brand is Sang Som, made from distilled sugar cane. Illegal 'moonshine rice whiskey' can be widely found, especially in rural communities. On the opposite end of the economic/cultural/taste spectrum, imports are widely available.
Thai wine?
Perhaps surprisingly, Thai viniculture has developed some very interesting wines. Fruit (not exclusively grapes!) and herbal wine are difficult to find outside of Thailand, but are definitely worth a try!
Thailand has had a wine industry of some type since the late 1960's. For the vast majority of that time, the wine was close to undrinkable. However, in the last ten years a number of factors have contributed to a vast improvement of local wines.
Monsoon Valley is a leader in Thai wine, and has won accolades and awards from the international wine community. Of note, Monsoon Valley grows a number of their grapes in a floating vineyard, accessible by boat only!
If it perks your interest, we can visit to a number of Thai vineyards! Great fun!
Food Matters
Food and drink tell us much about a region: we can gain a deep understanding of the complexities of a country, its natural environment, and its inhabitants. Studying food yields histories of human migration, ancient societies, and the development of wisdom.
It is through food, and only food, that we learn about people's taste! With Global Taste, you can delve as deep as you wish into the study of Southeast Asian cuisine
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