Dubai: They say to know a country’s culture, your first stop should be its marketplace.
The Thai community in Dubai did just that and more — they brought their own market — to the emirate on Friday.
The Royal Thai Consulate-General in Dubai, with the Thai Ladies Club, organised the first Thai Community Market Day on Friday at the consulate premises to recreate traditional Thai markets back home, which are a centrepiece of Thai social life and culture.
From the signature Pad Thai (stir-fried rice noodles) cooked right in front of you to the black, blue, and yellow sticky rice, the market had all sorts of food to excite any adventurous palate.
“We’re doing this to get the community together. We’re not doing this to gain profit. What we’re trying to achieve is to showcase our culture here for other people in the emirate to experience it as well,” Thai Deputy Consul-General Fabio Chinda told Gulf News.
“We’re serving authentic Thai food, all home-made. The ingredients of these foods are hard to come by here and the food preparation itself is quite difficult and time consuming. But we’ve managed to ask Thai households to cook them for today,” he added.
Some Thai specials, which Chinda said will be difficult to find in Dubai, are the Isan or the Thai fermented sausage from the south, the Cha Thai cake, which is actually a very soft sponge cake flavoured with green and black Thai tea, and the Sweet Thai Crispy Beef with chicken rice.
Besides Thai food, the community also prepared some Thai crafts while being serenaded by traditional Thai music.
Chinda said the market day is the first of five market days over the next four months. He said the public is invited to come to the consulate in Jumeirah every second Friday of the month from 11am to 4pm.
