Thai food emergency!
 

Tomorrow I am going out with my mom and family for a late Mother's Day celebration. We are going to a Thai restaurant and I am worried. When I usually go for Thai, I get pad thai which can be oily and I always over eat. Does anyone have any suggestions of foods to order that wont be so bad for me?

Eat a meal before hand so you're not too hungry, then share a plate with someone?

Order, maybe if they have it, dim sum? Dumplings/steamed things?

Many thai places have a lot of vegetarian dishes...

Good luck :) It will be hard to resist!

There should be alot of healthy options. In another thread, I suggested meal soups, but there should also be steamed fish options, and light stir fry dishes.

I love Thai soft (non-fried) spring rolls (sometimes called summer rolls) made with a super thin rice paper wrapper. These are great. I buy the rice papers to make these rolls at home. The wrapper has only like 35 calories and the fillings are usually very low cal too. A little bit of beef or pork or shrimp and veggies with maybe a little cilantro, basil or mint. Even when they have rice noodles in them, it's usually a very small amount.

if you're low carbing, satay would be great, it's usually chicken or beef on skewers with a hoisin type glaze

Thai salads are wonderful too. Usually a large bed of shredded lettuce and or cabbage with bean sprouts, shredded carrots, cilantro, and lean meats such as shrimp or chicken. Even when I've gotten the pork salad, it was very lean meat. The dressings are often fairly light, but you can ask for rice wine vinegar and the dressing on the side.

I found this page on webmd which gives suggestions for thai restaurant choices, some of which I've already mentioned

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/104/107256.htm

In my LA Weight Loss "Free to Live" guide, there's a section for ethnic foods. What they recommend for Thai:

Sauces: Use low-sodium soy sauce. Ask foods be prepared without MSG.

Appetizers: Satay, basil, vegetable rolls, steamed seafoods are all healthy appetizes. Clear soups are okay (yet can be very high in sodium), but try to stay away from creamed soups.

Salads: Salads are a great choice; ask for light dressing or for the dressing on the side.

Main Courses: Try to watch ordering curry dishes with coconut milk. Coconut milk is high in fat and is found in many Thai dishes.

Side Dish: Steamed rice is always a good choice (ask if they have brown rice)

Beverage: Coffee or tea for dessert is a low calorie choice. Drink water throughout your meal.

And they sum up the Do's and Don'ts:

Yes:
-Pad Thai with Chicken or Shrimp
-White Rice
-Chicken Ginger
-Chicken Satay
-Cashew Shrimp with Vegetables

No:
-Curry Beef
-Mee-Krob
-Todd Mun Chicken
-Crispy Taro Root
-Whole Fish, deep fried

And of course, wrap up any extras to take home!

Hope that helps, and above all else, enjoy yourself! :D

I *love* Thai food. I would agree that pad thai may not be as bad a choice as some others, but you may want to go for a rice dish where the rice comes on the side -- that way you can control the portion and maybe have more of the tasty entree itself. If you really want a noodle dish, maybe something like pad see ew -- it's wide noodles with broccoli, and you can get it with chicken. You could ask them for extra broccoli. You could get creative like that with any number of dishes, probably -- I just really like pad see ew. :D

For the overeating, try to divide your plate when you first get it -- if you don't want to make a fuss by asking for a box to go, at least try to split the pile of noodles/whatever down the middle and stick to only eating the side you said you would. I can't claim 100% perfection doing it, but it does minimize the overeating.

Good luck!

Dinner ended up going really well. We ordered four dishes to share. I suggested a Spicy shrimp soup, then we got pad Thai, Red curry with beef, and "Volcano chicken" which was a grilled chicken with steamed vegetables. I started with the soup because I was confident that it was low calorie. Then I had small portions of the pad Thai and red curry because I knew they weren't awesome for me. Then I filled up with the chicken and steamed vegetables. I think it may have been the first time I have left a Thai restaurant feeling satisfied without feeling stuffed or greasy. Yay!

Ooh, the spicy shrimp soup sounds yummy

It was but it was super duper spicy. I was the only one to finish my bowl.