Vistor Notes:
Subject: 'Vegetarian Restaurants'
Posted by nooy on: Monday, June 23, 2008 at 09:25 AM PST

You can often find local vegetarian restaurants by looking for places that has yellow signs with red font that have the Thai characters for "Jai" on it.That looks like this: เจ
Occasionally these characters are in a Chinese font, making them look like a weird number "1" and backwards capital "F".

These are strict buddhist vegetarian restaurants with fake meat, no egg, no fish sauce, and no real meat. Sometimes it is chinese food but most of the time it is authentic Thai vegetarian food.

Enjoy!!!

Subject: 'Travel Notes for Thailand:'
Posted by eric on: Friday, January 26, 2007 at 02:50 PM PST

"Eating Vegetarian" in Thai is pronounced, "Mang-Sa-Wi-Rat". Be sure to say no fish sauce or other animal products. Fish sauce is called "nam pla."
Remember this, because most Thai food has some meat or meat based flavoring in it.
The easiest way of saying vegetarian is "Jay" (like Jay Leno). This relates to Chinese Buddhist vegetarian. "Jay" food is vegan and also forbids eating of certain pungent herbs such as garlic and cilantro. Many people here eat "Jay" only occasional, such as during full and new moons and the vegetarian festival. It is considered a good deed and popular with those who worship Kwan Yin (the Goddess of Compassion). To make yourself understood, say "Kin Jay". ('kin' means eat)- "I eat vegetarian."
Mang-sa-wi-rat is typically lacto-ovo vegetarian.
Also the word for MSG is pronounced "Pong Cheurod" or sometimes "Aginomoto" (the name brand) is better understood.