While I was in Udon Thani, a pretty decent sized city in the northeastern region of Thailand, I went to a restaurant called Udon Miang Pla Pao (อุดร เมี่ยงปลาเผา). Pla pao (ปลาเผา) in Thai is roasted or grilled fish, often covered in a thick layer of salt, then roasted over charcoal. If you’re interested in making Thai style salt crusted grilled fish, here’s my full recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuZ_0A97xRU
Back to the restaurant, one of the things you’ll immediate notice as you walk into Udon Miang Pla Pao (อุดร เมี่ยงปลาเผา) is how fresh their fish is. The fish is still alive and swimming in little containers of water, and they fish them out, take out their guts, and then stuff them with lemongrass, pandan leaves, and lemon basil, and then coat the fish in a thick layer of salt. The fish then go onto the grill, and roast over an indirect charcoal fire for about 15 minutes. One of the things I loved is that they stick a sticky down the fish, and the grill master removes the stick and judging by how wet the stick is, he can tell when the fish is fully cooked – that’s how he can cook the fish perfectly without overcooking it.
Miang (เมี่ยง) is a word that means to wrap in leaves, and pla pao (ปลาเผา) is roasted fish, so the combination is grilled fish wrapped in leaves and herbs… and it’s even more glorious than that. At this awesome restaurant in Udon Thani, they served our grilled fish along with a basket of green leaves and vegetables that included lettuce, wild betel leaves, sweet basil, cilantro, dill, and Vietnamese coriander. On a separate plate, there were all sorts of sliced ingredients as well, including ginger, lemongrass, shallots, chilies, garlic, mustard greens, khanom jeen rice noodles, pork rinds, and a few more. Finally, this amazing Thai dish was served with not just one, but four different dipping sauces of different heats and flavors. All of them were tasty, but I liked the original garlic chili sauce, and the fermented fish sauce chili sauce.
In order to eat miang pla pao (เมี่ยงปลาเผา) you first grab one of the larger base leaves, fill it up with some grilled fish, then go crazy adding in as many of the sliced ingredient toppings as possible, and then add some sauce. Then wrap up the handheld treat, and eat it like a miniature taco. The fish, which was tilapia, was incredibly juicy and tender, and the meat was naturally sweet from being so fresh. Along with the miang pla pao (เมี่ยงปลาเผา), Ying and I also got miang pla tod (เมี่ยงปลาเผา), a deep fried fish. The same fish, a tilapia, was sliced up and hollowed inside out, then deep fried to a golden crisp. The fish was served with the same basket of green veggies and herbs and complementing ingredients. Instead of the juicy meat of the grilled fish, this was crunchy and crispy. Both were amazing, but overall I preferred the healthier version, the miang pla pao (เมี่ยงปลาเผา).
Udon Miang Pla Pao (อุดร เมี่ยงปลาเผา) is a wonderful restaurant in Udon Thani, Thailand. On top of serving delicious food, I also really liked the atmosphere of the restaurant, sitting in nice private covered tables. It was a meal I won’t forget, I loved it.
Udon Miang Pla Pao (อุดร เมี่ยงปลาเผา)
Address: Soi Phibun 2, Udon Thani, Thailand
Open hours: 10 am – 10 pm (only closed on Buddhist holidays throughout the year)
Prices: It cost 250 THB per fish
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Udonplapao
ถนนพิบูลย์ ซ. พิบูลย์2 อ.เมือง จ. อุดรธานี 41000
โทร. 093-996-1465
เปิด 10.00 – 22.00 น. หยุดทุกวันพระ
Music in this video is courtesty of audionetwork.com
Produced by Mark Wiens and Ying Wiens: http://migrationology.com/blog & http://www.eatingthaifood.com/blog/
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Thank you very much for watching, and I’ll see you on the next Thai food video!
Mark