Thai suki, known simply as suki (, ) in

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

, is a Thai variant of

hot pot Hot pot ( zh, c=, s=wikt:火锅, 火锅, t=wikt:火鍋, 火鍋, p=huǒguō, l=fire pot, first=t) or hotpot, also known as steamboat, is a dish (food), dish of soup/stock (food), stock kept simmering in a cooking pot, pot by a heat source on ...

, a communal dish where diners dip meat, seafood, noodles, dumplings and vegetables into a pot of broth cooking at the table and dip it into a spicy "sukiyaki sauce" before eating. Despite the name, the dish only barely resembles Japanese

sukiyaki is a Japanese dish that is prepared and served in the '' nabemono'' (Japanese hot pot) style. It consists of meat (usually thinly sliced beef) which is slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in ...

, having more in common with

shabu shabu ''Shabu-shabu'' () is a Japanese ''nabemono'' hotpot dish of thinly sliced meat and vegetables boiled in water and served with dipping sauces. The term is onomatopoeic, derived from the sound – "swish swish" – emitted when the ingredients ...

and Chinese

. Thai sukiyaki evolved from Chinese hot pot served in restaurants catering to members of Thailand's sizeable ethnic Chinese clientele, in which an aluminum pot was heated on a charcoal fire at the table and the raw ingredients presented on one big plate. In 1957, a restaurant called Coca opened its first branch in Soi Tantawan, Bangkok, offering a modified version of the Chinese

under the Japanese name of Sukiyaki. Although it only vaguely resembled Japanese sukiyaki, it was a catchy name for it because of a Japanese pop song called "

Sukiyaki is a Japanese dish that is prepared and served in the '' nabemono'' (Japanese hot pot) style. It consists of meat (usually thinly sliced beef) which is slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in ...

" which was a big worldwide hit at the time. This modified Thai version proved to be a massive hit, and it wasn't long before other chains started opening "suki" restaurants across Bangkok and other cities, each with its own special dipping sauce as the selling point. In Thai sukiyaki, diners have more options of ingredients to choose from, each portion being considerably smaller in order to enable diners to order many more varieties. The spicy dipping sauce (''

nam chim ''Nam chim'' or ''nam jim'' (, ) is Thai for " dipping sauce". It can refer to a wide variety of dipping sauces in Thai cuisine, with many of them a combination of salty, sweet, spicy and sour. ''Nam chim'' tend to be more watery in consistency ...

suki'') caters to Thai tastes, too, with much

chili sauce Chili sauce and chili paste are condiments prepared with chili peppers. Chili sauce may be hot, sweet or a combination thereof, and may differ from hot sauce in that many sweet or mild varieties exist, which is typically lacking in hot sauce ...

, chili,

lime Lime most commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a color between yellow and green Lime may also refer to: Bo ...

and

coriander Coriander (), whose leaves are known as cilantro () in the U.S. and parts of Canada, and dhania in parts of South Asia and Africa, is an annual plant, annual herb (''Coriandrum sativum'') in the family Apiaceae. Most people perceive the ...

leaves added. The raw ingredients are presented on small plates and are cooked at the table in a gas- or electrically heated stainless steel pot containing broth. Usually, an egg is added to the broth at the start of the meal. Today the MK Restaurant chain, which opened its first restaurant in 1962 on

Siam Square Siam Square (, ) is a shopping and entertainment area in the Siam area of Bangkok, Thailand. The square is located at the corner of Phayathai Road and Rama I Road and is owned by Chulalongkorn University, managed by its Property Management Of ...

in Bangkok, is the most popular in Thailand with around 430 restaurants across the country and 23 in Japan. Coca is making a rapid spread abroad, too, already serving Thai suki in 24 outlets across Asia and Australia and further outlets planned in the US and Europe. Other popular chains include Texas and Lailai.

References

External links

* Thai cuisine Table-cooked dishes Hot pot {{Thai-cuisine-stub