I haven't taken the cooking class at May Kaidee's vegetarian restaurtant, but I've eaten there. Recommended.

Kinda hard to find off Khao San road in the traveler ghetto. (N13 45.509 E100 29.963 for you GPS fans.)

Go to the east end of KSR. Cross the street. Turn left. Go to the first alley and you'll see a sign for "Number One Vegetarian Restaurant." Go down the alley and turn left and you'll see a sign for May's.

Try the larb, which I found quite good and, unusually, made with noodles. (Free, unsecured wifi in the area. Use SSID "Netgear" at your own risk.)

To Market To Market and I plan to be in Bangkok during April '09 and hope to be doing a cooking class. :)

It seems from this thread that either "Blue Elephant" or "Baipai" may be the way to go.

It's been nearly a year since the last posts here - does anyone have more to add/recommend?

EDIT: It seems we'll be there during "Songkran". Is it likely these will close on those days?

The Blue Elephant was a good course. I'll try to edit this later this week with more details.

I know the recent events and disruptions have focused attention elsewhere, but now that things are getting back to normal, I'd be interested to hear your impressions.

My apologies for not returning and posting. I could have sworn I'd written up a review somewhere but I cannot find it.

I found the Blue Elephant cooking class to be very well organized, interesting, informative and thoroughly enjoyable.

I arrived about 30 minutes before the start of the class. Registration and payment were on the second floor. After paying you sit in a room and have some tea or coffee while waiting for the class to start. Because it was a morning class, you start with a trip to the Bang Rak market. We broke into two groups. The leader of the group was one of the sous chefs. She explained the various vegetables and herbs that we saw. We also stopped and bought some local coffee at one of those carts where they use the condensed milk and pour it through a series of cloth strainers.

Back at the Blue Elephant we headed upstairs to the top floor. On one half of the floor is a classroom. On the other half is a kitchen. The classroom has chairs with table arms like in US high schools. Being a big guy, it was a bit awkward for me to sit and get up but it wasn't all that uncomfortable. At the front of the classroom there was a cooking station, similar to what you'll find in a TV cooking show studio. Above the station was a very large mirror hanging down from the ceiling at an angle. The angle gave a very good view of the work being done at the cooking station.

First the instructor went over some of the basic tenants of Thai cooking. The various ingredients which are common, etc. Then we reviewed a recipe, with the instructor showing us how it was done. After each recipe we'd go across the hall to the kitchen where we each had our own station with all the necessary equipment. The kitchen is set up like a horseshoe for lack of a better description. The instructors are in the middle with the students around the outside. This way the instructors can easily see what the students are doing and give assistance and advice. For each of the recipes we'd head to the kitchen and all the prep work was already done. So we didn't have to measure the coconut milk or weigh the coriander. It was already prepared. One of the things we did need to do ourselves was to remove the seeds from the chillies. This was useful as it reinforced the point about the heat of the chillies.

After each dish was complete we taped our number to it and went back to the classroom. After 4 dishes or so we had a summary session. Students that were finishing up that day, and not taking additional days where they'd learn more lessons, received a Blue Elephant cloth apron, Blue Elephant cloth shopping bag and a gift box with some pastes and sauces and a recipe.

I subsequently bought some dried herbs and whatnot, and the Blue Elephant cookbook and have cooked a few dishes at home.

Since junior high school I haven't done similar classes elsewhere so I don't have anything with which to compare. However, the class was very worthwhile and I highly recommend it.

Thanks for the excellent review! Sounds like an awesome course!

Welcome to FlyerTalk, letthinktour!

I did the cooking class at May Kaidee's last week and it was great. Half day class is 1200 baht and you make 10 dishes. Recipe booklet is just a poor quality photocopy, however.

Not really for a tourist (though they get some who go in for 1-week classes on specific things such as fruit carving), but my wife studied for 2 months at WanDee -- http://www.wandeethaicooking.com/eng/index_eng.html

I thought the homework was pretty tasty.

Plenty of pics of the curriculum at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/acassidy/2008ModFruitCarver
http://picasaweb.google.com/acassidy/200811ChefMod#
http://picasaweb.google.com/acassidy/200810ChefMod#
http://picasaweb.google.com/acassidy/200809ChefMod#

Do you shop in the market for the ingredients or are they provided?

There's a market tour, during which May bought some ingredients (and explained various ones), but you don't pay extra for the ingredients.

Thank you for sharing your experience, yosithezet. I, too, participated in a class at the Blue Elephant after reading the recommendations. The experience was wonderful. The hardest part was trying to consume all of the food we prepared at the end of our session. Unfortunately, many of us were unable to eat much after our cooking lesson since we sampled the dishes throughout the course. Thanks again for the great description of your experience.

I've taken the vegetarian Thai cooking class at May Kaidee's twice (once myself and once on a return trip to Bangkok with a friend). I thoroughly enjoyed the experience both times, though anyone taking the classes should go in with the right expectations about the environment. The location is in the backpackers section of town and the "classroom" is basic, with one side is completely open to a side street, and the recipe set you take home is just stack of photocopied pages. About half the students seem to be college-age, perhaps on their around-the-world backpacking adventure. While I haven't been to the Blue Elephant, I expect this is a very different experience.

Of course, what's important with a cooking class is the cooking and the food, and that is definitely the focus of the class. After a trip to a market to learn about the ingredients being used, the group gets right down to business. The classroom has a cooking station for each pair of students, with a wok, utensils, and bowls of prepared ingredients. Over the course of the next three to four hours, every group gets to prepare and eat 10-12 recipes from Tom Yam soup to fresh vegetable spring rolls with peanut sauce, and the food I've made there tasted better than what I found in better Bangkok restaurants. The very open, relaxed environment encourages everyone in the class to interact, and the class ends with everyone singing a Thai song together.

One thing you might find missing from the class is actual instruction, but I never found it lacking either as Thai recipes like these don't require a great deal of technique. I don't think I would have gained much from watching a chef prepare these recipes first, so it seems better that most class time is spent with students cooking. What you do get is the opportunity to cook a wide variety of dishes with a knowledgeable Thai there to help and guide you, and to have a great time doing it.

Cooking classes
 

OK, my wife asked this one. We're heading out end of this month and will spend entire Aug in Bkk (well, at least most of the time). I'm on business and she's just keeping me company.

She is very good Chinese cook and wants to learn Thai cooking - any recommendations re where, with whom, estimated costs,etc. We'll probably be in the Wireless Rd, Langsuan and Sathorn area....will decide on long term stay after we arrive.

Thanks for any help.

See post #20 in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thail...s-bangkok.html for my description of the course I did a Blue Elephant.