"Steamed seabass with spicy lemon sauce" is the most popular dish selected by mothers in a survey carried out by the National Food Institute which aims to provide information to restaurants on preparing right menu for patrons who dine out with their mothers during the weekend leading to National Mother's Day on Aug 12.
Deboned seabass steamed with lime chilli sauce served at a restaurant in Bangkok. The recipe will be varied depending on each restaurant. (File photo)
Amorn Ngammongkolrat, the institute's deputy director, said a survey among 1,717 mothers aged over 25 years in Greater Bangkok show that the top five Thai food dishes are healthy foods with fish and vegetables as the prime ingredients.
The steamed fish received 35% of the votes. The other four dishes are nam prik pla tu, or fermented shrimp paste with vegetables and fried mackerel (34%), somtam (32%), fried seabass in fish sauce (28%) and kaeng some cha-om thod, or spicy soup with vegetable (climbing wattle) omelette (28%).
Mr Amorn said the result confirmed that Thai mothers like dishes using ingredients with high nutritional value but still want the spicy taste found in Thai food. They do not like fatty food, which is a good trend indicating that people are paying more attention to their health.