When people travel to Thailand as a tourist they will probably be ushered to the usual Thai foods that are likely served all around the world anyway such as green and red curries, Pad Thai (which isn't even a Thai dish,) and of course Tom Yum Gung which contains about 50% ingredients that you aren't supposed to eat anyway. I'll get into that at a later time because it is actually quite humorous to see a foreigner try to eat Tom Yum Gung that doesn't know what they are doing.
What most foreigners are not introduced to unless they seek it out is Isaan food, and in mine and many other people's opinions, it is probably the best food in Thailand. Of course you could make the probably correct argument that Isaan food has more of a basis in Laos than in Thailand, but hundreds of years ago these arbitrary lines that we call borders didn't exist in that part of the country so it is kind of understandable that they would share the same culinary history.
I spoke before at the king of Isaan food: Som Tum. But today I want to focus on what is probably the second most famous Isaan food, "larb."
Larb can be served using almost any protein or none at all if you are into that sort of thing, but for the most part you will see it on offer with pork or chicken as a base.
For the most part this is served as a "sharing dish" with a bunch of people around the table and you will grab a spoonfull of larb and then follow it up with a pinch of sticky rice and it works so wonderfully together because the spicy flavor of the larb on it's own can be a bit overwhelming to some people who have a low spice threshold.
There are a lot of ways to make this and many varieties of it exist, mostly it is a minced meat of sorts combined with fish sauce, lime, and chilis. Diced red onions are commonly thrown in there as well and at least for me, I find the flavor of this addition to be wonderful as well.
The entire ensemble is normally served with a side of a bunch of herbs including basil, that you can throw all over it if you want, but if you want to eat like a local you just pinch off a few leaves and put it in your mouth while you are chewing.
Although I have never seen this being offered at your usual cheap side-of-the-road Isaan food shack, some more upscale places will have Thai larb lettuce wraps
This can be a stepping stone of sorts for people unfamiliar with Thai cuisine because it is almost like you are eating tacos and lets be honest here.... who doesn't like tacos? The only downside of this is that since this version of the dish as far as I can tell, is mostly marketed to foreigners, the larb tends to be spiced down a lot to the point where it almost doesn't even taste like the real thing. I suppose you could ask for it to be served "spicy" but this is always a dangerous thing to do in any Thai restaurant because I can assure you... your idea about what "spicy" means is likely very different than what the server thinks that word means.
I think that larb is one of those dishes that you can order with reckless abandon if you encounter it in an Isaan shop because everyone makes it and it takes virtually no time at all to prepare it. It also costs damn near nothing, well, of course this depends on if you are in a tourist area or not. Regardless, even if you don't like it, which would surprise me, you are only going to be out a couple of bucks for the experience.