1. Pad Thai Jay (Vegetarian Pad Thai)

The first time I ordered Pad Thai Jay, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing. It was past 10pm in Chiang Mai, the only stall still open was flying a small yellow flag — the sign of a jay (เจ) kitchen, strictly vegetarian by Buddhist tradition — and I sat down on a plastic stool and pointed at what the woman beside me was eating.

What arrived was one of the best plates of pad thai I’ve had across all my time in Thailand. Not best vegetarian pad thai — best pad thai, full stop. The tamarind base was deep and slightly sour. The rice noodles had that perfect char from a properly screaming-hot wok. The crushed peanuts had been toasted that evening, not sitting in a jar for a week. I ate in silence and immediately ordered another.

“Not best vegetarian pad thai — best pad thai, full stop.”

The secret with Pad Thai Jay is the fish sauce swap. Instead of the pungent fermented fish sauce used in the standard version, jay cooks use soy sauce or a soy-tamarind blend. It’s subtler — and it lets the lime, the peanuts, and the wok char really come forward. Some versions are actually better for the absence.

Where to find it: Look for stalls flying the yellow flag (ธงเหลือง) — your clearest signal you’re in a jay kitchen. Chiang Mai’s Warorot Market is excellent in the early evening. In Bangkok, the Ari neighborhood has a cluster of long-standing vegetarian restaurants doing exceptional versions. Order with extra crushed peanuts, fresh bean sprouts on the side, and always squeeze the lime yourself.

2. Som Tum Jay (Vegetarian Green Papaya Salad)

Som Tum is Thailand’s most popular street food salad, and the jay version — without dried shrimp or fish sauce — is actually closer to the original Lao preparation the dish comes from. The dried shrimp is a more modern Thai addition. Take it out, and you get something purer.

What you’re left with is raw green papaya, julienned into long thin strips, pounded lightly in a mortar with garlic, fresh bird’s eye chili, lime juice, palm sugar, and tamarind. Green beans go in. Cherry tomatoes go in. Sometimes roasted peanuts. The papaya stays crunchy throughout — this isn’t a softened salad. It snaps and crunches, and the dressing hits all four flavors at exactly the same moment: sour, sweet, spicy, salty.

My first Som Tum Jay was at a night market in Chiang Mai. I asked for “jay” and “phet nit noi” (just a little spicy), completely forgetting that som tum’s baseline already starts at aggressive. I ended up with something that made my eyes water, and I still couldn’t stop eating it. That’s the dish in a sentence.

Where to find it: Night markets throughout Thailand. The vendors are almost always women, usually with a large wooden mortar and a pestle nearly as tall as they are. Say “jay” clearly before they start pounding. Bangkok’s Or Tor Kor Market has a particularly good selection. If you make it to Isan (northeastern Thailand), som tum is a staple at every meal — and Isan style tends to be more sour and more funky, even in the vegetarian version.

3. Banh Mi Chay (Vegetarian Banh Mi)

Ho Chi Minh City moves fast. The streets are loud, the motorbikes are relentless, and everything happens at triple speed. The one thing that always slows me down is a banh mi cart.

Bánh Mì Chay is the vegetarian version of Vietnam’s most iconic street food — the same crispy French baguette, the same controlled chaos of fillings, but built entirely on plants. The hero is usually lemongrass-marinated tofu: pressed firm, sliced thin, pan-fried until the edges caramelize. That goes in with pickled daikon and carrot (đồ chua), fresh cucumber, sliced chili, and a knot of cilantro.

The contrast is what gets you. The shatter of the baguette crust against the softness of the tofu. The richness of the mushroom pâté spread against the sharp acidity of the pickles. I ate one every morning during my week in Ho Chi Minh City — sometimes two, once three, without any regret at all.

The chay version is usually cheaper than the meat version and, in my honest opinion, more texturally interesting. Without the smoke of char siu pork to lean on, every other ingredient has to work harder. And they do.

Where to find it: Chay bakeries are dense around District 3 and Bình Thạnh in Ho Chi Minh City. Look for handwritten “Bánh Mì Chay” signs — these are usually tiny one- or two-person operations making everything fresh that morning. In Hoi An, the Old Town market area has several good options. Eat it immediately, standing up, while it’s still warm.

4. Vegetarian Pho

I want to be honest about vegetarian pho: bad versions exist. If a restaurant makes their broth from powder and just swaps in tofu, you’ll know immediately. The broth has to be built properly, or the whole thing falls apart.

When it’s made properly, vegetarian pho is one of the most quietly moving things you can eat in Southeast Asia.

The broth — nước dùng chay — starts with whole onion and ginger, both held over an open flame until the outside blackens and the inside turns sweet and smoky. From there it simmers for hours with star anise, cinnamon, cloves, coriander seeds, and fennel. The result has the same warming, complex fragrance as the original. Just cleaner. Lighter. More transparent.

I had my first truly good bowl in Hanoi, at a tiny restaurant near Hoan Kiem Lake with no English menu. I pointed at the bowl the person next to me was eating. What arrived was pale, golden broth, rice noodles, slices of tofu, and a plate of fresh herbs — Thai basil, saw-leaf herb, bean sprouts, lime, sliced bird’s eye chili. I added everything, sat there for a long time, and kept lifting the bowl to drink the broth directly because the spoon felt too slow.

Where to find it: Dedicated chay restaurants in Hanoi’s Old Quarter and around Hoan Kiem Lake. Look for “Phở Chay” signs. In Hoi An, the Morning Glory vegetarian chain does a reliable version. In Ho Chi Minh City, the Bình Thạnh district has a concentration of Buddhist vegetarian restaurants open from early morning — which is when pho should be eaten anyway.

5. Gado-Gado

I discovered Gado-Gado the way I discover most great food — by accident. I was wandering through Jakarta’s Pasar Santa market, completely overwhelmed, and a woman at a small warung handed me a plate without asking. What I got was a mountain of steamed vegetables — green beans, cabbage, potatoes, bean sprouts — draped in the most complex peanut sauce I had ever tasted.

Sweet. Spicy. Sour from tamarind. Rich from ground peanuts. The tofu was fried to a golden crisp, the tempeh had a smoky nuttiness, and a halved boiled egg sat on top like a crown. I ate it in about four minutes and immediately asked for another.

Gado-Gado is often described as “Indonesian peanut salad,” which does it absolutely no justice. The sauce is made fresh at each warung — palm sugar, ground peanuts, tamarind, lime, fresh chili, usually a spoonful of shrimp paste — and no two versions taste identical. The one I had in Yogyakarta was earthier and spicier. The one near Ubud in Bali was sweeter, almost dessert-like in its richness. Both were extraordinary in completely different ways.

Where to find it: Any warung throughout Java and Bali — this is true everyday food, not tourist food. The Pasar Santa area in Jakarta and the stalls around Monas have particularly good versions. For fully plant-based, ask for tanpa telur (without egg) and tanpa terasi (without shrimp paste). The sauce will still knock you sideways.

6. Tahu Goreng (Fried Tofu)

Tahu Goreng sounds simple. It is simple. That’s precisely the point.

The tofu is cut into blocks, pressed thoroughly to remove moisture (the step most home cooks skip, and why their tofu ends up steaming instead of frying), then dropped into very hot oil until the outside forms a shell that actually crunches when you bite into it. The inside stays completely soft and silky. That contrast — shattering crust, warm silk underneath — is one of those simple sensory pleasures you keep returning to.

It gets served with sambal in Indonesia: ground fresh chili, shallots, garlic, sometimes a splash of kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) that caramelizes slightly against the heat. In Malaysia, it tends to come with a sweeter soy-peanut sauce. Both are addictive. I once ate tahu goreng at 10am on an empty stomach at a Bali market and felt no shame about it whatsoever.

“Always join the queue at street carts. The queue is the only review that matters.”

Where to find it: Street carts throughout Bali and Java, and around Petaling Street and Chow Kit in Kuala Lumpur. The best version I had was from a cart the size of a bicycle at Seminyak’s night market in Bali — surrounded by a queue of locals.

7. Tempeh

Let me make a proper case for tempeh, because it deserves one.

Tempeh is fermented soybean cake — made by inoculating cooked soybeans with a mold culture and letting them bind into a dense, firm block over two days. It’s been a staple in Java for centuries, still produced in small home workshops across Indonesia by families who’ve been doing it for generations.

The flavor is unlike anything else in Southeast Asian cooking. Earthy. Slightly mushroomy. There’s a faint bitterness that disappears completely when you fry or grill it, replaced by something nutty and satisfying in a way that tofu simply isn’t. It takes a marinade beautifully: soak it in sweet soy sauce, fry it crisp, and it tastes like it’s been cooking for hours.

I ate tempeh at nearly every meal during two weeks in Java — not because I was trying to, but because it was always the best thing on the plate. Orek tempeh — tempeh cooked with kecap manis, galangal, and bay leaves until sticky and caramelized at the edges — became something I actively went looking for each day.

Where to find it: Any warung in Java or Bali. In Yogyakarta especially, tempeh is celebrated as part of the local identity — you’ll find it prepared a dozen ways. A full nasi campur plate in Yogyakarta — steamed rice, tempeh orek, sayur lodeh (coconut vegetable stew), and fresh sambal — is one of the most satisfying meals the entire region has to offer.

8. Nasi Lemak (Vegetarian Version)

Nasi Lemak is Malaysia’s national dish, which means it shows up at every breakfast, every roadside stall, and every family table in the country. The standard version comes wrapped in banana leaf with anchovy sambal, a soft-boiled egg, roasted peanuts, and cucumber — all surrounding a mound of coconut rice so fragrant it can stop you mid-stride.

The vegetarian version strips out the anchovies and makes the sambal from dried chilies, garlic, caramelized shallots, and a careful hand with palm sugar instead of shrimp paste. What you’re left with is a dish built almost entirely around that rice.

And that rice is the whole point.

Nasi lemak rice is cooked in coconut milk with pandan leaves and a knot of lemongrass. It’s rich but not heavy — creamy in a way that coats the inside of your mouth without weighing you down. I’d eat a bowl of it plain and be happy. With a proper sambal and scattered peanuts, it’s one of the most comforting things Southeast Asia has to offer.

Where to find it: Kuala Lumpur’s Brickfields neighborhood (Little India) has a dense concentration of vegetarian and Indian-Malaysian restaurants serving excellent versions. The Bangsar area has higher-end takes. If you’re in Penang, Buddhist temples in Georgetown occasionally serve it at communal meals — and it’s always good, and always free.