How Thai Food — And Pad Thai — Became So Popular
The third most popular type of Asian food in America
I listened to a podcast where two Asian podcast hosts asked listeners what they thought the three most popular types of Asian food were. I guessed Chinese, Japanese, and Korean based on my own personal anecdotal experiences as an Asian person who frequents all types of Asian food. However, I was wrong about one of the three.
The first two most popular types of Chinese food are Chinese and Japanese.
The third most popular type of Asian food was Thai food. The fact that the cuisine that serves drunken noodles and pad thai is more popular than restaurants that serve chicken tikka masala contradicts my anecdotal experience.
That was a big surprise to me. I would have thought Korean and Indian food were more popular than Thai, even though I do know of a lot of Thai restaurants. A statistic that shocks me even more is that there are ten times as many Thai restaurants in America as there are Mexican restaurants. The number of Thai restaurants in America is especially impressive given the relative share of the Thai population — Thai Americans make up 0.1% of the U.S. population, while Indian Americans make up 1% of the population.
