It was not met as a dig to the OP.
To the contrary it was intended to placate and perhaps put in context any frustrations the OP was having qua home cook.
Appreciating one’s own limitations ensures that one is not frustrated unnecessarily by those same limitations.
Oh Iam very touched by all of the responses, so many good advices! Thanks very much :). I think the easiest step would be for me to go to the store and buy some spices and premade sauces which I can then use in the cooking. Guess also it would make sense for to me buy some lime (which I have not used to date).
Well I like wok dishes most. That said I gues it could be cool to try anohter dish sometime.
Here is btw a picture of last night’s Thai inspired dinner (make something similar basically every evening).
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Best wishes to everyone btw.
Excellent comprehensive answer.
Wok dishes are bound to fall short due to the lack of heat in home kitchens. You won’t get that lovely charred flavor restaurants crank out.
Limes, fish sauce, galangal, bird peppers, MAKRUT lime leaves (pretty please), holy basil, palm sugar… all those are fairly essential ingredients for many dishes.
I find one of the easiest Thai dishes to make at home is laab. Here’s a very easy and delish recipe I use often for turkey laab.
I agree that as a home cook, there needs to be realistic expectations that not all dishes can be recreated exactly as what one experiences at a restaurant. It doesn’t mean you can’t make a tasty version that is pleasing to you, but setting realistic goals is important, especially when the cook realize there isn’t the same access to all the ingredients the restaurant has (especially native ingredients via specialized distributors or at least large ethnic markets to get the real deal).
But there still is value in pursuing making the best version you can make, and to learn and improve your cooking skills to satisfy those cravings. That includes a check for the right equipment like a wok or something that can recreate a wok (a large skillet with plenty of room to move your food around), a range with good temperature control (none of us have commercial kitchen-like heat), and of course the right ingredients. Thai food may not have a lot of spices, but does use a fair amount of ingredients not easy to find at the typical supermarket, like makrut lime leaves, lemon grass, galangal. I find these tastes hard to replicate and may lead to the “off” feeling of the final dish, even when a substitute is offered in a recipe. Limes leaves cannot be replaced by lime juice, galangal cannot be replaced by ginger, and lemon grass cannot be substituted by lemon juice or lemon zest.
For th OP, for sure what you can find at the local market (coconut milk, a Thai brand chili paste, fish sauce, soy sauce, thai chilis) I would seek out. What you can’t find, you can try making a stock up trip to an ethnic market that may carry those items (or buy frozen as a last resort to stock up) if that is an option. I once took a 1.5 hour (each way) subway ride to one of the very few Cambodian and Thai markets we have north of Boston just to stock up on some ingredients that were not available at my local Asian markets. It was a pain, but it was worth it. If need be, delivery is increasingly an option but yes the costs sure add up quickly for those. Otherwise, you will have to settle for the best version you can make with what you have access to. If you want to dive into a particular cuisine, I find it easier to learn to make 1 or 2 favorite dishes well, and then branch out to other dishes you also enjoy.
First, I do think a significant part of the reason your recipes don’t turn out as good as what you get from restaurants is due to the missing spices/ingredients.
It really is a problem, though, as you say for someone only cooking for one. If you got all the spices called for, you’d need to eat Thai all the time to use them up before expiry.
OTOH, note that if you buy spices in seed form and just grind them yourself, they will last a lot longer before getting too stale.
You might try skimming the list on this website below, or any others that are promoting “easy” Thai recipes. Often-times “easy” is Western slang for “doesn’t have 25 ingredients”. But note this website below is an aggregator of recipes from other websites, so each one you click on may go to a different website. I did a partial skim of the recipes and see they’re coming from pretty well-known websites like The Spruce Eats, Damned Delicious, Cooking Classy, and the like.
P.S. Welcome to H.O.
Kenji’s idea for getting more out of a home-wok meal (this photo is my stove, set at about 80% of high because without the wok on top of it, the flame blows itself out if I go higher).
Not everyone has a gas stove, unfortunately.
Depending on where you are, the Thai food you get in Restaurants will vary wildly in taste. SO following a recipe from an Author who is from Australia for example may not ever taste like the Food from a Restaurant near you.
A few years ago I had a pretty nice T&N carbon steel wok, but it only did a so-so job on either my gas or ceramic cook top, so I ditched it.
Now-a-days I just use two pans…
1.) an 8 inch heavy cast iron over high heat
2.) a 12 inch SS or non-stick saute (or sometimes 2-3 qt sauce) pan over medium/medium-low.
Things I want a sear/char on go into #1, aromatics and sauces go into #2, and I usually blanch hard veggies beforehand. Yeah… it is a bit more work, but the ability to transfer stuff between pans that are super hot with good heat retention back and forth to/from a cooler, more responsive pan so I don’t burn garlic, ginger, eggs, etc. gives me much better results.
This was my method from the start for fried favs like orange chicken, sweet and pungent shrimp, and General Tso’s and always worked great, so I just extended it for non-battered proteins as well.
Sarah Palin makes good Tom Rad Nah?
I’m quite sure she wouldn’t know what it is….
Some typos are funnier than others 
Good books to look at are
Pok pok (Andy Ricker)
Simple Thai food (by Leela P (long surname, I think there is a thread here about cookingher book)
And the ultimate: Thai food by David Thompson 
Kaleo…you so kolohe. No make hou hou!
I think she can see Thailand from her Backyard.
What’s your favorite recipe for Tom Ka Gai?
Never made it but this young woman is amazing…
Long surname.
You weren’t kidding
