Travelers with severe food allergies can't reliably tell Thai cooks what they can't eat
A traveler asked how to keep her partner with a severe peanut allergy safe and whether a laminated card she wrote would work. Another traveler with a sister allergic to mango, pineapple, kiwi and grapefruit asked the Thai word for mango and whether it's labeled.
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5 ways to tackle it
Hardware and sensors
Cook Card Printer: a hotel desk prints a Thai allergy card with pictures for the cook
At check-in, the guest picks their allergies on a tablet and the printer makes a waterproof card for the cook: the allergen in Thai with a picture, 'no peanut oil, no nam prik with peanuts, serious allergy'. It prints in two sizes, one for the wallet and one for the table.
Build with Next.js, Thai allergen glossary, thermal sticker printer, laminate
Camera and vision
Menu Scanner: point at a Thai menu and see which dishes to ask about
The traveler points the phone at a Thai menu. Claude vision reads the dishes and marks those that commonly contain peanut, mango, shellfish or fish sauce, with a short reason. The traveler starts the conversation with 'is there peanut in the sauce of dish 4?'.
Build with Claude vision, Thai dish allergen table, Next.js PWA
Voice and phone
Ask the Cook: speak English, the phone asks in Thai and shows the answer back
The traveler speaks 'is there peanut in this dish, my partner has a severe allergy'. The phone says it in clear Thai to the cook and shows the cook's Thai reply in English. The cook gets a short question with the right word, not a laminated paragraph.
Build with Whisper, Claude, Thai TTS, PWA
AI agent
Call Ahead: an agent that phones the restaurant and asks the allergy question
The traveler picks a restaurant and their allergies. The agent calls in Thai, asks about peanut oil and shared fryers, and sends back a one-line answer: 'they can cook without peanut, use a clean wok'. The traveler decides before walking in.
Build with Twilio Voice, Whisper Thai, Claude, Google Places
Data and maps
Sauce Atlas: look up where peanut, mango and shellfish hide in Thai dishes
The traveler types or picks a dish and sees the likely hidden items: shrimp paste in nam prik, peanut in satay and som tam, fish sauce nearly everywhere. Each has a Thai word and a photo. It answers 'what is in this' before ordering, in about ten seconds.
Build with Next.js, curated dish and ingredient table, Claude fallback for unknown dishes
What people reported
r/ThailandTourism (122 comments): peanut allergy card for Bangkok, Phi Phi, Phuket
reddit.comr/ThailandTourism: mango allergy, asks for Thai words and whether it's labeled
reddit.com