"Safe" typical dishes to order away from the tourist trail in Thailand when English is not supported?

I've found now that away from tourist areas, English is rare in Thailand both spoken and on menus.

I've also found that some of the dishes we in the west think of as typical for Thailand don't seem to be on offer at the kinds of places that don't expect to have "farang" customers. This means "pad thai" and "tom yum" are not available.

Here in Surat Thani there are food places literally everywhere, I have tried a hawkers' stand (as it would be known in Malaysia or Singapore) and two small cafes, they had menus but in Thai only.

(higher-res version)

So I don't want to eat what I regard as western food when I could be trying local dishes, even when they're not "fancy". I like spicy food so that's not a problem.

But there are certain ingredients I would like to avoid: organs, eyeballs, chicken feet, gizzards, intestines, rectums, dog, pigs trotters, anything alive. I've seen all of these on menus in other countries in Asia.

I'd also like to avoid anything that has a special reputation for being unclean, spoiled, or having a higher tendency to make people sick. Things like undercooked chicken and pork, things that were probably prepared many hours ago and kept warm, etc

I want to be a bit more adventurous than settling for fried rice - what really is the typical food in these kinds of eateries in Thailand?