Guest Writer By Deepak Bunkar, Guest Writer
I’ve eaten a lot of expensive meals in Thailand I’ve already forgotten, and a lot of 50-baht (USD1.50) ones I still think about months later. That’s the thing about eating here. The best food isn’t in the restaurants with the photo menus and the fierce air conditioning. It’s on the carts, the plastic stools, the stalls with a queue of locals and no English anywhere. Here’s how I eat my way through Bangkok and Pattaya, and what to go looking for when you land.
Bangkok: Follow the Smoke and the Queues
Bangkok runs on street food. Whole neighborhoods turn into open-air kitchens after dark, and the trick is simple: eat where it’s busy. A stall with a line of office workers and a cook who hasn’t looked up in an hour is nearly always better than the quiet, tidy place next door. The ingredients turn over fast, the recipe is one they’ve made ten thousand times, and the price is a fraction of a sit-down meal.
Chinatown, around Yaowarat Road, is the obvious place to start and still worth it. Go hungry and graze rather than committing to one spot, because the whole point is to try six small things instead of one big one. Further out, the lanes around Victory Monument and the markets near the BTS stations hide some of my favourite carts, with none of the crowds.
The Dishes to Hunt Down
A few things I’d tell a first-timer to order and keep ordering:
Boat noodles, those tiny intense bowls you’re meant to eat three or four of, served from stalls that stack the empty bowls up in front of you. Pad kaphrao, minced pork or chicken fried hard with holy basil and chilli, with a fried egg on top, which is the meal I eat more than any other. Grilled pork skewers, moo ping, for about ten baht each from the carts that appear at breakfast. And mango sticky rice when it’s in season, from a cart rather than a cafe, where it costs a third as much and tastes twice as good.
If you want someone who actually knows which stall does the best version to walk you around on your first night, a good food tour earns its money. I booked one of the food and market tours on my first trip and spent the rest of the week going back to places I’d never have found alone. After that I was happy wandering on my own.
Pattaya: The Seafood Coast
Pattaya gets written off as a nightlife town, which does its food a disservice. You’re on the coast, so the thing to eat is seafood, and it’s cheaper and fresher than almost anywhere I’ve had it. The grilled prawns, the whole fish done with lime and chili, the plates of garlicky morning-glory on the side. It’s worth getting out for a few of the things to do in Pattaya between meals, but honestly the food alone would justify the night.
My routine here is to take the ferry over to Koh Larn for a morning swim and eat lunch right on the sand, grilled seafood from one of the little shacks at the quieter coves rather than the busy main beach. Back on the mainland, the night market stalls do the same food the restaurants do, for half the price, and you eat it looking at the sea.
A Few Rules That Never Fail
Carry small cash. The best food, the carts and the market stalls, is all cash, and nobody at a busy stall at nine in the morning wants to break a thousand-baht note.
Learn two words. “Phet” means spicy and “nit noi” means a little bit. Say “phet nit noi” unless you genuinely want to cry into an otherwise excellent bowl of soup, which I have done more than once.
Eat early and eat often. The carts come out at different times, some for breakfast, some only after dark, so spread your eating across the day rather than saving yourself for one big dinner. You’ll try more and spend less.
And don’t be put off by a stall that looks rough around the edges. The plastic stools and the single-dish menu are usually a sign you’ve found somewhere that does one thing and does it perfectly.
Worth it? Every single meal
People ask whether Thailand is still worth the trip, and my answer is always the same, and it’s mostly about the food. Where else can you eat this well, this cheaply, this often? Skip the restaurants that are trying to be something, follow the locals and the queues, and you’ll eat better in Bangkok and Pattaya for a few hundred baht a day than you would for ten times that at home. I go back hungry every time, and I’m never disappointed.
About the Author:
Deepak writes for Thailand Activity Tickets, a booking platform for tours and experiences across Thailand. He plans most trips around the next great street-food stall, from Bangkok’s night markets to the seafood shacks on the coast.
