Asia, Bangkok, Food & Drinks, Popular, Thailand, Travel

Best Bangkok Bites

16 September

Okay, I’ve officially been in Thailand seven months, so surely I must have been to ALL the best food spots, right?!! LOL If only! While I do LOVE food (I mean, who doesn’t?), It’s very easy for me to eat the same things day in and day out, especially if I’m on a mission to save money. However, as I knew my son would be visiting at some point during my stay, I decided to save the majority of my food experimentation for while he was here. And honestly, his arrival couldn’t have come at a better time, because I was beyond ready to abandon my monotonous loop of egg sandwiches, strawberry protein shakes, and veggie spring rolls.

Now, if you believe everything you see on social media, then you’re undoubtedly certain that eating in Bangkok is “cheap”. I hate to break it to you, but that really couldn’t be further from the truth. Is it affordable? Yes. Is there a ton of variety? Yes. Is it excellent value for the money? Absolutely, yes. Truth be told, there are many “cheap” options for good food, but unless you plan on “eating like a local” every meal, every day, your food budget is going to be far more than you plan for.

With that in mind, I’ve pulled together some of our favorite food finds, spanning street stalls to rooftop splurges, so you can get a taste of Bangkok without blowing your budget (or saying fuck it and blowing it anyway. Yolo, right?!). I’ve also included pricing details and a Google Map to make your own foodie adventures a little easier.

Bianca Italian – EmSphere

Babyccino – Ekkamai

Pancake Cafe – Central Mall

Best High End Bites:

Bianca Italian: On a random Tuesday, my son and I decided to get out of the house and wander over to EmSphere. It was one of the few places I knew I wanted to take him, because it is quite honestly the most beautiful and bountiful mall food court I’ve ever stumbled upon (Legacy West Food Hall in the Dallas burbs has NOTHING on this place). Anywho, long story short, we smelled Bianca before we ever saw it, and man… it did NOT disappoint! My son had the gnocchi and an “interesting” signature lemon tea, while I opted for a margarita pizza and specialty iced espresso. Everything was phenomenal. Add an Aqua Panna to the mix, and my bank account was $48.40 lighter. There are at least five other dishes I want to try, including a lava-esque tiramisu, so I will definitely try them again before I leave BKK.

Babyccino: Full transparency, I met my friend here before I picked up Jaelon from the airport. The restaurant is away from the main strip through Sukhumvit/Ekkamai, but it’s super trendy, super cute and worth the detour. If you’ve been here a while (and by “here” I mean sharing this quaint little corner of Beyonce’s internet with me), you know I’m obsessed with iced coffee and anything mango, so of course I ordered an iced mocha and mango panna cotta (a seasonal/specialty item). I’ve never had panna cotta before, and it was a sublime experience. $15.31 well spent.

Pancake Cafe: The one viral food place/item we tried during Jae’s visit. These are fluffy, Japanese soufflé-style pancakes. Located on the third floor of Central Mall, this place was packed, so it took a little while to get our food. I, of course, had their Aloha Mango seasonal special (are you noticing a trend?), while Jae went the more traditional Butter and Maple route. We had different signature teas and each was phenomenal, albeit too small (especially for the price). The pancakes were eggy but decent and shockingly not as sickly-sweet as I imagined they would be. I liked them more than Jae, and if I’m being honest, you’re paying more for the viral aspect than anything. Still, a decent meal for $24.84.

Sit & Wander – Thonglor

Suki Teenoi – Multiple Locations

Fantaun – Multiple Locations

Best Budget Bites:

Sit & Wonder: OMG, this restaurant was a random find and truly a hidden gem. Jae decided he must try Pad Thai (eventhough he doesn’t really like it, so… there’s that) because, well, he’s in Thailand. I did a quick Google search for the best Pad Thai in Bangkok, and as you can imagine, a million choices popped up. I looked for somewhere near us and close to the BTS, narrowed it down to two, and given that Sit & Wonder was literally sitting at a 4.5-star rating with over 1700 Google reviews, we figured we’d give it a try. Long story short, the food was phenomenal and more than worth the money. We had Thai tea, bottled water, a watermelon smoothie, spring rolls with rice, pad thai, and mango sticky rice for just $15.39. This is one I’ll definitely visit again.

Suki Teenoi Buffett: Listen, a buffett girl I am not (I honestly don’t eat enough to justify the price), but during my time in Pattaya, one restaurant always had a line around the block. While I didn’t know what type of restaurant Suki Teenoi was at the time (a Thai-style Hot Pot all-you-can-eat buffet), when I learned it was a chain, I made a mental note to bring Jae when he visited. A note, as you might expect, forgotten until his last day, when fate dropped us off right in front of the Seacon Bangkae branch (on our way to the Space & Time Cube+). It is exactly as it sounds, two broths that steam and boil on a hot plate at your table, unlimited proteins, sides, drinks, and snacks (the mushroom “chips” we AMAZING and I MUST find them in stores before I go). We ate for over an hour and tried a little of almost everything. Even as a vegetarian, I would go back. There’s enough variety of non-meat proteins and sides to more than justify the less than $8.50 per person price tag.

Fantaun: While I didn’t try Fantaun myself, Jae loved it, and when given the opportunity, ordered it multiple times. He describes it as “Chipotle but seaweed”, and more than one og my friends has said they are really “yummy”. Fantaun offers a variety of proteins (Mala chicken, Taiwanese pork, Mongolian beef, roasted salmon, even veggie), and each contains a good amount of food, so at just $3.07-$4.93 per “burrito”, Fantaun is well worth the money.

Veganarie – Multiple Locations

Plantiful – Multiple Locations

The Coffee Club – Multiple Locations

Best Veggie Bites:

Full transparency time again, I am a vegetarian, Jaelon, very clearly is not, LOL, so the restaurants below have been my go-to pretty much since I arrived in Bangkok. One great thing about Bangkok is that there are a plethora of vegan and vegetarian options, more so than any other country I’ve visited thus far. That being said, none of these is what I’d consider cheap, so I don’t frequent them nearly as often as I would like.

Veganarie: Their menu is loaded with options and has everything from apps, breakfast, desserts, burgers, full dinners, smoothies, etc. For whatever reason, I always find myself CRAVING fresh, raw vegetables when I’m there, so my typical go-to is an order of golden spring rolls, fresh spring rolls (daring, I know), and a cold-pressed green juice. All in I spend about $18 on an average visit.

Plantiful: When I tell you, Platiful has the BEST bruchestta toast I’ve ever had IN MY LIFE?!!? Plantiful has an amazing variety as well, but with a heavier focus on breakfast items and drinks. They also have some really cool collabs with brands like Supergoop & Olaplex. For what I order, Plantiful is more expensive than Veganarie, with a typical meal for me at least $22-$25, but it’s honestly worth every single baht.

The Coffee Club: While Coffee Club isn’s strictly vegetarian, they have plenty of vegetarian options. Food cost here is a little skewed for me, as I typically go to Coffee Club for a full workday, essentially staying there for 6-8 hours, munching on breakfast, lunch, and drinks throughout. All in, I spend about $28 for the equivalent of two full meals.

DanNeramit Train Market

Teraoka Gyoza – Emsphere

DanNeramit Train Market

Best Variety Bites:

Bangkok is so replete with food options that it’s nearly impossible to walk more than five feet down any street or alley without running into some kind of food or drink for sale. So, naturally, there are obviously a TON of multipurpose commercial spaces (ie, malls) that have multiple restaurants, vendors, food carts, etc, all in one place. To keep things simple for this blog, I focused on two places Jae and I both liked, including one high-end and one low-end (in terms of budget, NOT quality), that allow you to get all your random, tasty cravings satisfied in one place.

Emsphere Food Court: As soon as I stumbled upon EmSphere one random adventuring day early in my stay, I knew I had to bring Jae to have a food adventure all his own. While we tried not to eat at the same place multiple times, we ended up at EmSphere twice, once around lunch and once around dinner. Here’s the best of what we tasted.

Bianca Italian: I included this above, so I won’t dive back into it here. Great food. Multiple locations across the city. I must go back for the lava cake tiramisu concoction.
Seoul Hotteok: South Korea has a magical way of making mundane American fare and turning it into a world-class culinary experience. Enter: The humble corn dog. A carnival, county fair, and Sonic staple, as well as a single mom’s savior (I always had a big blue box in the freezer when Jae was a kid, which had to be restocked regularly). Seoul Hotteok creates corndog combos you’d never think of, because, WHAT?! A cinnamon + sugar corndog with Ketchup?!!? That somehow works?!? I don’t know what else to say. A culinary experiment definitely worth the calories (and a bite worth breaking your vegetarian diet for).
Drinks: I’ll talk about the best and worst of Thai Tea below, but during our multiple trips to EmSphere, we must have tried drinks from ten different locations. Of these, A Keen House’s custom teas and sodas, and Mini Oriental Speedbar’s iced coffee stood out.
Teraoka Gyoza Emsphere: If you haven’t figured it out by now, my son absolutely loves all varieties of Asian Cuisine. Which could be, in part, because he was born in South Korea and started eating Yakimandu almost before his first taste of baby food, LOL. Regardless of the why, dumplings have always been a go-to for both of us, and Teraoka’s Gyoza lived up to its award-winning status.

DanNeramit Train Market: This is by far the biggest night market I’ve visited in Thailand. Jae and I only made it through one section before getting overwhelmed with choices. I didn’t make note of the vendors, but throughout our expedition, we consumed two watermelon smoothies, one Thai Tea, five kebabs, eleven pieces of sushi, a lemonade drink, a viral chocolate drink, egg tarts (for breakfast the next day), churros, and, of course, mango sticky rice for the road. All in, I spent less than $23.

Side note: It was at this market that I learned the common practice in Thailand is to ADD sugar to fruit smoothies. I was absolutely devastated to learn the fruit is in fact NOT naturally exponentially sweeter in the Land of Smiles 🙁

Pang Cha – Multiple Locations

Mini Oriental Speedbar – EmSphere

A Keen House – Emsphere

Best (and Worst) Thai Teas:

Now, I am a Boba GWORL, but I’ve never had this much Thai tea in my life. My son got hooked on it thanks to his partner’s full-blown Boba obsession, and while here, Jae made sure we had Thai Tea Every. Single. Day. (and some days, more than once, LOL). Safe to say, I’m officially Thai Tea’d out and will be crawling back to my iced coffee cave for a while. That said, I dropped some of our faves (and our least fave) below.

ChaTraMue: The original and true gold standard in Thai Tea. You can find one in almost any mall, slinging tea at a fair price. They are not the cheapest in Bangkok (I think that distinction belongs to Moma’s Bubble Tea Bar), but they are among the most reasonably priced (about $4 for two) and best tasting. A true classic. You can’t go wrong.

Khiri: While they have a few locations, we went to the newly opened location in EmSphere. Khiri focuses on Thai Tea and does it WELL. I’d never heard of Thai Tea and Espresso before (I call it Thaispresso) coming to Bangkok, and I usually don’t do espresso shots by themselves (just mixed into my iced coffees). On a whim, however (and to prepare for another 1 AM work day with East Coast clients), I tried their “Dirty” espresso shot, which is cooled and sweetened with frozen, shaved Thai Tea. This was a great find, and if I make it back to EmSphere, I’ll get it again. Drinks are essentially $4 a piece, so a little on the pricey side comparatively, but definitely dirty in the best way.

Yodcha: This is a VERY small Thai tea shop that sits in front of Ekkamai Gateway mall. They feature custom blends primarily from Chang Mai (at least that’s what I gathered from their marketing) and feature several other drinks, including coffees. They are also the cheapest of what I would consider to be more “high-end” tea, offering two large teas or coffees for just 100 baht ($3.19) when ordering from their special menu.

Pang Cha: This is apparently supposed to be one of the BEST, but to be honest, neither Jae nor I really liked it. Jae said it was too sweet, and I felt like it had a different aftertaste than what I know of Thai Tea. Their Thai tea-themed desserts looked AMAZING, but we only tried the tea, so that’s what I’m reporting on. It was also one of the most expensive Thai teas we tried (over $10 for two medium-sized teas), and honestly, just not worth it.

Lanzhou Noodles – Multiple Locations

Coco Aloha – Chinatown

Habib’s Indian & Middle Eastern Food – Terminal 21

Best of the Rest:

Essan Nation Kitchen: A quaint little restaurant right off Sukhumvit near Asok BTS, this is one of the first restaurants I tried upon arriving in Bangkok, and one of the few I went out of the way for multiple times. Serving classic Thai food and a few fun surprises, there are bites to suit almost any palate. My go-tos are the fried veggie spring rolls and mango sticky rice (shocker). They also serve coconut water straight from the nut(?). Aside from the picture menu, I feel like this is the type of place Anthony Bourdain would frequent after a drunken night at Soi Cowboy. Finally, be prepared for a wait if you’re visiting during peak meal times.

Lanzhou Noodles: While I stumbled upon Lanzhou Noodles in Pattaya, they have several locations in Thailand, so I wanted to include them here. Their menu features a variety of fresh, pulled noodles with various meat-based toppings and accompaniments. They also have a vegetarian main dish (tomato & egg pulled noodles), which is great, as well as a few vegetarian-friendly sides. I visited Lanzhou several times, as a large bowl of noodles and a drink cost less than $6. Worth the money is definitely an understatement.

Coco Aloha: Chinatown is packed with a wide array of food options of every type, size, flavor, and origin. While I planned on spending most of the day immersed in the chaos and noise that comes standard on a regular Tuesday, the overcrowded streets were densely packed with tourists, an absolute dealbreaker for Jae (and honestly, me too). Ironic, given he (we) is a tourist as well, lol. Needless to say, we managed to get some Thai tea and one simple meal before escaping back to the relative quiet of the Metro, the highlight of which was Mango Coconut ice cream from Coco Aloha. The flavor profile was simple enough, but the ingredients, including fresh mango and baby coconut meat, were divine. While I would have preferred more mango and less coconut (and I looooove coconut, so that should tell you something), I’d definitely order it again if I find myself lost in Chinatown.

Habib’s Indian & Middle Eastern Food: It doesn’t matter what country I’m in, there are two things I’m ALWAYS going to find: Bubble Tea and Indian Food. I’ve had several of both during my time in Bangkok, but Habib’s, located in the basement of Terminal 21, is the best of the latter to date. Very flavorful, affordable, plenty of vegetarian-friendly options, and worth every calorie.