Our Top 6 Favourite Types of Street Food in Thailand

Thailand definitely stole our hearts, especially when it comes to food! Starving to death during your trip is really not an issue as the food options are never-ending, and relatively cheap as well. It all depends on what type of culinary experience you’d be after, but most of the times (if not all) during our trip, we relied on street food in Thailand.

Yes, high-end restaurants are plentiful. They’re much more hygienic than the mentioned street food stalls. Actually, hygiene doesn’t even exist when it comes to street food. Washing of hands, utensils and things that for many European kitchens are considered mandatory, let’s just say are not so common on the streets of Thailand. At first, we were concerned since we were not used to any of this. But then, we made ourselves a rule to eat ONLY from stalls that we see a number of locals buying from. Yep, we chose to put our trust in the hands of the experts in the field.

After spending over three weeks constantly eating all sorts of street food in Thailand, we can say that we never got the stomach bug as we were expecting but on the exact contrary, it really was the TASTIEST FOOD we ever ate – It was simply delicious! Below, we will round up the top 6 favourite types of street food that we were lucky enough to taste during our trip.

Street Food in Thailand | THE MAIN COURSE:

Fresh Fruit Stalls

Despite the vast choice, it’s very difficult to go for healthy options. The only way possible would be to opt for the fresh fruit stalls. Our favourites were the dragon fruit, coconuts and mango – gosh we loved the mango smoothies!

With deep sadness, a fruit which really did not live up to its expectations was the durian, which is considered as the king of fruits. It’s a very famous (and expensive) fruit in Asia as it’s described as the fruit that smells like hell, but tastes like heaven. The smell part is true, it smells like a dead animal or perhaps a piece of rotten meat. But the taste, we really hope heaven tastes better than that!

Kebabs

One of our favourite snacks to eat on the road were the meat kebabs. They are regularly found along the streets of Thailand, especially within the cities. They come in all kinds of meat, whether it’s pork, beef, chicken, crocodile and even scorpions, but unfortunately, neither one of us had the guts to try the latter.

1 Kebab ≈ 20 baht approx. €0.55

Gyozas

These have to be amongst the favourites! Gyozas originated in Japan and they are a kind of dumplings filled with minced stuffing which can be taken either fried, boiled or steamed.

5 Gyozas ≈ 50 baht approx. €1.50.

Pad Thai

As the name suggests, this is an authentic Thai dish based on rice and/or noodles. The most popular flavours are chicken, beef and shrimp. As per the noodles, the most popular choice lies between the glass noodles and the yellow noodles. The glass noodles are a form of transparent and thin noodles while the yellow noodles are more of a kind of thick spaghetti.

Whatever you choose, put on lime juice and peanuts and you’ll instantly fall in love with it. What is also very similar to this is fried rice. We gave Hawaiian fried rice a go which is mixed with pineapple and it was really, mouthwatering!

1 Pad Thai ≈ 60 baht approx. €1.75.

Street Food in Thailand | THE DESSERTS:

Roti

Another popular dessert we loved is ‘roti’. These are mostly found in touristy places such as Bangla Road in Phuket or else Khao San Road in Bangkok. The roti are crunchy Thai pancakes along with flavours of your choice. One of the most popular combinations would be Roti topped with banana, cinnamon and condensed milk.

1 Portion ≈ 50 baht approx. €1.50

Mango Sticky Rice

Okay, probably we left the best for last! A popular snack is called “mango sticky rice” and yep, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a sweet mixture of sticky rice and mango that tastes good all day, eating it as breakfast, lunch, dinner or as a snack, but mostly as a dessert.

Sticky rice can also be used with other fruits particularly durian (which as we said already, we didn’t really like) or jack fruit. It’s sometimes mixed with ice cream which is pretty delicious. The best mixture of sticky rice and ice cream is found in a little stall right by the blue temple in Chiang Rai, and to complement the environment, the rice was coloured blue as well.

1 Portion ≈ 60 baht approx. €1.70

So, WHERE can you find the best street food in Thailand?

That’s a very tough question because practically anywhere around the country, at least where we’ve been, was excellent. However, if we had to choose the top two, we would opt for the following:

RAM BUTTRI Road: Yeah, probably you never heard of that. We didn’t either. Ram Buttri road is located just behind the famous Khaosan Road in Bangkok. Unlike Khaosan road (which is practically 2 minutes away), Ram Buttri offers much cheaper (and a wider selection of) street food, beer and alcoholic drinks.

Bangla Night Market: If visiting south of Phuket, we recommend visiting the street food market in Patong beach. Yes, it can be a bit touristy but the environment there is amazing. Most importantly, the food was delicious and we promise you, it won’t be an easy task to pick a vendor!