Author: Elani

You couldn’t pick a better home base to experience street food in Bangkok than Chinatown. I really enjoyed our little apartment, tucked behind a shopping mall into a surprisingly quiet area with a great view over the city.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that we were also in one of Bangkok’s best street food areas. We really enjoyed the street food tour we did – in fact, it inspired us to seek out street food tours in Hua Hin and Penang! – but we also found lots of great food on our own. Here are some of my favorites.

Did you know that croiffles (croissant waffles) are a thing now? I had never heard of them before, but they seem to be everywhere in SEA! These are from an adorable hidden cafe near our apartment.

The same cafe also had very beautiful drinks, like this matcha pineapple, and a great zodiac mural.

On the day we toured Wat Pho and the Royal Palace, we had lunch at Tonkin Annam. This Michelin recommended restaurant (e.g., not the same thing as Michelin starred, and a lot less expensive) was delicious if a little confusing! I’ve never been served rice paper without a way to get it wet and soften it before, and I’ve spent three months in Vietnam. But the flavors were great!

Going to show that Michelin Bib Gourmet restaurants abound in Bangkok, we also went to Tonchin Ramen. So good, although as you can see, definitely not a light meal.

Ironically, I preferred the version of stewed pork leg that we found on our own to the one on the tour. Admittedly, part of it is that it works better as a whole plate, accompanied by a tea egg, pickled mustard greens, rice, and fresh herbs. This was also ridiculously cheap – I don’t remember for sure, but I think it was under a dollar a plate.

Some of you may have heard my “magic door” game. Basically, you get five magic doors that can go to any restaurant in the world. You can always get a table, but you still have to pay for your meal and you can’t leave the restaurant (e.g., you can’t just use the door to travel for free.) Where do your doors go?

Well, I will have to give serious consideration to allotting one of mine to this alley in Bangkok. A little auntie is running a one-woman shop with a few folding tables and the best omelet-wrapped pad thai you could hope to eat. Perfect spice, perfect balance, perfect richness – just perfect. Just thinking about it now makes me want one a little bit, and I had an enormous plate of nasi kandar – about which more later! – for lunch.

This is Pa Tong Go, Chinese donuts that are often eaten for breakfast. The green sauce is a sweet pandan custard. Geoff and I were a little terrified when we got this plate to share. It looks like a lot of donuts! However, they’re so light and airy that the amount was just right. Delicious! However, the best part was that the shop was the cutest thing ever!

Not pictured: the owner’s angelic dog and the hojicha latte I had with them.

Bangkok has something of a reputation for being overwhelming. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it to be one of my favorite cities. To my surprise, it won me over almost immediately. It has green space, amazing culture, great food – what’s not to like. Over the few days Geoff and I spent there, I developed a theory on why Bangkok has such a reputation for being exhausting and over the top. It’s simple – I think it gets less experienced travelers than other megacities in SEA. It’s hard to imagine the person who thinks Bangkok is more overwhelming than HCMC or Kuala Lumpur, but it’s much likelier to attract the new travelers who aren’t prepared for 90 degrees with 90 percent humidity, let alone the scooters.

The food, though – oh, the food! It won’t all fit into one post, so I’ve divided it into the food we tasted on a food tour, and some things we found on our own. And even then, I’m leaving out an awful lot of wonderful meals.

P.S. I’m normally pretty conservative about taking pictures of other people – it’s not nice to do without asking permission! Our tour guide did a great job of telling us when it was okay to take pictures (really famous vendors who are used to tourists) and when it wasn’t (in an area with a lot of private homes).

This little lady is a magician with chive pancakes! Over decades of experience, she’s honed her technique until each one is perfectly chewy on the inside, crispy on the outside, and absolutely stuffed with chives. Dipped in a dark soy sauce, I couldn’t get enough of these.

A Bangkok street food classic is stewed pork leg served over rice with a hard boiled egg, some fresh herbs, and preserved mustard greens. We actually ate this for breakfast the day before, although we got it from a different stall! Since the food tour would have us taste 15 (!??!!??!) things, this wasn’t served as a whole plate, but rather just the pork by itself. While the shop did a great job, it just wasn’t the same without the balance of the meal as a whole.

Everyone loves satay! This was right down the street from where we were staying. It was absolutely delicious.

Interestingly, the peanut sauce is an addition from Indonesia. Fusion is the best!

This is from Jek Pui, a very famous curry stall. Chinese sausage is an interesting addition from the location in Chinatown, and that vegetable you see isn’t potato – it’s winter melon! Geoff made the interesting point that when you get lychees in American green curries, it might be an attempt to mimic this. It was really pleasant, with the richness of potato and the sweetness of fruit. Their fame is justified.

Soup! This was a sukiyaki, cook to your preference situation. The broth was delicious.

Crickets, silk worms, and bamboo worms! This tour had really clever staging – the insects came out after we had eaten several ‘easy’ crowd-pleasing courses, and we were offered a shot of Thai whiskey with them! I’ve eaten all three of these animals before, so it was fun acting like I was a real cool dude while others on the tour were squeamish. For the record, I don’t really like silk worms. They have an underlying musky taste that I find unpleasant. However, bamboo worms and crickets are great! The best bamboo worms I ever ate were in Chiang Mai, where a little restaurant had a preparation that made them almost like Cheetos, and the best crickets I ever at were in Mexico City around the corner from Frieda Kahlo’s house, neatly perched next to some first-class guacamole and chips.

This soft serve might look boring, but it’s soy sauce flavored with a dark soy topping! It was surprisingly good, like a salted caramel.

Pa tong go, or Chinese donuts. These were served with a delicious pandan sauce. They were good, but Geoff and I found another pa tong go shop we liked even better – more about that in the next post!

I left out an entire stop at a seafood restaurant, and there was mango and sticky rice to end the tour. After that, it was time to roll home! What an absolute blast.

On our first morning, we had dosa for breakfast. These huge Indian flatbreads kind of resemble a crispy crepe made with fermented dough. I love them for their crispy texture and great sourdough-y flavor. My favorites, like the one below, have a potato-vegetable mix tucked inside.

Broadly speaking, food in Kuala Lumpur can be broadly divided into Malay, Chinese, Indian, Western, and fusion (just kidding – it’s all fusion to some extent. That’s what’s so great about it.) The pictures below are from a restaurant famous for its pork ribs. They were fantastic! Crispy, tender, and redolent of five spice. The vegetables we ordered with them were also delicious.

This is truly a city of dumplings. These ‘winged’ gyoza were amazing. Cucumber salad is also becoming one of my favorite side dishes to order from the Chinese restaurants.

There are several Nepalese restaurants near our apartment. Their momos (dumplings) were handmade, and so, so good! We saw a young man making them on our way out of the restaurant. His skill was truly grandmother-level.

We also ordered set meals from the Nepalese restaurant. Proceeding clockwise from the rice, this is pickled radish, yogurt, very plainly cooked okra, a vegetable curry, and a somewhat puzzling sauce/soup.

I’ll end today with a wonderfully comforting plate. There is a food court just by our apartment that mostly serves people working in the nearby Maybank building, although all are welcome. We were scooped up by a darling Malay woman who showed us the ropes, including shooing us to an open table (turns out tables are famously difficult to get at this food court!) This is a plate of rice, steamed mixed vegetables, two dishes of tempeh cooked with vegetables and sauce, and a piece of fried tempeh. After making sure I knew what I was getting into, she let me have some sambal, which is like a savory, chunky hot sauce. Spicy, but it makes the meal!

Of course, this is only a small fraction of what we’ve eaten so far. Other favorites include the “Maggi goreng” I’ve been making and a hojicha latte decorated with a foam bear! I’ll write about those in a future post.