My taste for international food has certainly changed a lot since my initial trip to Bangkok in 2001 when I didn’t really eat any local food. The day after we got engaged in Myanmar in 2013, we arrived in Bangkok and loved sampling many of the Thai delights and were keen to do likewise on this trip. Whilst it didn’t have quite the same impact this time (as it wasn’t so new to us) that’s not to say there weren’t some noteworthy meals.
Following our budget airline flight (Scoot Airways) with no meals we were absolutely starving by the time we met up with Mr J-Soccer Magazine that night. We ended up in the Nana district and got the ball rolling with some cheap and cheerful street food (below) before he took us onto a couple of bars.
The following morning we walked from our hotel (below) towards and beyond Chong Nonsi station and ended up in the Silom area.
My aim was Silom Soi 10 where there is a food court (below) hidden away at the rear end which was brought to my attention by video blogger Mark Wiens of migrationology.com. This market is located beyond a load of clothes stalls and is about as local as you can get with no tourists in sight.
As ever the choice was a little overwhelming but I was particularly keen to get away from the classic international Thai dishes (Phad Thai, green curry etc) and sample some other stuff. Here, I wanted to try the khao soi gai (curry egg noodles) which Wiens ate in one of his regular YouTube videos (Watch it here) and what a great recommendation it was.
Hor mok (fish custard) was another dish (below) which I wanted to experience as it just looked so appetising. The same can’t be said of the other chicken based dish which used pretty much every part of the bird!
We returned to Nana after that (having been there the night before) and then took a slow walk from there all the way to Siam where we met up with my friend and former colleague Will as we did nearly three years ago.
We spent the afternoon and evening chatting nonsense in a couple of food courts where, despite not being hungry, he worked his way through a burger and an ice cream!
To round off the evening he took us to an Irish bar in Nana (opposite Hillary 2) for happy hour. Nothing but British food for Will but I went for my one and only green curry (below) of the trip which was washed down with a few beers.
The morning after the Thailand vs Japan World Cup qualifier we went to Baan Khanita (below) on Sukhumvit 23 which is an eight minute walk from Sukhumvit or Asok stations on the MRT and BTS lines respectively.
My wife had been saying that she didn’t want to just eat street food all the time (as is our style when in Bangkok) so I decided to take her for lunch (below) at this place which won some kind of award for being the best restaurant back in 1999. This restaurant was (in a way) recommended by author Barry Eisler who referenced it in his fourth John Rain novel ‘Redemption Games‘ (2005).
The four photos below are all a bit random and have nowhere particular to be slotted in to this post. Lawson convenience stores are all over Japan but I’m not sure what a Lawson 108 is exactly! Elsewhere is a dish consisting of crap, Ronald McDonald saying kop khun ka (thank you) and my wife with the dishes we ate before the aforementioned football match.
Back in Silom one day we had some dishes (below) at a very local street place which we frequented a couple of times back at the tail end of 2013. Although it was still good it didn’t quite live up to the expectation of my memory!
The green coloured shumai (pork dumpling) thing with eggs in it (above) was actually just bought from a 7 Eleven convenience store. On our final afternoon we returned to Silom once again and had many cheap, small noodle dishes which I didn’t take pictures of as I can’t be doing with photographing every single dish. They were accompanied with a sweet tasting butterfly pea with lemon purple coloured drink. My final restaurant meal (below) was one of my favourites of the whole trip as it contained so many different things. The other two pictures are just random but I wanted to include them somewhere!
Our final non-airport meal in Bangkok was more street food just round the corner from our hotel. The pork cooked below was cut up into pieces and shoved in a plastic bag. Each piece was so succulent and nice. A great but simple way to bow out of the country!
Click here to read ‘Thailand 2016 Pt III: The Leicester City Temple’