Sometimes, the best dining room in a city is on the street and perhaps no city proves that more than Bangkok.

The sounds of clattering pans, the honking of tuk-tuks, the heat shimmering off the sidewalk, and the array of exotic and enticing smells is at the soul of the Bangkok food scene. Yes, you can eat a Michelin starred meal at one of the many branches around the world of L’Atelier de Joël Rubuchon or dine at the progressive Indian food temple that is Gaggan. And while those meals may draw in the food gourmands, it does not strike at the essence of the local cuisine, one that is best experienced on the street and in the markets.

Yet, many visitors skip the sidewalk stalls for the comfort of a familiar dining room, an English menu and a staff ready to assist. People might even tell you that foreigners can’t eat street food in Bangkok. “You’ll get sick” they say. I get it. 

I, too, find Bangkok and its street food culture intimidating.

During my first visit to Bangkok in 2011, I was overwhelmed by the heat and the craziness and the noise and not understanding anything about anything. This city, more than any of the other mega cities of Asia, made New York feel quaint in comparison. The closest I got to street food was a harmless pad thai on Khao San Road.

I’ve grown as a traveler since that trip, but the street food scene in Bangkok still confounds me. Maybe it is the fear of getting sick, or perhaps it’s the overwhelming number of options. Or both. Whatever it may be, the Bangkok street food scene is thrilling, yet hard to navigate.

All this to say, the Bangkok street food scene is best explored with a local. Preferably one who can speak some Thai, knows a vendor or two, and can deftly share the best bites the streets have to offer. 

Bangkok Street Food Tour

Since we don’t have any friends currently living in Bangkok (must rectify this immediately!), we sought assistance from the experts. Withlocals is a company that specializes in private tours around the world with local guides who are experts in certain fields. You can learn about a city’s history, culture, food, or whatever else is of interest. With actual locals.

For our Bangkok street food tour, we opted for the Gordan Ramsay’s Favorite 10 Thai Tastings Tour. Our guide was Big, a Thai-American who ditched the Silicon Valley tech scene to spend time with his relatives in Bangkok. That was five years ago, he hasn’t moved back stateside since.

Our three hour tour would include ten tastings, and Withlocals has a prepared itinerary of stops. But what makes a private tour so great compared to the traditional group tours is the flexibility around the itinerary. You can even download the Withlocals app on your phone and message your host directly to ask questions or offer suggestions to the itinerary. 

We met up with Big at the Ari BTS station, where our tour began. Big was incredibly outgoing and engaging, and clearly has a love for the local cuisine. We started with kanom bueang, a sweet snack perfect for a mid-day treat. It is a small, crispy crepe made from rice flour topped with a dollop of coconut marshmallow filling, then garnished with shredded and sweetened cured egg yolk or sweetened coconut shavings.

We watched as the vendor, situated on the edge of a sidewalk with nothing more than a small flattop grill, cooked and filled dozens of the mini crispy shells in a matter of a few minutes. I could have eaten about a thousand of these, but we had to move on, and I knew from experience to avoid the temptation to clear my plate on a food tour.

We moved onto a small family run restaurant and snagged a table in the tiny upstairs dining room. Big brought up fresh passionfruit juices to drink and a few plates to try. The first was a new one for us, a dish called khao yum, that translates as “rice tossed.” The plate held an array of vegetables, herbs, and garnishes, all with different textures and flavors. The rice, dyed purple thanks to the butterfly pea flower that is used as a natural dye, is then topped with a deep, dark seafood sauce and everything is thoroughly mixed. I tasted freshness from fresh vegetables and herbs, a little spiciness, and plenty of contrasting textures. 

Next up was a classic, a green curry. Big talked about curries in general and how the average Thai person does not eat curries that are rich and heavy from coconut milk like we do in the West. Instead, the curry paste is thinned out with a just a touch of water and coconut milk, resulting in a much lighter but incredibly vibrant curry.

Next, Big brought us to a banana fritter stall, where this old woman fries a variety of bananas which have varying levels of sweetness and starchiness. We started with the sweetest, a small variety of banana that was coated in rice, battered in rice flour, and fried. What resulted was something that tasted exactly like a warm piece of banana bread.

Julie almost lost her mind.

Before leaving the neighborhood, Big brought us into a local 7-11, which are prevalent all around the city. He gave us some pointers about what is good to eat from the store, since they are helpful when in a rush. 

But the real purpose of our convenient store stop-off was to drink Red Bull, the original formula that was developed in Thailand. To pass EU and USDA regulations, carbonation was added to the original formula and more internationally appealing packaging was developed. The taste is very familiar of course, but about 5x less expensive. 

No trip to Bangkok is complete without a ride in a tuk-tuk, so we hopped in one with Big and darted through the notoriously awful Bangkok traffic, heading off to our next stop, Or Tor Kor market.

This covered market – which is slightly more upscale than your average Bangkok market – is packed with some of the highest quality seafood, fruit and vegetables in Bangkok. Big walked us up and down the rows of stalls, telling us about certain types of vegetables and fruits. We stopped at a few places and sample fresh fruit, like mangosteen, rambutan, and wax apples. Thankfully, we avoided the popular durian, the stinky fruit that we have yet to develop much of a taste for.

Big steered us towards a satay stall that grilled thinly shaved pork on skewers, and one of the few vendors to utilize real charcoal instead of the more common electric grill. The pork was lightly marinated, grilled until caramelized, and then dipped in coconut milk to stop the cooking and any potential discoloration, a technique I had never seen before.

We took a seat in the large dining area, surrounded by crowds of hungry diners and dozens of stalls selling all sorts of Thai dishes. Big brought over the satay, complete with a peanut sauce and lightly pickled cucumbers and chiles for garnish. On my personal scale of favorite satay, it ranked up there with Kuala Lumpur.

What made this Bangkok street food tour special was that it did not feel like a cookie-cutter experience. I had told Big that we had been to Bangkok before, so he skipped a few things like pad thai and added a few more offbeat offerings. Plus, because street food vendors change throughout the day, when he does this tour at night, they taste a total different lineup of dishes.

And while the tour was about street food, we talked about a whole host of topics about living in Thailand, from taxes to politics. It provided a fascinating insight into the local culture, and one that would be hard to get in three hours on a normal group tour, where you just follow someone around and maybe get to ask a few questions. 

This Bangkok street food tour felt more like walking around town with a knowledgeable local friend. Big was that perfect local, chatting about a whole host of topics from Bangkok life, to taxes to US politics. He made infamous Bangkok street food approachable and tailored it to our tastes.

And most importantly, when it was time to leave Bangkok and we were discussing our favorite parts, eating snacks on the street was at the top of our list, which is exactly how it should be.

Thank you to Withlocals for the complimentary food tour, and to Big for being a stellar guide through the streets of Bangkok. We had a blast!