Tag: Restaurant

Top 5: Local Thai Eats In Bangkok

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Are you itching to try some real Thai food in Bangkok? Screw all the fancy Thai restaurants, when you dine out off the beaten path – local style – then you can truly experience Thai food in Bangkok.

Not only do the local Thai restaurants in Bangkok serve hearty and traditional cuisine, but they ‘re also super cheap if you’re travelling on a budget. At most of the Thai restaurants popular with the locals, you can dine from just 70 baht per person… And remember that these restaurants are popular for a reason.

Thai Style Restaurants

Local restaurants in Thailand have a very different vibe to the more mainstream restaurants which are aimed at tourists, they’re worth visiting if you want to see a real part of Thai culture that you could otherwise completely miss.

A typical experience dining in a local Thai restaurant is casual, where diners share food platters in the middle of the table, are served drinks from shabby metal trolleys, drink from 5 litre beer towers and maybe even get to hear a Thai folk music performance from a local singer. A really popular feature of some local restaurants in Thailand, also seems to be the do-it-yourself barbecues, where patrons cook their own food on the table in front of them.

For the best local Thai restaurants in Bangkok, here’s my personal top 5:

 

1

Banrie Coffee is by far my best Thai restaurant in Bangkok. It’s open 24 hours a day, has live music, cheap beer towers, a cute beer garden, laid-back atmosphere and simple good food. Banrie Coffee is perhaps a little more sophisticated than your average local Thai restaurant, it’s more of an evening hangout for both young Thais and expats in Bangkok. But not only is it a cool hangout, but this Thai restaurant also has an extensive menu of Thai cuisine at an affordable price, complete with a fairy-lit urban garden.

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2

SD Bar BQ is an all-you-can-eat buffet style restaurant in Bangkok, totally Thai style and packed full of cheerful locals. It’s not got the cheapest of prices by local standards, but for the range of dishes on offer and the unlimited food, it’s really not bad value at 129 baht per person. In fact if you’re looking for a place to sample a complete range of Thai cuisine, SD Bar BQ Buffet might be just what you’re looking for.

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The layout of SD barbecue is casual and authentically Thai – tables are set out in long lines of benches with holes in the middle to barbecue your own food. Yep, this is a typical do-it-yourself barbecue-style restaurant (and it get’s pretty damn hot too) – of course there are other pre-cooked options available too if you don’t feel like cooking your own food. (Tip: another good barbecue restaurant in Bangkok worth visiting is the rooftop restaurant Bar-BQ)

3

Yong Lee is a Chinese-Thai style restaurant which has been around for almost 50 years and definitely looks it’s age. With grease splattered walls and tattered old menus, this is about as local as it gets. The restaurant itself is nothing fancy but the food is still pretty good for an off the beaten path visit.

Food at Yong Lee can be a little more adventurous, with Chinese fried bowels and beef tongue soups, however there are also a range of traditional Thai dishes too. Yong Lee is great for a casual lunch off the beaten track in Bangkok.

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4

The Good View is a more extravagant restaurant compared to many other typical, local Thai restaurants in Bangkok. In fact, this is probably the most expensive restaurants out of my top 5 local Thai restaurants in Bangkok.

Located on the riverside, the restaurant has sophisticated wooden decking, a fairy-lit terrace and an indoor bar area with live music performances and a dance floor. It’s still pretty off the beaten path though, and has an extensive Thai, Western and Japanese menu with plenty of typically Thai beer tower’s available. If you’re after a special or romantic night out in Bangkok, Thai-style, then try Good View.

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5

Sabai Jai Gai Yang, like Yong Lee and SD barbecue,  is another humble little eatery in Bangkok. With a battered menu, plastic tablecloths and a modest karaoke-style folk stage, the restaurant maintains a casual yet lively atmosphere. It’s specialty is grilled chicken, however it has an extensive menu of Thai dishes and is great for sampling the local cuisine.

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Picture by leolaksi

Ethos Vegetarian Restaurant Bangkok

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Good vegetarian restaurants are hard to come by in the meat loving city of Bangkok, however Khaosan Road is one of the best areas of Bangkok to get your fix of vegetarian and vegan cuisine.

Ethos Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurant

Tucked down a hidden away Bangkok backstreet just off Khaosan Road, Ethos is a modest little vegetarian eatery with a cozy and inviting interior. You’ll need to take your shoes off at the door – something that makes me personally feel all the more comfortable and at home in Thai restaurants – and then take a seat in the small Bangkok restaurant.

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Half of the tables inside Ethos Vegetarian Restaurant are standard table-and-chair, while the other half of the seating is on the floor, on comfortable cushions with low tables. The layout of low tables, ambient warm lighting, and bohemian decor give a kind of Moroccan edge to the vegetarian restaurant. The laid back atmophere makes for a relaxing break away from the hectic Khaosan Road. It even has it’s own little travel library to keep you entertained.

With it’s English menus and backpacker location, Ethos definitely seems to aim it’s vegetarian food mainly at foreign tourists and expats. However despite it’s primarily foreign clientele, many of the staff don’t speak very good English (or Thai for that matter), so be aware that service might be a little difficult if you have special dietary requirements or are particularly fussy. It’s not really a problem though – you’re already in Thailand after all so you should probably have learnt to deal with the language barrier by now anyway!

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The menu at Ethos

Ethos Vegetarian Restaurant has a rather large menu with a great range of both Thai and international vegan and vegetarian dishes. As well as savoury dishes though, they also have a vast menu of different healthy smoothies, teas and health tonics. You could easily just sit down and enjoy the drinks at Ethos without having to order a main meal.

The smoothies are particularly delicious and cost around 85 baht. In all honesty, they are possibly the best smoothies I’ve had in Bangkok. The blueberry and coconut shake in particular is great – not too sweet at all. As for the food on the Ethos menu – vegetarian Thai dishes cost between 85 and 205 baht and cover pretty much everything from stir fry basil with tofu and vegetables (Pad Ka Praw), Som Tam (spicy soup), stir fries and curries. They also have a side option of brown rice for 25 baht.

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However, the Thai food at Ethos isn’t quite as tasty and tempting as the food on it’s international vegetarian menu. The menu has a decent selection of international, healthy vegetarian dishes such as veggie burger, falafel with home made pitta bread, salad and houmus, chickpea ‘meatball’ spaghetti, pesto pasta with almonds, and eggplant lasagna. The international menu at Ethos typically ranges from around 150 baht to 220 baht.

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How to get to Ethos Bangkok

Ethos Vegetarian Restaurant is located down an alleyway near the bottom of Khaosan Road in Bangkok. You need to walk to the end of Khaosan near Burger King and cross over to the opposite side of the main road on the Khaosan junction. Start walking left up this main road until you see a small alleyway on your right, just a couple metres ahead. Enter the lane and you’ll notice the Ethos sign on the adjacent alleyway.

 

Royal Dragon Restaurant Bangkok

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Set on huge grounds amongst mighty pagodas, glistening lily ponds and rollerskating waiters, The Royal Dragon Restaurant in Bangkok boasts a place in the 2008 Guiness World Records as the biggest restaurant in the world.

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Biggest Restaurant In The World

With coach loads of lively Chinese tourists excitedly snapping away on their cameras in the front entrance, Bangkok’s Royal Dragon seems to be more of an attraction than a restaurant. With hardly any western or Thai visitors, the biggest restaurant in the world is hugely popular with Chinese holiday makers in Bangkok… I guess if the biggest restaurant in the world specialised in bacon sandwiches and English roast dinners I’d be pretty damn enthusiastic about it too.

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Curbing the edges of the central area are rows of smaller karaoke rooms (each with around 25 person capacity) as well as larger rooms for special events. Standing proudly as a back drop to the Chinese landscape, you can’t miss the huge, grand pagoda and smaller floating boat rooms – the layout makes for a pleasant wander round after a big meal.

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I went to the Royal Dragon restaurant during the daytime – at this time, the staff seem to shove people into the little karaoke rooms which have a surprisingly claustrophobic feel for the biggest restaurant in the world. Compared with the outer embellishments and ornate architecture, the karaoke rooms are really nothing special – if visiting during the day, try and request decent seating rather than being stuck in one of the less attractive karaoke rooms.

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Bangkok Royal Dragon Menu

The menu at Royal Dragon has quite an impressive range of traditional Chinese dishes. Standard dishes range from around 200 baht for simple stir fry dishes such as chicken and oyster sauce, up to 1000 baht for more elaborate dishes such as Chinese roast duck.

One big benefit of visiting the Royal Dragon restaurant during the daytime in Bangkok – although you will miss out on the evening entertainment – is that you can sample the All You Can Eat Dim Sum buffet. Everyday between 11am and 2pm for just 220 baht, you can eat all your favourite dim sum dumplings, steamed buns and other Chinese appetizers to your hearts content. The all you can eat dim sum at the Royal Dragon Restaurant is a bargain – for four of us to eat unlimited dim sum plus a few beers, the bill came to just 1385 baht – tax and service charge free.

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The all you can eat dim sum menu at the Bangkok Royal Dragon Restaurant includes steamed barbecue pork, pork dumplings and dipping sauce, shrimp rolled in seaweed, deep fried turnip, spring rolls, wonton soup, steamed buns, chilli birds feet, and a whole load of other unidentifiable meaty treats. To finish off, you’ll be served a dessert of tapioca ice and melon balls, plus some delicious steamed custard buns.

Like many other of the popular food establishments in Bangkok though, service at the Royal Dragon is a little over keen. After continual topping up of our dim sum buffet by the enthusiastic staff, we quickly found ourselves surrounded by a mountain of bamboo baskets 10 minutes into our meal. Claustrophobic much…

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How to get to the Royal Dragon in Bangkok

The Royal Dragon Restaurant is quite a distance away from central Bangkok city but not far from the BTS route at least. You can take the BTS to Udom Suk or Bang Na (it doesn’t matter which) and ask a taxi to take you to BITEC Bang Na (pronounce in Thai: Bye-tec Bang Na). This is about a mile away from either of the BTS stations but takes just a couple of minutes to get to in a taxi – it should cost around 40 baht.

The restaurant is next door to the Bangkok BITEC centre. Alternatively, you could ask the driver if he knows Mang Gorn Luang, the Thai name for Royal Dragon.

Website: www.royal-dragon.com

 

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Flow House Surfing Bangkok

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Set in the heart of Bangkok’s skyscraper cityscape, the Flow House is a great place to either let out some steam surfing on the FlowRider, or to just simply chill out in the bar to some laid back, dub reggae and rock tunes.

The Layout Of Flow House Bangkok

The Bangkok Flow House complex comprises of two separated artificial water ramps surrounded by a bar and restaurant area. As well as serving food and beers, the Flow House also has a plunge pool, shop and photographer service. The shop sells a good selection of boards, surfer style clothes, bikinis and board shorts while the plunge pool is pretty handy for keeping the kids entertained. As for the photographers, they take sneaky photos of you on the FlowRider which you can buy afterwards from 200 baht each.

The Flow House sports bar alone is a pretty good place to hangout to the music while watching all the action from the balcony – If you’re not keen on the idea of surfing, it makes a good enough visit in Bangkok without actually taking part in the flowboarding. The Flow House plays a really decent selection of cool Californian pop rock and reggae tunes in the background for a chilled out surfer vibe.

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Food at the Flow House restaurant is equally pretty good. You can get some real tasty smoothies for 120 baht, healthy Caesar or Greek salad from 140 baht, or an epic beef burger and onion rings for 280 baht.

The Flowboarding Experience

If you love extreme sports like surfing and snowboarding, then chances are you’ll probably love Flow House Bangkok and you’ll also love watching the instructors and regular pros spinning and jumping around on the ramps. Depending on when you visit the Bangkok Flow House, group sizes vary from 1 0r 2 people to a maximum of 8 people. Typical sessions last one hour while you take turns with everyone else in your group.

Flow House instructors are all enthusiastic, friendly, encouraging and pretty much fluent English speakers. They make the flowboarding experience all the more enjoyable when they get visibly excited as they see their students improve through the session too. Beginners start off lying down and kneeling on the board which is quite simple and a lot less painful.

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Once you’ve mastered this, which – if it’s a quiet day – is doable within a few goes, you can go on to a standing position, holding on to a rope for added balance.  Just expect a lot of whiplash, bruises and aches for the next few days; you might want to plan your visit to Flow House wisely if you’re on holiday in Bangkok!

Good To Know

You can book flowboarding in advance on Facebook or just drop in; I recommend booking in advance as sometimes they have special events on (particularly on Fridays). It get’s very busy with lots of kid’s parties on the weekend so sessions aren’t such good value if you go during this time – you essentially end up paying 750 baht for all of about 8 minutes on the ramp after taking it turns with 7 other people throughout the hour.

Conversely, if it’s just a small group like a pair of you, it’s seriously knackering! You need a lot of stamina to survive half an hour straight of taking a beating from the FlowRider. This will only be a problem for other punoid wimps like myself though.

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As for what to wear to the Flow House in Bangkok, the ramp does have shading so you don’t need to worry about sun burn. However it’s still best to cover up with a t-shirt, board shorts or whatever you have in your wardrobe, rather than just wear a bikini or skimpy man trunks; more than anything this is for modesty reasons. 1: you may end up feeling a little underdressed otherwise, this is Thailand afterall, and 2: the waves are seriously rough and you do not wanna be showing everybody what you had for breakfast!

How to get to the Flow House Bangkok

Flow House Bangkok is located in A-Square, a small complex opposite the shopping village K-Village. It’s a little too far to any of the BTS and MRT stations of Bangkok however you can ask a taxi to take you to Sukhumvit Soi 26. A-Square and K-Village are both located on a road just off of Sukhumvit Soi 26 called Soi Ari. Just look out for signs to K-Village or mention K-Village to the taxi driver to know when to stop.

Bonita Cafe & Social Club Vegan Food Bangkok

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With a passion for healthy vegan food, plus a welcoming, cosy atmosphere, Bonita Cafe & Social Club is a highly recommended hidden gem of a restaurant for all to enjoy in Bangkok – whether vegan, vegetarian or proud carnivore.

Hanging out at grandma’s house

The interior of Bonita Cafe & Social Club is decorated in a charming, mismatched style of flowery table cloths, fresh net curtains, embroidered welcome signs, vintage lamps and old china display cabinets. This – combined with old Beatles classics quietly resonating from the wide screen TV, and the odd cat meowing from behind the scenes in the hallway – creates the distinctive feeling of a visit to your gran’s house: cosy, nostalgic and safe.

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The atmosphere at the Bangkok Bonita Cafe is made even more pleasant by the welcoming owners (actually, welcoming is an understatement) who obviously put a hell of a lot of love and effort into the restaurant. And just to add to this already relaxed vibe, the cafe even has a modest library area – an old vintage cabinet with a multi lingual selection of books to keep you entertained.

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Healthy vegan food in Bangkok

According to their Facebook page, the owners of Bonita Cafe & Social Club are actually pretty serious runners – they even sell special Five Finger Shoes too; They obviously put a lot of care into making extra healthy and nutritious food for other sports enthusiasts. If you’re pretty sick of all the overly sweet and sugary food in Bangkok, you’ll most likely find Bonita to be a refreshing change.

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Bonita Cafe & Social Club Menu

The menu at Bonita Cafe only has a couple of pages full of options – strictly vegan only of course – but despite this, it manages to offer a pretty diverse range of dishes. Starters average in price at around 80 baht while main courses range between around 150 baht and 300 baht. Meals can take up to 30 minutes to prepare; the owners obviously put a lot of time and care into food preparation.

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The all day breakfast at Bonita Cafe consists of vegan bacon, vegan scrambled egg, vegan sausage, whole wheat toast, beans, grilled tomato, grilled mushroom, roast potatoes, americano coffee and a glass of orange juice – all for 295 baht. You can also opt for the club sandwich with vegan bacon, vegan scrambled egg and avocado; Teriyaki tofu and onion burger with humous; vegan hot dog; and vegan pizza with either bell pepper, mushroom or basil toppings. These dishes cost from 200 baht upwards and include a serving of garlicky roast potatoes and salad.

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Other vegan delights at the Bangkok Bonita Cafe include tomato or creamy carbonara pasta (with whole wheat pasta option), and a selection of both sweet and savoury whole wheat pancakes made with coconut oil. Bonita also offers a selection of desserts including vegan, sugar-free chocolate mousse for 100 baht. Personally I thought that the chocolate mousse tasted pleasantly subtle and not too sweet at all (a rarity in the syrup-loving Bangkok city).

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As for the drinks menu at Bonita Cafe, there are a great range of teas such as chamomile, earl grey and jasmine (with vegan milk options) for just 50 baht per cup, or healthy, sugar free smoothies from 75 baht a glass. All in all, if you are a vegetarian, vegan or health conscious foodie in Bangkok, you must visit Bonita Cafe & Social Club. Even if you aren’t vegan or vegetarian, don’t let the strictly vegan menu put you off visiting.

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How to get to Bonita Cafe & Social Club

Bonita Cafe & Social Club is located in the Sathorn/ Silom area of Bangkok. Take the BTS skytrain to Surasak station on the Bangkok Silom Line. Take exit __ out of the station, stick to the main road and keep walking until you have passed the large school on your left hand side. The next turning should be Pan Road – walk up Pan road on the left hand side for a couple of minutes and you’ll find Bangkok Bonita Cafe & Social Club about half way up the road opposite the Family Mart.

 

Bonita Cafe & Social Club in Bangkok, Vegetarian Vegan Food in Bangkok, Healthy restaurants in Bangkok