How to Find Cheap Food in Bangkok
Bangkok is one of those amazing cities where you can spend as much or as little as you want on food. Of all the countries and cities we’ve visited so far, I think it’s the best option if you want to eat incredible food for insanely affordable prices. The trick is knowing how to find cheap food in Bangkok, and that’s what this guide will help you do!
The Basic Strategy for Finding Cheap Food in Bangkok
First and foremost, you’re going to have to accept that eating cheap almost inevitably means eating local. If you want a cheeseburger or some pizza, you’re going to pay accordingly. Let go of the idea of eating Western food, and give Thailand a chance to show you all of the amazing flavors it has to offer.
You’ll also need to let go of expectations for what a restaurant should look like or feel like. A lot of the best cheap food places in Bangkok are ultra-casual, and may look sketchy or even unsanitary if you’re not used to them. If you want a peaceful, organized, Western-style restaurant with cloth napkins and table service, you’ll pay for that too.
We NEVER haggle with street food vendors. You’ll find other people recommending that you do this, but it just leaves us feeling slimy and greedy.
For more on our perspective on this, read all about why we never haggle when we travel. If you genuinely feel like you’re being charged too much (this has never happened to us outside of the touristy parts of Bangkok), just go to another stall!
Now that you have an idea of what to expect, here’s a guide to finding cheap food in Bangkok!
Tip 1: Scout Out the Streets
Thailand always amazes me with its abundance of street food. It feels like you can’t walk more than half a block without encountering a street food vendor, and sometimes they’re packed shoulder-to-shoulder.
Sometimes street food is definitely a bit too sketchy for our taste, but we eat a lot of it and have never gotten particularly sick from it. Use your common sense to decide whether a particular food or stall looks too questionable, but don’t be afraid to go a bit outside of your comfort zone.
If you’re not finding much street food in your neighborhood, ask around. Locals tend to know which nearby street or alley is packed with street vendors. Whenever possible, ask locals in the neighborhood rather than people working in the tourism industry; that hotel concierge is used to directing tourists to “nice” restaurants or even touristy street food rather than the local street food areas.
Price you can expect to pay for a snack or meal on the street: anywhere from $0.30 to $2 USD depending on what you order.
Tip 2: Follow Your Nose (Even When Things Look Sketchy)
As you walk through Bangkok, you’ll be overwhelmed by the number and intensity of unfamiliar smells. Some of them are distinctly unpleasant, but often you’ll smell food that’s tantalizingly appetizing. Follow your nose!
When we’ve done this, we’ve often found ourselves walking into places that might feel sketchy in the US, like narrow alleys or out-of-the-way warehouse-like buildings. But instead of finding trouble, we’ve consistently found amazing food. And on the rare occasion that our noses led us astray, we’ve found people to ask about where to go for food.
Tip 3: Search for Food Courts
Food courts and cafeterias in Bangkok are astonishingly different from those you’ll find in the US. Instead of serving bland, flavorless, stale food at disappointingly high prices, they tend to offer an incredible array of delicious food that’s distinctly affordable.
Try doing a Google Maps search in your area for food court or cafeteria or even market. Many of the results you’ll find for “market” aren’t what you’re looking for here, but these food courts often show up under this search.
Price you can expect to pay for a meal in a food court or cafeteria: anywhere from $1 to $3 USD depending on what you order.
Tip 4: Ask a Local!
If you’ve been paying attention to this guide so far, you know that I advocate asking local people where they eat. When you do this, if language isn’t too much of a barrier, you should specify that you’re looking for a place to eat cheap Thai food. (Otherwise you run the risk of being directed to the nearest fancy Western restaurant.)
Tip 5: Avoid Touristy Areas
In the more touristy parts of Bangkok, street food has become enough of a tourist attraction that the prices are inflated. Exploring local Thai neighborhoods will give you a better chance of finding cheap food, plus show you a different side of Bangkok. In fact, one of our adventures in search of food brought us to a Bangkok neighborhood street market where tourists are still such a novelty that people were “sneaking” pictures of us.
Basically, if you see other obvious tourists in an area, it’s probably not the best option for cheap food. At most of the places we frequent for this kind of food, we’re the only people who visibly stand out as not being Thai.