Street Food In Old Siam - A Feast In Bangkok

Bangkok, street food capital, foodie mecca and all round glutton’s paradise. Home to over 11 million hungry people, food is available everywhere in this sprawling metropolis, from sun up to sun down, from street cart to shop house the city is full of culinary adventures to be had. The district of Old Bangkok - Old Siam is studded with legendary restaurants and street food. Follow us as we join “A Chef’s Tour” for an exploration of the lesser known Thai food gems of Old Siam.

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Why Book A Chef’s Tour In Bangkok?

There was no way we could visit our favourite city in the world without having a deep delve through its culinary delights. This time we wanted to go “off the beaten path” past Pad Thai and try dishes that we had never heard of. 

Bangkok is rightly known as the street food capital of the world, and even to us frequent visitors, the Thai capital still has delicious surprises in store. A food tour is the perfect way to pull us out of our comfort zone, find new areas for us to explore and introduce us to some delicious new dishes. 

We have previously taken food tours with A Chef’s Tour in Phuket, Chiang Mai and Delhi and have had a fantastic time on all of them. Each time, A Chef’s Tour has impressed us with their local knowledge and ability to uncover hidden gems we would never have found on our own. 

What Is The Old Siam Bangkok Street Food Tour?

The Old Siam Food Tour starts outside the Palladium World Shopping Mall next to the old Chinese shrine.

Bangkok is known as the “Venice of the East” due to its large canal network that crisscrosses the city!

We met with our street food expert, Annie and our fellow eaters before heading off down a tiny set of stairs to the canalside pier. Catching a local ferry, we sped up the narrow canal. The ferries roar only briefly paused when it dipped its engines in respect as we passed a Princesses palace. 

This was only the start of the tour and we were already miles away from the Bangkok we thought we knew. 

Grilled Sticky Rice and Taro

Pulling up to the Bobae Market pier, we hopped off the ferry and were immediately greeted with our first food stop. 

On the edge of the canal smoke wafted up from a charcoal barbecue. Behind the smokescreen, the friendly stall holder was bent over, turning tightly wrapped green leaf parcels on a grill placed over the smoking embers. It was these green presents that we were here to try.

Annie explained to us that this dish was a popular “on the go” breakfast for Bangkokians as it’s cheap, tasty and extremely portable. 

We were each handed a parcel and it was time to munch. Pulling apart the charred banana leaf, we were greeted with a rectangle mound of white sticky rice, punctuated by nublets of dark purple taro. Biting into the chewy exterior and through the soft rice and taro, our mouths were filled with a nutty flavour. As you chewed more and more, the flavour became slightly bitter, almost that of a bite of rich dark chocolate. Underneath the nut and chocolate, the flavour was melded by the smoky undertones of the charcoal and with the banana skin subtly coming through. The sticky rice was a surprising texture, with the outside crunchy and the inside extremely soft and chewy. It reminded us of the texture of a flapjack. It was extremely moreish, and we could all see why this was a great breakfast dish as it would keep you full for a very long time. 

Our appetites whetted and eager for more, it was time to head off to our next stop. 

We followed Annie as she led us deeper into the dark labyrinth of the Bobae Market. The Bobae market (or Bo Be market) is one of Bangkok’s oldest markets. Specialising in the selling of clothes, the Bobae market is the cheapest place in the city to purchase a new wardrobe of the ever prevalent elephant print pants and shirts! We were not in the market for clothes but for food so we wound our way out, emerging from the darkness to a troop of colourful tuk tuks who were waiting to drive us to our next stop. 

You can’t visit Bangkok without at least one tuk tuk ride!

Hoi Tod - Fried Mussel Omelette

After a short drive later, we pulled up to a small unassuming restaurant.

Pointing to a sign hanging outside the restaurant, Annie explained that we were in for a treat as this restaurant has been recognised by the Shell Shuan Shim guide. 

Look out for these signs all over Thailand and you’ll be in for a foodie treat!

The “green bowl”, or Shell Shuan Shim guide is similar to that of the Michelin Guide system whereby restaurants are awarded with a sign in recognition of their delicious food. These signs can be taken away at any time following inspection, and are very highly regarded amongst the Thai populous. If you’re after a good meal in Thailand, then just look for the hanging “green bowl” signs and you won’t be disappointed. 

Heading into the restaurant, we stopped next to the huge flat top grill. On the flaming hot plate, the chef was frying piles of mussels, crunchy bean sprouts and thin discs of egg batter. These were the basic ingredients for Hoi Tod, fried mussel omelette. 

We each took a seat and quickly plates of the Hoi Tod appeared. Topped with green coriander and served with a sweet chilli dipping sauce, the Hoi Tod was delicious! A combination of sweet and salty, soft and snappy, spicy and smokey. The crunchy discs of omelette, fried almost like a thick crispy pancake batter, created a satisfying crunch when paired with the sweet, plump mussels. It was a delicious plate, with every element perfectly balanced.

Crispy Fried Banana Slices and Deep Fried Banana in Sticky Rice and Coconut

Our next stop was down a small alley just off the main road. We were here to try a popular street food sweet treat, deep fried crispy banana! 

On a small makeshift kitchen, the stall holder cut thin slices of banana before soaking the slices in a bath of batter made from coconut water, before sprinkling them in coconut shavings and sesame seeds. These slices are then deep fried in hot oil until crunchy and voila, you’ve got yourself an extremely moreish sweet treat. 

Our second deep fried delight was this time not a slice, but instead a whole banana! Similar to the thin slices, the whole bananas were soaked in a batter made from a combination of coconut milk and coconut cream but this time an additional layer of sticky rice was added. The use of the coconut milk / cream was to give the batter a richer, more intense flavour before being dunked. This rich flavour was evident as soon as we bit into the banana. Crunching through the crispy, snappy rice shell, the texture of the sweet banana inside was like a half boiled egg yolk in the centre. It was delicious! 

Throughout our travels in Thailand, we’ve become slightly addicted to the deep fried banana slices, but have never seen the whole banana fry. This stop had suddenly opened up a whole new world of sweet street side treats. 

Full up on fried bananas, it was time to try another Thai dish. Heading to the bus stop, Annie reminded us that we were here to eat like the locals do, and so instead of getting a taxi to the next restaurant, we’d be catching the bus! 

Roast Pork Belly and Duck with Soup

A short bouncy bus ride later and we had arrived at our next foodie interlude. 

Our noses let us know we had arrived, with the smell of roasting meats permeating through the air. In the street side window, huge slabs of roasted pork belly and duck hung to rest, with their scorched skin glistening in the sunlight. 

The most unassuming restaurants in Bangkok always sell the best food!

If you know us, or have been following along with our stories on Instagram, then you’ll know we’re a little bit partial to some roast pork. So this stop was a little slice of heaven. Even before we sat down to eat, we knew we were in for a special treat. 

Sitting down at a table, we were immediately brought out plates of sliced roasted pork belly, roast duck, dipping sauces and a bowl each of steaming soup. 

The pork was divine. Alternating layers of melting fat, crunchy skin and juicy meat created the perfect textural mouthful. Annie explained that to roast the pork, the restaurant had scored the pork belly, coated it in vinegar and then sun dried it before finally being expertly roasted. As you looked at it, you could see a cross section, a tectonic map of delicious layers and you could see why all this effort was necessary. 

The duck was similarly expertly handled. The deep rich roasted flavour of the duck, balanced with fermented soy bean and coriander. Its five spice laden sauce complementing the rich meat and removing any trace of gamey flavour. 

The soup was meaty, deep and fatty. It was like the restaurant had collected all the best bits of the roasted meat juices to create a savoury, rich and peppery broth.  We’ve eaten many of these “side soups” but this one was markedly different, with an almost ‘dark’ meaty flavour. It’s the sort of thing you could never get out of a packet, you had to be there amidst the swinging slabs of roasted meats to get this incredible flavour. 

This stop was amazing, and if given a chance we’d have stayed here all day, but Annie reminded us that we were not even at the halfway mark of the food tour. So on we went to our next stop.

Khanom Bueng Yuan - Thai Style Crispy Pancake Salad

Down a dark covered alleyway, our next food stall was spluttering with the sound of frying batter. Three clay pots stood on iron stands, their charcoal heating large woks full of bright yellow batter. 

The owner here was an older lady who we were told had cooked for everyone from the Thai Royal Family, to the local residents. Everyone loved her. She once had to close her stall for a week whilst she was whisked away to the Thai parliament where she cooked for politicians and leaders of the country. She was a Bangkok legend, and it soon became apparent why. 

Standing in front of a true Bangkok food legend!

We’ve eaten some unique foods before, but this was unlike anything else. A crispy pancake batter, similar to that of Banh Xeo (crispy Vietnamese pancakes) is fried on the wok and then served with a cold crunchy salad of red and spring onions, beansprouts, cucumber, slices of ginger, soft tofu, coriander leaves, shredded coconut, kaffir lime leaves and black pepper. To eat the pancake, you need to first mix the salad with the crunchy pancake, and once mixed, top the salad with a sweet, salty and tangy syrup-py sauce that is made up of sweet chilli sauce, pineapple vinegar, palm sugar and salt. 

The flavours were fireworks, it had something for everyone! Salty, sweet and sour, all in one satisfying mouthful. The textures were everything you could ever want from a zingy salad. 

Next came the same salad, but this time, softer and cooked with a duck egg. The salad came out wrapped in the batter, and presented almost like a steaming murtabak. The cooked rich duck egg changed the flavour completely, giving an almost sweeter undertone to the vegetables.

Despite all the strong flavours, both the salads were incredibly fresh and light. The tastes were addictive, and it was one of those dishes that you’ll alway remember as the flavours were so unlike anything we had ever eaten.

Thai Style Tea And Coffee

Our next stop would be a place for us to get our caffeine fix for the day.

Located just outside the Nang Loeng Market, a small, elderly gentleman stood behind a wall of red Carnation milk tins and steaming pots of liquid. It was time to have a cuppa! 

Annie explained that the vendor uses his World War 2 recipe for his coffee and has been serving this market since 1958.

The Thai style tea was the perfect pick me up. Sweet, refreshing and caffeinated. With a bright orange colour from the condensed milk. 

Thai style coffee however… … Let's just say it was like rocket fuel. You'd definitely not be getting any sleep for at least a few hours after even just a sip!  

Khanom Jeen

Our next few food stops would be within the Nang Loeng Market. This old market has been a Bangkok staple for over 120 years, and is one of the first formalised markets held on land as opposed to the floating markets that previously thronged on the rivers and canals. 

Weaving our way through the busy market, we passed stalls bursting with a kaleidoscope of colourful fresh produce. From fruits that looked like they grew on Mars to more familiar vegetables and Thai staples. We eventually halted in our tracks, by a table heaving under the weight of a mosaic of curries. Spread out like a stained glass window, were curries of every shape, colour and size. We knew we were in for a treat.

So many delicious choices of curry! You know you’re in for a treat when you see a spread like this.

Sitting down at a small plastic table in a busy market restaurant, Annie immediately set about handing out small plates of Khanom Jeen. 

Khanom Jeen is a southern Thai staple but available throughout the country, and is made up of fermented white rice noodles, topped with a variety of different curry toppings and eaten with crunchy vegetables. Today, our Khanom Jeen was topped with a coconut yellow curry and beansprouts. Creamy, yet crunchy with a slurp of noodles, it was the perfect appetiser to our curry buffet that was to come next! 

Thai Curries - Massaman, Penang and Green Curry

As soon as we had finished slurping our noodles, it was time for a curry buffet!

Laid out in order of spice levels were small bowls of Massaman, Penang and Green curry.

These curries aren’t challenging for any newcomer, in fact you may already be familiar with them, but we can confidently say that the imitations we’ve eaten in the West are nothing like the real deal! 

The Massaman curry was peanutty, creamy, rich and so studded through with spice it may have been a porcupine of flavour. Its yellow colour comes from lashings of turmeric and the spices and Indian influences are apparent throughout. 

The Penang curry was satay in another form. Smooth, creamy and suffused with peanuts, it was tantalising. If there’s ever a curry you’d ever want to show a fussy eater, then this would be it. There was nothing not to like! 

The Green Curry was heavenly. It was everything you wanted from a Thai curry and more! Unlike the usual soupy green curries you’re subjected to in the hotels / tourist districts of Thailand, this curry was a dry curry that clung to the rice. The curry was so flavourful with all the usual tastes of a green curry, but laced with rich citrus undertones from the kaffir lime leaves. This was the “hottest” curry of our buffet, but the chilli never grew in intensity, instead it remained a warm background that never grew despite how many mouthfuls of curry you ate. 

The curries oscillated from sweet to savoury, sour to creamy and every step in between. There’s no better way to really experience the joys of Thai food than eating a freshly produced curry in amongst the hubbub of a busy market! 

A Thai Flavour Bomb - All the Essentials Of A Thai Curry In One Bite!

Leaving our curry buffet we continued our market eating. 

Our next stop was to be one of the most unassuming stalls the market had to offer, yet it would turn out to be one of the most flavourful. It was time to eat, what Annie called, the “Thai Flavour Bomb”.

A betel leaf was handed out to each of us. This dark green leaf was filled with a small handful of roasted peanuts, raw lime, slathers of ginger, chilli and onion, dried shrimp and roasted coconut. This flavourful leaf was then to be wrapped up and eaten in one go. This one bite, detonated a Thai explosion of flavour. Sour, sweet, hot and savoury, instantly exploded across our mouths. It was like we had eaten all the core ingredients for a Thai curry in one mouthful, there was literally nothing like it.

We can’t explain how different this dish was. There were some people on our tour, who at the start could not tolerate any chilli, yet here with the “flavour bomb” were gleefully scarfing down raw bird's eye chillies. If you want to taste Thailand, there can be no better single mouthful than this market side flavour bomb.

We can’t tell you what it’s called and even if we could, we certainly couldn’t pronounce it, but just get off the beaten path, get into a market (or find all these lesser known treats in A Chef’s Tour) and get your taste buds blown over by the Thai Flavour Bomb! 

The “Thai Flavour Bomb” - assemble for the most flavourful street eat you’ll ever have!

Sago Balls - Mushroom Dumplings

With our taste buds tingling from the “Thai Flavour Bomb”, we continued through the market to our final stop. Sat on a metal table amongst the busy market, we were handed our next dish, Sago Balls. 

Sago Balls are rice flour dumplings filled with a mixture of shiitake mushrooms, coriander root, shallot, garlic, radish, peanut and white pepper. These dumplings are then steamed under a muslin cloth and topped with garlic chips and bird's eye chilli. Each bite is a tantalising combination of meaty, nutty and sweet, cut through with fiery undertones of chilli and peppercorn. It is a tasty one biter, full of earthy flavour and distinctly Thai tastes.

All the ingredients you need to fill a sago ball!

Buffalo Horn Fruit

We had one last almost savoury dish before we started on our dessert courses, it was time for our first taste of Buffalo Horn fruit.

As with a lot of Asia, this was a fruit we’ve never seen before. Think Halloween devil decoration, mixed with black Buffalo horns and you’ll get the picture.

To eat this bizarre fruit, we needed to peel the thick black peel, which exposed the white, chestnutty flavoured fruit below. It was a bizarre fruit and its nutty flavour reminded us of Christmasses in the UK.

A Thai Royal Dessert Platter - Khanom Bueang, Khanom Thuai, Egg Floss Rolls, Pandan Jelly Layer Cake, Khanom Mo Kaeng Thua

Nang Loeng Market is a mecca for desserts. Patronised by everyone from market workers to the Thai Royals. It is legendary for its sweet treats and we were about to find out why. 

Sat down at a table in the centre of the market, before us Annie laid out a plethora of Thai puddings. 

The sweet course started with Khanom Bueang, Thai crispy pancakes. These ubiquitous desserts can be found on almost every street corner of Thailand and are delicious! We loved them in Chiang Mai, but this time our crispy crepe batter was filled with salted shredded duck egg and sweet red bean. The Khanom Bueang were slightly larger than ones we’ve eaten previously, and were as morish as ever.

Next came the Khanom Thuai. This tiny pudding may look like just a plain set custard, but boy would you be wrong. This pudding is the perfect example of sweet and salty. Mark a cross in the white coconut custard layer, dig through with your spoon and you’ll reach the sweet pandan and palm sugar layer below. Eat both these layers together and you’ll get a perfectly balanced dessert. Sweet, salty, coconutty and vanilla-ry pandan, what’s not to like?

We continued our sweet and salty flex with a taste of some Thai Egg Floss rolls. These small bright orange gnocchi like shapes were delicious. Sweet, yet slightly savoury due to the egg floss wrap, we couldn’t help but think they would make the perfect partner to a strong coffee.

Our next dessert was the most bizarre cake we’ve ever seen. It was literally, layers upon layers of luminous green pandan jelly. The cake was made of two different alternating textured layers. The bright green jelly packed a punch in flavour and was extremely sweet with the texture reminding us a bit of a melted gummy bear. In comparison the pale green pandan mousse was more subtle in flavour, but we could still taste the vanilla-ry pandan taste throughout.

The final Thai pudding was quite possibly the most unique dessert we’ve ever tried, and one we’re going to have a hard time convincing you is tasty. It was our chance to try the curious Khanom Mo Kaeng Thua, or Thai Flan with Shallots! Like you, we were not convinced when we heard this, but trust us, the dessert really works. The set custard on the bottom of the flan is super soft, almost jelly like in texture with a delicate coconut and egg custard taste. The topping of this pudding is where things go a little bit different, as unlike most set custard desserts in the West, this pudding is topped with deep fried shallots. In every way this shouldn’t work, but it really does. The sweet and slightly salty shallots pair perfectly with the sweet custard making for one of the most delectable desserts we’ve ever eaten. 

The Final Course, The Thai Fruit Platter - Longkong and Mangosteens

Our afternoon of endurance eating was finally coming to an end and it was time for our final plate of food, the Thai fruit platter. 

First up were the longkong (langsat), tiny beige balls (looking a bit like salad potatoes) that once peeled reveal a bright white fruit with a black stone in the middle. These little longkongs had a sweet and sour taste and reminded us of a sour grape. 

Next came the deep purple mangosteens. Annie let us know that these fruits are often banned in hotels in Thailand due to the bright purple juice that stains everything it comes into contact with. To peel these hard fruits, push your thumb into the middle of the fruit and pull away so that you’re left with two halves, one of which will contain the fruit. These small white nuggets were extremely sweet and reminded us of plums. They were addictive, and it’ll be a fruit we’ll seek out when we’re next in a market (just not while we’re wearing white clothing). 

Feeling extremely full, both in the stomach and with our new found food knowledge, our Bangkok banquet was at an end. Our culinary exploration of Old Siam was done!

How Can I Book This ‘A Chef’s Tour’ Street Food Tour?

If you’re hungry after reading this and eager to try everything we’ve eaten, then why not book your own Old Siam street food tour?

A Chef’s Tour also runs other street food tours throughout Thailand and beyond, including an amazing northern experience in the streets of Chiang Mai as well as a tour showcasing the diverse southern cuisines of Phuket’s Old Town.

If you’re in Bangkok, A Chef’s Tour also runs an evening food tour showcasing the best of Chinatown’s Yaowarat Road.

Still Hungry For More

If this article hasn’t satiated your appetite, then why not read about another amazing food tour we did in Bangkok. This time, we ate our way through the neon-lit back streets of Chinatown eating everything from Michelin recommended prawn and pork dumplings to a soy sauce ice cream. It was a rollercoaster of Thai Chinese cuisine and a food tour not to be missed. 

Thanks for reading,

John & Ellie x

#adventuresofjellie

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