You may have heard this before, but Bangkok is a city that does not sleep. In fact, so much of the city comes to life after dark. And the food scene is no exception – if you are looking for where to eat in Bangkok, well some of the best food in town is only available at night.
It’s 7:30pm. The sun has set and the city of angels is just getting started. Being the foodie that I am, I decide to join the Best Eats Midnight Food Tour by Bangkok Food Tours.
If you are unsure where to eat in Bangkok then join a food tour. They will take you around to some of the best spots in town… hassle free and haggle free.
It’s 11 of us in the group, plus Bowie (yes like David Bowie) who is our tour guide for the evening. Six tuks tuks arrive to take us on our way and we all pile in to start the evening. If safety is your concern, fear not! Bangkok Food Tours ensures that every tuk tuk driver is fully licensed and experienced.
Table of Contents
The First Stop
Our first food stop – a famous eatery serving up Khao Mun Gai, the Thai version of Hainanese chicken rice. Bowie also organizes Som Tum (papaya salad), Yam Nuea (beef thai salad) and Khao Niao Mamuang (mango with sticky rice) for us to try.
The restaurant is busy, and the apparently the dinner shift is just getting started. By the time we finished our meal, there was a huge line up filled with locals waiting to find a table– good thing this was our first stop. Bowie explains that the restaurant is touching its 55th year of operation and it is this busy, every single night.
My first impression – the food was delicious. I especially loved the sauce that was paired with the Khao Mun Gai. It was a combination of soya sauce, garlic, ginger and chillies (and lots of it). I also loved the Som Tum, it was a good level of spice, sweetness and sourness – delicious.
So after our first stop, I wonder to myself – how in the world am I going to fit everything? Bowie kept reminding us that we were going to take a walking break to the Flower Market and Wat Pho to make more room in our belly. Ohh boy!
Looking for more things to do in Bangkok? Check out my recommended 20 things to do in Bangkok.
The Second Stop
Next on the food journey we arrive to a famous restaurant serving Guay Tiew Kua Gai, the Thai version of the Char Kuey Teow. We have a choice to make – chicken noodles with cooked egg, or noodles with runny egg. I go with the runny egg, because as Bowie explains, this is the most delicious version, so I oblige.
Before we get to our seats, we sneak around the back to watch the chefs at work. It was fascinating – 3 chefs all lined up making one noodle dish after the other. Apparently they can cook up between 300-500 dishes each evening – whaaatttt!
The chefs cook over extremely high heat – at times the pans even caught fire, but that did not stop the chefs from making each dish perfectly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Trust me, you just have to try this dish to known that it’s well worth it.
To me this was a unique Thai dish. I have been to Thailand many times and this was the first time I tried this dish. This is what I loved about the food tour – it knew best where to eat in Bangkok.
The Food Break
By now we are pretty full and so Bowie takes us to the Flower Market, which is a whole other experience at night. The sidewalks were lined up with flower vendor after flower vendor selling flowers at wholesale. I mean 200 baht (A$7) for a dozen roses? Unheard of back home in Australia.
It was a great experience being at the flower market at night, because it was bustling with people. Someone asked Bowie “who in the world shops for flowers at 10pm?” She goes on to explain that the flower market is most busy at night and the early hours of the day. From event organizers to hotels to florists – they conduct their busy with these flower vendors at night, so that they can get ready to sell to their own customers the next day.
Along the way, Bowie picks up a few more snacks for us to try – mini pineapples, rambutans and dried squid.
Our next food break stop – Wat Pho. All I can see is wow! Seeing the temple lit up at night was incredible, probably even better than seeing it during the day.
And to top it all off, Bowie takes us to a fantastic rooftop bar for a drink, with views of Wat Arun, Wat Pho and the Grand Palace in the distance.
Looking for more things to do in Bangkok? Check out my recommended 20 things to do in Bangkok.
The Final Stop
Our final stop for the evening was a restaurant serving Pad Thai.
Apparently this is the best place in Bangkok to get Pad Thai. They have been running their business since 1966 and all they serve up is, well, Pad Thai from 5pm to 2am everyday except for Mondays.
We had two types to choose from – Pad Thai with dried shrimp or Pad Thai with fresh shrimp with an omelet wrapped around the noodles. I got with the first option as I’m getting pretty full at this stage.
To end the food tasting, Bowie brings over some small desserts. The first one is Kha-Nom-Bueang. This dessert was a crispy pancake made from rice flour, and topped with shredded egg yolk and dried persimmon. It was delicious.
The second dessert is Khanom Sod Sai, which is like a steamed coconut custard filled with coconut meat and palm sugar sugar, and wrapped in banana leaf.
And at the stroke of midnight, the tour was over. Our tuk tuks all lined up in front of the Pad Thai restaurant to take us back to our accommodation. What service!
So… If you are looking for where to eat in Bangkok and looking for something unique to do, I highly recommend the Best Eats Midnight Food Tour.
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No compensation was received for this review, however the Bangkok Food Tours kindly offered a discount. All opinions remains my own. I only recommend products & services that I personally love and use myself.
I'm Soraya, travel & food blogger and sunshine chaser at Hello Raya. You know that travel bug? I have been well and truly nipped, infinite times.This is my online nook to share my lifelong experiences of travel & food in hopes to inspire you to explore our beautiful world. 16 Comments on Where To Eat in Bangkok? Do a Night Food Tour on a Tuk Tuk!
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This looks so fun! The food looked amazing especially the chicken with egg dish. I could have eaten so much of this! I think your photo of the pad thai was the best looking pad thai i’ve ever seen haha. Makes me want to head to Bangkok just to eat now!
It was such a great and fun experience. I think you would have really enjoyed it!
This looks fun! Cool tuk tuk colour
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a super adventurous eater, but this all looks so good!
It was really fun Amanda and they offered a little bit of something for everyone.
This looks like so much fun. You’re definitely giving me the travel bug!
It was a lot of fun! If you are heading to Bangkok, you should check out this food tour.
Bangkok has the best food in the world! I’ve always left it to chance when trying street food and will eat whatever looks good – but a food tour seems like so much fun! And what a great way to try so many dishes!
I love the food in Thailand – so good! But I chose to do a food tour, because I wanted to try dishes that tourists may not necessarily know of. So glad I did, because I discovered all this new dishes to try that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise.
Midnight sticky rice and mango is always a great idea in Bangkok.
This looked amazing! I am so ready to book a holiday to Thailand and do this tour! Thanks for writing this, it’s added to my to do list 🙂
Great Post! This is helpful, every time I have been to Bangkok I have been stuck in hotel dining rooms / business meetings – I do want to venture out and experience the city next time I am there.
I have actually been in a Tuk Tuk though – it was an interesting experience in rush hour traffic!!
Amazing foodie tour of Bangkok! I was here earlier in the year and I wish I had known about this tour. We did the dinner cruise down the river, but I was disappointed with the food.
I just LOVE all your posts! You make me want to go to Thailand so badly (or even more so atleast) and this is definitely something I would want to do! Thai food is my absolute favourite cuisine so I know I would just love this. <3 oxoxo
This looks like such an awesome thing to do! and such a good idea. Wish id have known before i went in May. Trying the food was one of my favourite things to do!
Bangkok is really a potpourri of cultures and experiences. Food is of course a main ingredient here. The food is spectacular. A food tour by tuk-tuk at night to binge on all this food is a great experience indeed.