Bangkok Food Tours

Whenever I visit a place, I always try to squeeze a sightseeing tour in. Sure, it's totally cliche and touristy, but I often find that the perspective and little snippets of information you get from a tour guide really adds to the experience as opposed to venturing out to places yourself. Plus, I've never met a tour guide who was nothing short of fun.

Since Bangkok is famous for its food, I optimistically looked up to see if there were any food tours being offered. Voila, there were a bunch of companies doing it, and a company called Bangkok Food Tours seemed to have the best reviews on TripAdvisor.

Their website was pretty user friendly and I booked the Historic Bangrak Food Tasting & Culture Tour at THB1,300 per person for the bf and I as a little birthday surprise for him.

On the day of the tour, we were told to meet our guide at 10am at Saphan Taksin BTS Station. After waiting for about 30 mins and joined by another person in our group, our guide greeted us with a warm smile and the morning food adventure began. Our first stop was at a local restaurant selling duck rice for over 60 years and is a favorite among locals in the Bangrak neighborhood. The man who served us was the owner's son.

It's a good thing they kept the portion small as this was just the first of many food places on the list. The duck was tender and that sauce that was drizzled over tasted amazing.

Duck legs wrapped in.. no, not bacon but duck intestines. Didn't have the 'guts' to try that one.

Next, we walked across the street to the next destination. Our guide stopped along the way to pick up a little snack for later.

We also stopped by a stall with a friendly lady selling these coconut flour ball type things, similar looking to Takoyaki. I'd seen other street vendors selling them everywhere, but never bothered to try them before. I'm so glad I did that day.

A pastry ball filled with sweet coconut custard. So delicious. It reminded me of bite sized Appams. These ones had taro slices in the filling as well.

Next, it was time for some spicy Tom Yum.

To my surprise, we weren't served typical Tom Yum like we have back in Malaysia, instead it was a clear broth with peanuts that was sour, sweet and spicy. Turns out that there's actually many varieties to Tom Yum depending where you are in Thailand.

After wolfing down the Tom Yum, our guide pulled out the snack she bought earlier. Little glutinous balls that were sweet and were filled with minced pork. Apparently you're supposed to stick a chili padi in it before placing the whole thing in your mouth. The combination was really tasty, although I could only manage about two of them before feeling like my mouth was on fire.

Much walking was needed after all that food. We strolled around little back alleys and stumbled upon a local temple for a bit of shelter from the heat.

We were then told that we'd be taking a boat to cross the river to a tiny village. On the way, our guide stopped to pick up some pungent catfish curry. This should be fun.

The boat dropped us off at a tiny lane that led to a local village. We then stopped by a little restaurant that supposedly has one of the best Papaya Salads in Bangkok, made by this woman.

I haven't had enough of my fair share of Papaya Salads to judge if this was the tastiest, but it certainly was delicious and super spicy. Under all that hay, which was in fact deep-fried shredded lemongrass, was little bits of tasty fried chicken.

Our guide also took this opportunity to bring out the catfish from earlier. I'm not a big fan of Thai curries sold on the street. They seem to have this unappetising smell about them. However the little bit of curry I dared myself to try did taste better than it smelled.

Dessert was calling next. After the boat ride back to Bangrak, we stopped at a little bakery that was one of the oldest in the neighbourhood. We tried custard buns with pandan filling and Thai tea filling. I preferred the ones with pandan filling. The tea-filled ones tasted a little flat. To wash it down, we had thai iced tea of course. Overly sweet but satisfying, especially after walking around in the heat.

Our final stop for the morning involved sampling Thai roti with curry. We were taken to rather modern-type restaurant filled to the brim with locals. Unlike roti in Malaysia, Thai roti is deep-fried till its golden and crispy. A perfect match when dipped in tasty chicken green curry.

That concludes the food tour. In total, we sampled around 9 dishes in 3 hours. I was done eating for the next two days. I'm glad I signed up for the tour. I thought the experience was incredibly fun! Sure you'd probably be able to get at least double the amount of food for THB1,300 if you roamed the streets and bought food yourself, but you'd certainly miss out on the informative bits of the history and culture revolving around the food. Plus it certainly helps to have someone point out where the best food by local standards can be found.

I wish I had enough time to try the rest of the tours offered, especially the tuk-tuk midnight eats tour. Will have to save that for my next trip. Check out bangkokfoodtours.com if you're heading to Bangkok and would like to go on a tasty tour yourself.