24 Hours of BANGKOK Street Food 🇹🇭 ULTRA SPICY Thai BBQ, River Prawns & Michelin Bananas!

Welcome to Chopstick Travel. I'm Luke Martin. These are two of the biggest Thai river prawns I've ever seen. And this is 24 hours of eating in Bangkok. Today for our Bangkok food tour, I'm joined by my guide slash chauffeur for the day, Mink, local Bangkok resident. And we are taking you for some awesome food today in this incredible city, mostly outside of the city center. But first stop we're actually heading into Chinatown for an old school dessert slash breakfast. So our first stop of the day, we're here in Chinatown at this really cool stall. There's this man who's been set up here for around 50, 60 years. I didn't know exactly how long they've been here. He's just got a cart and he's serving only a few typical kind of Thai Chinese desserts that you can also enjoy for breakfast. Locals like to have it for breakfast. We're here early in the morning. And it's called Dao Hui. Is that right? So it's like a Chinese Dao Hua, which is like a soft tofu. So he starts with a little bit of these fried breadsticks on the bottom. And then he adds the soft tofu on top of that with some sugar. And then he pours in the Nam King. Is that right? And that's basically the ginger soup. This guy's just got the ginger soup by itself, the Nam King. But I have the tofu version and it looks like he's enjoying it a lot. So I'm excited to try this out. So you can see that really soft tofu on top there. Some of those fried breadsticks and it's served hot. He's got the ginger broth boiling away in a teapot over charcoal and a really cool setup right on the side of the street, under this big tree here. Let's try it out. Locals only. And me. A little bit sweet, but it's not crazy. I thought it was going to be really sweet and the ginger also isn't super strong. Sometimes that ginger flavor is like overpowering. It's just a subtle ginger, really soft tofu. He's nearly finished. He's only been sitting here for like one minute. And he's off. Good way to start your day. It's not as strong as some of the ginger desserts that I've tried here in Thailand. Sometimes it gets so strong, it kind of burns your nose a little bit. This one's subtle. Yum. It's really good. And the crunch of that fried breadstick really adds a nice texture to it with the soft tofu. Awesome. This kind of remind me back when I was a kid, because my grandma liked to take me to the market and he bought me this and I used to eat a lot when I was a kid. So it brings back like childhood memories. I love a place like this with so much heritage. You can tell the guy has been working here for 50 plus years. He's been basically bent over that cart for 50 plus years, reaching down to get the tofu. I can definitely do a number on your back, but the dedication just to provide a delicious dessert like this and keep the tradition alive. I love it. I respect it. It's amazing. That was awesome. Eating with all the old folks for breakfast. That's my kind of morning. What do you think? Good? Really good. Nostalgic, huh? All right, we're heading on to our next location. It's not in the center of the city. We're leaving downtown Chinatown and we're heading to the outskirts. For our next snack on our Bangkok food tour, we've come to a place called Rama Five Fried Bananas. So they are frying bananas in a serious operation here. They've got six things of oil and fried bananas here in Thailand are one of my favorite snacks in the world. You can just see, they're just frying away nonstop here. This is a Michelin recommended kind of street food stall, you could call it. And we're going to order up some fried bananas and try them out. You can see right here how many bananas they've already gone through. Just today, the banana peels and nothing goes to waste here. So they take this to the farm, feed it to the animals, use it as a fertilizer and they just got a new shipment of bananas in. So they're going to start a fresh batch. So fresh shipment of bananas. That is a lot of bananas. And this is all day long. They go until 5pm starting early in the morning and she's slicing them by hand and then just cut them down the middle. And you can see they're the variety that is a kind of smaller banana, which is a lot more flavorful, a lot sweeter, perfect for the fried bananas here. And besides the fried bananas, they also have potato balls. So it's just like a little bit of a potato that's rolled into a ball with oil and then fried in the oil and then a little bit of sugar and salt in there. It's pretty simple. I'm going to try one of those out too. What's really nice about this place too is how clean it is. They keep everything really clean despite cooking hundreds of kilograms of bananas every day. Their oil is nice and golden. It's not dark at all. And the bananas look nice and fresh. Another important step when making the fried bananas is they put it from the oil into this kind of, I don't know what you want to call it, vortex, spinning washing machine type machine that basically drains all the excess oil. So it keeps it from getting super oily on the inside. So we've got some of both the fried bananas and the fried potato balls. Let's try a potato ball first. Yum. Actually it's got more flavor than I thought because it's just a normal potato. It's not a sweet potato. A little bit of a sweetness in there. It's really fluffy, airy. It's, it's filled up with air once they fry it. So it's actually like a hollow ball. Yum. Not greasy whatsoever. All right. And now time to try the fried bananas. It looks like they might've actually only did this one with sesame seeds instead of peanuts. Usually they'll have peanuts in there. Let's try it out. Famous banana fried here at Rama 5. Oh, that is awesome. I love the little sesame seeds actually. Usually I love it with the peanuts because the crunch with the sesame adds a lot of flavor. Yum. And it's not dried out banana. Nice and juicy on the inside. Super crispy. That's awesome. Really, really good. Try it out. By the way, fried banana in Thai is kway tod, which sounds a lot like apparently fried d**k. Is that true? Yes, but you shouldn't say it out loud. Oh, sorry. Actually this is my first time at this particular spot. I have my favorite fried bananas that Mink and I like to go to. I think the potato balls might even be better here. I wasn't expecting that. It's got like a lot of flavor. It looks like it would just be kind of plain and knowing that it's potato, but it's not. Somehow it's got flavor and the texture is awesome. The owner here is really, really nice. Yeah. Like she wouldn't let us pay. And we bagged to pay, but they said no. We have come to the Thonburi market. I highly recommend travelers to visit a market like this one. It's somewhere in between the sort of mega shopping mall food courts that you have here in Bangkok and a really traditional sort of wet market, which makes it a really comfortable place. And this is actually where you're going to find a lot of the local Thais eating their lunch. It's not like the Yawarat Chinatown, which is on a busy road with car fumes and tons and tons of people. You actually have a relatively cool covered shaded area with sort of some modern fixtures and then some really traditional elements as well. So here at the Thonburi market, it's an absolutely massive market. You can find all different sections. So of course there's a fruit section, fresh vegetables, saw lots of nice durians over there. There's fresh meat market. There is this food court, which like I said, sort of blends traditional with modern. Actually a lot of these restaurants in the Thonburi market are satellite shops of really popular restaurants from around Bangkok. They just come up and set up a little shop to sell their famous product. And then of course there's the seafood market. That's where we're heading to. You can find all kinds of seafood. I got to show you this place. So let's go over there. We're going to have some seafood, but first let me just show you the sheer variety of seafood here. How much is that? Two. Too big. 1,300. That's pretty good. Oh, garlic, cheese, and then just traditional. Yeah. So we've landed on these monsters here. These are two of the biggest Thai river prawns I have ever seen. I highly recommend seafood. You got to try here in Thailand. The best of the best of these can be found in the ancient capital of Siam, Ayutthaya, which is just a few hours drive North of Bangkok. But if you don't have time for that, you can come to the Thonburi market right here in Bangkok and try them out. So we're going to get them cooked up in two different ways. One just kind of traditional plain with a seafood sauce. And then the other one, I think we're going to get it grilled with garlic. Just look at those monsters though. Holy crap. So they've also got so many different types of seafood, but not just the prawns. They've also got these nice sizable lobsters, but we're going for the prawns. That's what you got to try here. They have so many seafoods. Thank you. Looks good. All right, let's cook those up and have our lunch. Sure. The thing that makes the Thai river prawns so special is the amount of the tamale, the kind of head butter. Basically when they cut that thing open, it is vibrant yellow. And I've never seen prawns with just as much as there is packed inside these Thai river prawns. So just on the grill. But what I really think is cool is how he butterfly cuts it. And then he sort of stitches it open with one of the prawns lags and sort of holds it open so it can cook a butterfly cut like that right on the grill. We're going to get one garlic and one traditional. So this Tonburi market is only actually one or two years old. And it really amazes me how nice and clean it is in here. And cool. They've got like AC and fans pumping, even though it's sort of outdoors yet, they still have it set up like a traditional market with all the fresh seafood laying out. And they're, believe me, there's no seafood you can't find at this market. They literally have everything from massive lobster to fish to all kinds of different crustaceans. I saw some horseshoe crabs. Really? They have it all here yet. Doesn't smell at all. Very clean on the ground. They're not pushy here. This is really like a local place. Like I was saying, Thai people like to come and enjoy lunch here. Okay, we've got the goods. Let's go find a seat. This market is so cool. I love it. There's lots of different types of markets in Thailand. You might be familiar with the floating markets. For example, you've got some night markets, but this place is really, in my opinion, probably the best market type in Thailand. It's more of a food court. And I'd even argue it might be Singapore hawker centers, even Taiwanese night markets, just the sheer variety and the fact that you can get fresh seafood and have them cook it up right on the spot that just makes it even better and a really reasonable price. So I got these two monsters here for 1,300 baht, which I think it's very fair and they've done it up really beautiful. So we've got the garlic type. You can see that garlic spread that he's put all over it. Probably some chilies in there as well. I see some green onions on top. And then this is just the au naturel. That's the good stuff right there. Basically now it's been rendered down, but it starts off kind of puffy. Believe me, that is full flavor and I'm going straight in for this guy. Oh wow. It's barely on the shell. Nice. And then get just a little dipping of that. Oh yeah. Let's try. The sauce, just the tamale head butter is the correct term because that's what it is. It just tastes like prawn butter. It might be a better one. Concentrated prawn flavor and creamy butteriness. Jeez, that's really good. I was almost expecting it to not be as good as the ones in Ayutthaya because those are famous, but this is very, very good and very good price. And this is the famous Nam Jim seafood. This is the right one, right? Seafood sauce. Okay. Let's go for a dip in that. Yeah. That'll melt your face off. That's spicy. But a lot of flavor, garlic, a lot of heat. Honestly tastes good just on its own though. You can just eat it with just this, this head butter, this prawn butter. With the prawn butter might even be better than with the sauce. Just natural flavor of that prawn. Look at that beautiful color. Really sweet prawn too. Not firm. So soft, like crazy soft, softer than any lobster I've ever had. Yeah. It's almost more like crab. Okay. Let's try garlic. And wow. They went very generous with the garlic. That is a thick, thick serving of garlic cream on top. Let's try that. I love the texture of that prawn. My God, it's so good. It's like bouncy and tender at the same time. That garlic adds a lot of flavor. There's no salt in it. It's just garlic and prawn flavor, straight garlic, straight prawn flavor. And they really loaded it up with the garlic. It's good, but I like it natural the most. I don't know if it's better than the ones in Ayutthaya, but it's pretty damn good for Bangkok. I'm surprised. Like you can find a place where you can get fresh seafood in Bangkok. Such a modern setting and you're really comfortable in here. Clean. It doesn't smell like a fish market at all. But I feel like there might be a little bit less meat on these buns than the ones we tried in Ayutthaya. Even though they look a little bit bigger, it seems like there's less meat. Pink loves the seafood sauce. That's what you call it, right? Just seafood sauce. Wow. That's got a kick. There's also a lot of sugar in it too, I think. This is another kind of sauce that we Thai people love to eat with any kind of seafood. It looks a little bit spicier, judging from the color. So what do you call this one? We also call it seafood sauce, but I don't know what exactly the name of the sauce is. Look at that. I'd say that's like a spicier version of Thai sweet chili sauce. Like you might get in Canada or America. Also maybe be open to trying not so typical Thai foods. Like you haven't seen us have any Pad Thai or Tom Yum soup in this video. There's so much more to Thai food. And there's fusion foods like Chinese Thai, like we had for breakfast, fresh seafood. You can get really good at all. So I recommend and like the places we're visiting in this video, expand your horizons of Thai food. Try something not Pad Thai served in a pineapple maybe or fried rice in a pineapple. Come here. That was awesome. Seriously good seafood, really fresh, good price. I think we want to have something a little sweet now before we leave the Donburi market. What is this? So we call this Kanom Buang. Basically it's like a Thai style cripsy crab and we have like two kinds of it. One is sweet one. What do you like? I like the salty one, but you should try both and see which one you like best. Salty and coconut inside. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What did you call this again? So there's a savory kind and a sweet kind. This one is savory, right? What did we figure it was in it? So basically there's like two layers. The first layer was coconut. And then the orange one that you can see is the shred coconut mixed with the dry shrimp. That's where the salty taste came from. And a little bit of green onions on top. All right, let's both try the savory one first then. And it's a really crispy crab on the bottom. Thai crab. Let's try it. I've never had this one actually. It's not like super shrimpy flavor though. A little bit, but nothing crazy. It's sweet and salty at the same time. That's why I like it. It's actually really good. Coconutty. And the crab on the bottom, it's got a nice crunch to it. It almost tastes like cheesy. And this is the sweet one. I thought that was coconut on top, but it's not. What is it on top? So on top is like Thai, traditional Thai dessert called Phoi Tong, which is made of like a lot of egg yolk mixed with sugar. And then they make it into like, this is the shape of Phoi. Yeah. That's why it's called Phoi Tong. Golden stringy. Golden strings. Okay. Phoi Tong. And then the bottom is that same coconut, but this time they've added a dried plum. Yeah. So there's a dried plum. There's like a piece of it, a whole piece of it. Okay. Let's try this out. This is the one I've tried before. That's really good. There was probably a 20 minute wait and people are ordering from that place. They're crazy. I know why now. That's really good. I didn't get the dried plum though. A little fruity. I think the salty one is better. Because it's like this one, but also with a little bit of salty umami. I've tried it once before. It was nothing like that. It had like a cream on top of it. It tasted way too sweet. That place is really good. And this Donburi market is awesome. If you're like new to Thailand or new to Southeast Asia, maybe you're a little bit concerned about some of the sanitary conditions at some street food stalls. Uh, this is a great place. Very clean. They have very traditional food though. Really cool atmosphere. I love it. But we're leaving the Donburi market now. There's a lot more to explore here in Bangkok. And there's a cool place we want to try just down the street actually. So just off the side of a highway here in Bangkok is this place selling, what is this called? Luk Chin. Luk Chin. Luk Chin, right? That's how I remember it. It's basically pork meatballs. They have pork and beef and the amount of meatballs they have here is insane. Those guys are skewering them all up. They have a massive bucket full of meatballs and then they're grilled on the charcoal or not charcoal. Actually it looked like gas and dunked into the most intimidating pot of spice I've ever seen in my life. Seriously. I didn't even know it was a sauce because it just looked like a pot full of chilies. It's scary. It's honestly intimidating. And yeah, that's going to be spicy as hell. Let's try. Thailand does not mess around when it comes to spice. The amount of chilies on there. Oh, I'm nervous about tomorrow morning, but we're going to try this out anyway. It is sort of viral here in Bangkok. You see a lot of people posting about it on Instagram and we wanted to get beef and pork, but unfortunately the guy before us bought 200 sticks of beef. So we, they sold out of beef. We could only buy the pork. That's okay. I'm going to try one without a big massive piece of chili on it first. Let's try. It's kind of got the texture of a fish ball. Really bouncy. And yeah. Wow. Immediately. It's sweet though. Like a sweet Thai chili. But it's super spicy. Okay. It's really spicy. Holy crap. And there's not even a full chili on that one. Yum. It's got a lot of flavor, but this is going to wreck me tonight. Look at this full chili. It's like they didn't even puree it into a sauce. They just left all the chilies and Ming has told me that I better not eat the full chili. I don't know if she's looking out for me or maybe she's looking out for herself, if you know what I mean. Nothing like a, like an Italian meatball. It's totally different. I think there must be some flour in it. Probably rice flour or something. Just kind of plump it up and give it that kind of texture. Yeah. That's killer though, man. So this Luk Shin costs 10 baht per stick, which we bought 10. So it's around like $3. Right? Yep. It's my turn to try now. It's got a kick. It's spicy. You burn it. It's definitely tasty. Really, really good meatballs. And the sauce is good. It's probably like a five times spicier than most people really want to enjoy it. But, um, Thai style, that's pretty much the way they like to enjoy it. Right? Is it too spicy? It is spicy. It sort of causes this weird phenomenon where when you stop eating it, it starts to burn your mouth more. So you've got to keep, keep eating it. Maybe it's the sugar in there. It kind of temporarily cools you, but then it hits you again with another round. Yeah. That is hot. Look at that. It doesn't even look like a sauce would be hiding underneath the millions and millions of chilies in there. That is a serious, a serious Thai chili sauce. Oh, my mouth is on fire. I'm sweating, but that was delicious. Well, that's scary. Still scary just to look at. So that was 24 hours of eating in Bangkok. I'm struggling to speak right now because my tongue feels like it's swollen three times the size. That was spicy, but delicious. Those were some foods that are not your typical Thai foods that, uh, you might think of that you can enjoy here in Bangkok. Thank you to Mink for showing me around her city. Check out her Tik Tok page and Instagram channel cooking with Mink. If you want to see some of her home cooked food, Thai food. Thank you for watching. We'll see you guys on the next episode of Chopstick Travel. Bye.