Street Food Bangkok, a new app to find the best street food in the city

No travel to Bangkok is complete without trying street food. It is everywhere, it is cheap and it is tasty, but the problem is it can be difficult to distinguish which one is good and which one isn’t. Street Food Bangkok is a new app that tries to sort that out for you.

This app is a listing of street food vendors in the city. Right now it counts with complete information of 121 vendors, but hopefully the list will be increasing over the time. There is a clear focus on the touristic areas like the old city and along the BTS line, but it also counts with some shops farther as in Pak Kret or in Lat Phrao.

How does it work

Screens from the Menu and the Location sections of the app

After you install and open the app on your Android or iPhone (watch out, it is more than 150 Mb) the first thing you will see is the map. As we mentioned before, it’s safe to say you will be enjoying this app more if you are on a touristic area, as there are more entries around there.

The location feature on the map helps you to see what do you have around you. With a tap on any of the markers, you can see the name and the specialty of this shop, but the real magic happens when you tap on the name again, as it expands the information.

Every food vendor has a detailed review including a quality photo of the dish and shop, information about the menu, contact phone and opening hours.

When you are done salivating and you have found the perfect place to get your street food needs satisfied, you can obtain the location on the map and even directions to ask the taxi driver to bring you there.

The good

Detailed information about a shop (left) and directions for taxi (right)

Due to its nature, street food has always been difficult to catalog. The vendors sometimes come and go, have specific opening hours, the shops are listed in Google Maps in Thai or there is just not enough information on the Web – in English – for tourist to decide which one to try.

The best thing about Street Food Bangkok is that there is finally a way to get very detailed information about these street food vendors. You don’t need to navigate different pages or test your luck. With the map view, you can find the shops near you and you will know beforehand where you are going and what you will find there.

Another benefit of this app is that you don’t really need to be an expert in Thai food. The dishes include a photo and a description of every dish. You have no idea of what is Pad Thai? Tap on the info button and you will know, or you can also read our article about it.

The bad

It is understandable that the vendor list is limited, considering the amount of information about each of them. There is already a plan to expand the reach of the app to other cities like Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, but it is not clear how often will the database be updated to add more shops or modify the outdated information.

Another thing Street Food Bangkok can improve is the search function. It works reasonably fine, but it lacks a basic function like a search around you. For this, you have to rely on the map, and tap on the shops manually, which is not so convenient as the search results.

In short

Street Food Bangkok fulfills the need to provide information about this kind of dining to English speakers. The reach is a little limited, but many tourists will be able to make use of it to try authentic Thai Street Food that is reliable and known to be good.

Its future and popularity will depend on the updates, though. With a size of more than 100 Mb, it is obvious that the database is downloaded every time you update the app, instead of download it from the Internet. This is an interesting behavior for those who do not have mobile internet or Wi-Fi, but it can make the updates more painful, slow and less frequent.

Another option to try Thai Food safely is in one of these 3 food courts