What to Eat for Breakfast in Thailand?
Actually, this is Southern Thailand – so the foods are available here – but you’ll really have to look for them in exactly this form in Northeast or Northern Thailand. Bangkok should have these readily available.
Finding the right food to eat when you’re visiting Thailand can be a tricky thing because depending on where you are in the country, the foods available vary.
Gwit Deow (Diao) – Chicken Noodle or Red Pork Soup
Being in Surat Thani and Ubon Ratchathani for a couple of years I chose to eat Gwit Diao (gwit-dee-aow) in the mornings since I could find a lot of places that had it and it was cheap. Gwit diao is a soup with rice noodles, garlic, pickled radish, chicken or pork, bamboo sprouts, or pak boong (morning glory).
It’s basically chicken soup. I would order extra vegetables – pak pee-set because I like to eat a log of vegetables in the morning.
Coming down south I was able to find the usual gwit diao – but the price went up by 5 to 10 baht. Might not seem like much, but where you’re on as limited a budget as I am then 5 or 10 baht for each person for each breakfast quickly adds up to 600 baht per month ($18) extra per month.
I know most of you are laughing, but this is how frugal I’ve become.
SO – in the south one could find gwit diao for anywhere from 25 to 35 baht per bowl and 40 baht if you get the special seafood version with shrimp and squid.
We have neighbors here that we like and we brought them over some spaghetti one time. My wife, Joy, makes it in a rice cooker. One rice cooker and she makes the best spaghetti sauce! Anyway, we brought some over to the neighbors to try. They in turn, in a couple of days, brought us back a fish curry meal with noodles and vegetables that was AWESOME.
So, recently I found this meal at a roadside stand for just 10 baht! For 10 baht I get a bag full of vegetables and a cup of cooked rice noodles. I always order 2 since they’re so cheap – and now I’m the happiest farang eating my healthy (I hope) vegetable-filled breakfast.
There are usually a handful of bean sprouts, half a handful of green beans, some mango tree leaves (too bitter for me), some cooked jackfruit pieces that smell awesome, and some other type of bean that is salty.
The mix of vegetables changes every day because they sometimes add whatever they have around… fava beans, pak boong, or a couple of other varieties of stringy greens that I have no idea the name for.
The fish curry is so delicious… it is ground fish – and has just a little bit of texture to it. It’s lightly salted and Joy told me they use coconut milk in it. It’s VERY good stuff.
So, this is one good thing you could try for breakfast. Thai people eat just about anything for breakfast – there is no mindset that they need to just one thing or one type of thing for breakfast.
When I take her to work, Joy tells me to stop at one of two places… a boiled rice (kow tom moo) soup stand or a fried chicken and sticky rice stand! Yeah, this is her breakfast! Not all that healthy because few vegetables, so if you write her a comment let her know she really should be more careful with her diet and eat more vegetables and fruits.
She doesn’t know I’m writing this post for her blog today – so she’ll wonder how you knew what she ate for breakfast!
Other Thai Breakfast Meals
- Gwit Diao Moo or Gai – Pork or Chicken. The Moo is really good at most places.
- Rice with Red Pork – Kow Moo Dang.
- Rice with Chicken – Kow Men Gai. You get some sour sauce too.
Ok – that’s my breakfast post – I’ll be writing a lot more here since it’s one of our most popular blogs but Joy doesn’t have time to write here since she’s working almost every day. 🙁
Come to Thailand if you get a chance!
Joy’s Hub
