The Quest for Vegan Food

I love the concept of street food as it means that even a walk to the nearest BTS station involves a trip through people preparing fruit, frying things in huge woks, grilling something on a rickety BBQ, producing clouds of smoke and smells that take over that bit of pavement… Spicy soups and salads, sweet treats, nuts… the streets here are filled with food and if you look hard enough and learn a small bit of Thai to accompany hand waving and pointing, the it’s easy to find out which street food is vegan or can be veganised.

There are also malls, upmarket food halls, little independent shops all offering vegan food plus restaurants or cafés that advertise themselves as veggie / vegan making it easy for me to officially declare that Bangkok can indeed be a vegan paradise.

With a bit of gesturing and a couple of basic Thai phrases (“Kin Jeh” meaning “I’m vegetarian” and “nam plaa no” meaning “fish sauce” in Thai with the English “no” added on, and then some more hand waving and pointing we managed to communicate and this is what we have tried so far:

Emporium Market – top floor of the Emporium Mall  – Sukhumvit Soi 24 – Phrong Pong BTS

Great place to stock up on hard to find imported goods, some vegan delights to be found here including some tasty sauces & dressings.

Rayasana Retreat  – Sukhumvit Soi 24 – Phrong Pong BTS

Raw food bliss meaning this amazing place has it’s own post which you can read here.

Imchan  “cheap and easy Thai food” – Sukhumvit Soi 24 – Phrong Pong BTS

Very tasty rice, tofu, mixed veg and morning glory with pepper and garlic for 100 baht

Pad Thai street stall – Sukhumvit Soi 59 – Thong Lor BTS

‘Award Winning’ pad thai with no egg and no fish sauce for just 60 baht

Hanoi Kitchen – Food Court of the Emporium Mall  – Sukhumvit Soi 24 – Phrong Pong BTS

Delicious Pho and Vietnamese spring rolls that make me want to go to Hanoi for 300 baht

Vegana – Sukhumvit Soi 26 – Phrong Pong BTS

Don’t be fooled by the name as we were – this restaurant is not vegan in any way!

British Airway Club World – Flight BA009

Sorry BA, but there were a few things that tipped the scale into the VFQ fail category…especially soggy vegan sausages swimming in oil.