BANGKOK - Cheapest Food In The City

Video Transcription

I’m here at the Terminal 21 in Bangkok and uh you’re gonna want to come up to check out this food court there’s another food court one level below but this one’s at the top of the bridge. Where I’m from mall food courts are about the last place that you’d want to go to uh to to explore local dining options but here in Thailand the mall food courts can be pretty good and this one in particular is uh special because the prices here are so good, you can get meals here for 40 baht 50 baht, I heard that it’s because when they built this mall they had to make some sort of deal to let all these food vendors up here with extremely reduced rent. Oh look! there’s Haelee, what do you get?

Haelee: I got a steamed vegetable with fried mackerel with Nam Jim.

Chris: Oh yeah so she got it from this place right over here but as you can see there’s just rows and rows of food court options here and a lot of it’s local Thai, a lot of it’s like I said 35 or 40 baht it’s really like street food prices and then you just get your food, you go out here there’s seating everywhere out here tons of seating you can see, it’s uh it’s always quite busy up here especially if you come at lunch. This is the place that I’m gonna go, I’m gonna get uh I don’t know some sort of meat maybe some crispy pork over rice and I think I’ll actually get a little bit of the pork uh dumplings that I love so much the steamed pork dumplings but I’m gonna leave a pin here, this is inside the terminal 21 shopping mall there might be a pin for the terminal 21 shopping mall so check that out as well uh but this is a food court right at the Asok BTS and if you’re looking for a cheap lunch that’s air-conditioned you can check this place out! You’ll notice that I paid for this with a little card, one important note is that you have to get a card here they won’t take cash at a couple of the entrance points and back here in the back corner you can go to these little cashier booths like these like these girls are doing here and get a card that’s a pier 21 card and then you can uh…oh Sawatdee Krap, hello how are you?

A man: I’m your Fanclub, always watch your YouTube channel.

Chris: Oh you’re a fan, oh really oh nice to meet you so we just met some subscribers here if you don’t know what they’re talking about it’s the youtube channel Retired Working For You I’m just gonna say hello to them but come check this place out!

Additional Information

Pier 21 dishes out some of the cheapest street food in Bangkok. The reason for this is because the developers/owners of these massive shopping complexes want to drive as much foot traffic as possible inside of their real estate. So, they give significant rent breaks to the vendors that would normally have to compete for space in an outdoor market. What ends up happening is that residents find a specific vendor or restaurant that they like, and make it a weekly routine to go and enjoy some food from that specific location, inside of whatever mall it exists in. The food courts inside of these malls actually become attractions on their own, resulting in more foot traffic inside of the mall.