Krabi offers almost all kinds of food almost everywhere, but there, as elsewhere in Thailand, the rule of thumb is that local food is the best and food from far away is poor in value for money and often also poor in quality. Pizzas, for example, are rarely good but are always quite expensive, among the most expensive dishes. If you absolutely want pizza or other Italian food, you should look for a restaurant or pizzeria that is Italian owned, as they can be found.

In Thailand, however, it is worth favoring local food, and the closer the food comes from, the better it usually is. The very basic portions, made quickly in a wok and served with rice or noodles, both of which are different, are the best value for money. These include familiar dishes such as Pad Thai (pát thai), which is always a worthy and almost always an excellent meal. One can get from the congested market hall in Krabi town center stall 40 baht, but you have to go there around 5 pm-7pm, as often the ingredients start to run out soon after seven. In that case, offering small portions, next door restaurant is a place where you can get a variety of local dishes, and they also include sweet mango with rice (mango sticky rice).

Pad Thai is not a vegetarian serving as in some places, and usually has shrimp. They, like other seafood in Thailand, are excellent and always reasonably priced, and the portions of rice and noodles seasoned with them are absolutely unbeatable. They are offered on the main street and its side streets in stalls with a slightly different supply. An excellent meal, usually available at 40 to 100 baht, is fried rice and seafood (Fried Rice with Seafood) or fried noodles with seafood (Fried Noodles with Seafood). It is also possible to take only one seafood, and rice is usually white rice, but there are many types of noodles, including those that are not often encountered in Europe.

Thailand is a place with food for everyone and Krabi is a diverse place in terms of its food. About hygienenot to be unnecessarily worried but nightclub stalls with grilled meats and some other products that may be too much for the stomach may come up. However, with common sense, one can quickly discern what is pure and what is not. Chicken, meat and some other products may be poorly preserved, but Seafood is kept on ice and is always safe. The fruits are excellent and healthy for breakfasts and snacks, and are worth buying in pieces at markets and elsewhere. Especially papaya, pineapple, watermelon and mango are excellent. It is not worth eating a lot of vegetables raw, you should skip normal salads, but peeled cucumber pieces and tomato slices that accompany rice meals, for example, are harmless.

On Wikipedia, you can watch Thai food, which after all is not familiar to many Finns in advance.

Vegetarian dishes

A big surprise and disappointment for vegetarians in Thailand is that vegetarian food is rare and that almost all meals contain meat, fish or at least fish sauce. Pad Thai, which is often available in Europe as a vegetable version, always contains some shrimp and perhaps something else that is not pure plant. Normal stalls and restaurants are not suitable for vegetarians, but it is easy not to eat meat (i.e., pork, beef, or chicken) but complete avoidance of seafood or fish cannot be practiced in them.

Krabi has vegetarian and Indian restaurants that always have a wide variety of vegetarian dishes. Many vegetarian restaurants also offer meat and fish dishes, and like Indian restaurants that offer tandoori meat, for example, they are suitable for groups with both vegetarian and carnivores. The most vegetarian restaurants come in Krabi town, but there are also quite a few in Ao Nang.

To locate vegetarian dishes from Krabi, you should explore the restaurants that serve them at Happy Cow.

Price level

Thai food is one of the best in the world in terms of value for money, and in many places it is possible to eat all meals in euros or up to one and a half. 40 baht is the normal price for a meal in many places, and such prices are met somewhat in stalls along the main road in Krabi town and along its side streets such as Soi 10. Also the market hall and open-air markets to be able to eat fairly reasonable prices, and in Krabi Town, it is possible to eat well bahtilla 40-80.

In the actual restaurants, the prices are higher, but in the city of Krabi you can eat a good meal with food drinks for 100-150 baht. Such meals are Thai dishes, and foods from elsewhere are always more expensive. If you want to eat Western dishes such as pizza, steak or a burger, it can cost 200-400 baht. Japanese and Korean restaurants are also expensive, although they are usually of a high standard.

In general, those who dine in stalls and cheap restaurants can survive all day meals in Krabi for 150-250 baht if they wish, even if they eat all their meals. If you want to eat Western dishes and take alcohol and especially wine with them as food, meals cost almost what you do in Finland. Compared to the rest of the price level, Western coffees are also expensive, but excellent local ice creams and coffees are inexpensive in many places, less than half what a cup of “normal” hot coffee costs.

Drink money

There is no custom of leaving a tip in Thailand, but people from English-speaking countries nonetheless give tips, and so in some tourist destinations, tips are expected and can even be actively sought. However, in Krabi, as elsewhere in Thailand, it is customary not to leave a special tip, but it is normal to leave a few baht back in a restaurant.

Meal times

You can eat a crab almost anytime, but there are a few things to keep in mind.

A variety of stalls and popular street eateries, much of which are found on the road through the city of Krabi alone, are best served from morning until dusk. They are no longer open late in the evening, and if you want to eat an inexpensive but excellent meal in such stalls, you should eat there before 7 pm., and have both fast food and actual meals. There are also stalls open quite late in the market hall of the city of Krabi, but even there some of the stalls close as early as 8 pm and many start running out of food even before that.

In Krabi, you can go for breakfast early, from 7 am to 8 am, but most places are only open after 9 am. Lunch can also be eaten even then, as many locals eat the same dishes as lunch and dinner as well as breakfast. Lunch can be eaten from morning to late afternoon, but hot noon is not the best time for street stalls and they are most common only from early evening.

Restaurants are usually open from morning to night. They can be eaten without worries until 11 pm and in Ao Nang you can eat even later. Krabi has no problem getting some kind of meal at any time, but it may not be at hand and to get one, for example in the evening, you may have to walk a bit or use a taxi.

As elsewhere in Thailand, Wednesday is the day when many stalls take a vacation and Wednesday is the day when it is harder to eat cheap with the locals than usual.