With tourists flocking along the popular street of Ao Nang day and night, it’s no surprise to see that the street is being peppered with restaurants serving foreign cuisines. Cuisines such as Italian, Swedish, Mexican, Indian and etc. can usually be found every 100 metres (or less) away from one another.
However, this post isn’t about these swanky restaurants. As the title states, it is about hawker stalls. The ones that can be found every nook and corner of the street selling unpretentious simple affordable local food such as fried rice, noodles and finger foods. The ones that make most people think twice about dining at the roadside especially those who are hygiene freaks.
Although there are only a handful of them, it is not difficult to spot them. They are usually opened for business during the day and/or night. The choices of food maybe a lot but they are more or less the same genre.
Despite their shabby uninviting appearance, there’s nothing to be afraid of as they are quite friendly as long as you get your orders clear and precise. Menus (in English) are usually placed at the front of their stalls for customers’ reference.
With a mere 100 Baht, it is sufficient to get you a decent dish to fill your stomach, a drink to quench your thirst and some snack food to munch while walking. I kid you not.
A simple stir-fry dish such as above will set you back 45 Baht. Chicken cubes being stir-fried with garlic, shallots and other seasonings, and then placed on a bed of white rice, it is as simple as you get. Or maybe you can opt for a plate of fried noodles or rice which cost more or less than same price.
Snack Foods
If those main meals aren’t your thing, maybe you chould try their snack foods. Sausages, fishballs, crabsticks, fried beancurds, meatballs, fried prawns and etc are placed at the front of the stall for selection. I didn’t manage to try those but I reckon they should be alright and affordable too.
Finger Foods
Besides those, pancakes are commonly found everywhere. They might be mistaken for its similar looks compared to Malaysia’s Roti Canai or Singapore’s Roti Prata, but they are more or less identical to one another in terms of taste wise. They are usually served with wide variety of fillings such as banana, honey, strawberry jam, peanut butter and chocolate, or the more weird ones like chocolate with tuna. The list of the fillings can be really long and to choose from the list can be a daunting task but to be on the safe side, always go for the banana with chocolate sauce. You can’t go wrong with that.
Banana Chocolate Pancake
Generous fillings of the sliced banana wrapped in dough and then pan-fried, these pancakes are a joy to eat as dessert or snack food. Sloppy and deliciously sinful, it goes really well with chocolate or honey syrup.
If you intend to go all out to spike up your sugar rush, you may opt for sweetened condensed milk as additional topping too. The ones I had were alright but if you are lucky, you might stumble upon a stall that pan-fries its pancakes till crisp. A simple one costs 30 Baht.
While you are at it, do try their drinks especially the fruit shakes. They are very common in Krabi and they are widely available at hawker stalls and in restaurants. I’ve tried a few but my favourite wasn’t the fruit shakes. It was their Iced Tea that won my vote.
Iced Tea
It is thick, milky, full of (tea) flavour and sweet and it is usually served with lots of ice in it. A medium-size cup will set you back 30 Baht or so. It was that good that I had two cups in single sitting.
Mango Sticky Rice
While these are usually available during the day, it is a different ball game at night as some hawker stalls I saw were selling grilled stuff in addition to stir-fry foods. These ‘heavyweight’ stalls usually come out at night and they are located in front of McDonald’s. So, do try out some of these stuffs if you are an adventurous person or a foodie who loves to explore local food culture.
