15 venues. Restaurants recorded at one or two dollar signs, and a straight answer about the ones this page cannot see.
This page lists only restaurants that carry a recorded price band, and twenty-three of the seventy-six restaurants in the directory carry none, so the list is incomplete. That sentence belongs at the top rather than in a footnote, because a page called cheap eats that quietly drops thirty per cent of the corpus is misleading in exactly the way a price filter always is.
What is left is fifteen restaurants at one or two dollar signs, and they are a genuinely good fifteen. Nai Ek Roll Noodle is the only restaurant here at a single dollar sign, a Yaowarat kuay jab shop trading since the 1960s with two Bib Gourmand years behind it. Thipsamai has been cooking pad thai on Maha Chai Road under that name since 1966. Wattana Panich keeps a beef broth that has been simmering since 1974, and Krua Apsorn was founded by a chef who cooked for the Princess Mother for more than twenty-five years.
Michelin recognition turns up repeatedly at this end of the list: Err, Krua Apsorn, Nai Ek, Phed Phed, Somtum Der and Thipsamai all carry a Bib Gourmand, and Potong holds a star. A low price band in this directory is not a proxy for a low ambition.
A restaurant appears here only if its record carries a price band of one or two dollar signs. Nothing was inferred from a dish price, a neighbourhood or a description, because a price band that was guessed is worse than no price band at all.
Twenty-three of the seventy-six restaurants in the directory have no recorded price band and cannot appear on this page whatever they charge. Bars and clubs are excluded. The bands are relative to this directory, which skews to Bangkok's better-known dining rooms, not to the city as a whole.
Ordered by band and then by name. The band shown on each card is the one in that venue's own record.
The only restaurant in the directory recorded at a single dollar sign. A Yaowarat kuay jab shop open since the 1960s and in its current premises since 1989, serving peppery clear pork broth with rolled rice noodles and crispy pork belly. Bib Gourmand in 2018 and 2019, cash only, open to midnight.
Price band: $
Southern Thai home cooking from Nakhon Si Thammarat family recipes, started in 1990 by the grandmother of Chef Ice, who also owns three-star Sorn. Stir-fried crab with curry powder, tom yum with pork ribs, sataw beans with shrimp paste.
Price band: $$
Founded in 1998 and in Siam Square for more than twenty years before moving to the second floor of MBK Center. The name translates as Grandmother's Kitchen, and a traditional Thai instrument performance runs daily from about 7pm.
Price band: $$
A Thai restaurant in a mature tropical garden off Sukhumvit Soi 12 whose profits fund the PDA's rural development, family planning and HIV prevention work. Mains run 200 to 500 baht and vegetarian options are clearly marked.
Price band: $$
Regional Thai street food from Bo and Dylan of Bo.lan, on Soi Tha Tien near Wat Pho, built on grilling, curing and fermenting. Crispy pork belly with chilli dip, moo satay, Thai iced tea cocktails. Bib Gourmand.
Price band: $$
An all-you-can-eat seafood buffet at 693 baht net on the Chao Phraya at Soi Charoen Krung 58, with live tanks of crab and prawns you pick yourself and a sashimi corner sliced to order. Daily 2pm to 11pm.
Price band: $$
Hat Yai-style southern Thai dim sum over two floors in Ari, from 25 baht a basket up to premium boxes with truffle, A5 wagyu and gold leaf. All-day service that turns into a cocktail bar concept at night.
Price band: $$
Founded by Aunt Daeng, personal chef to the Princess Mother for more than twenty-five years. The Dinso Road branch is the most visited of the Old Town locations. Stir-fried crab with yellow curry, crab omelette. Bib Gourmand.
Price band: $$
The original 1994 Mango Tree, in a century-old teak house with garden seating off Surawong Road, now the flagship of a brand spanning more than seventy locations. Traditional Thai classics and nightly music.
Price band: $$
Isaan cooking that started on Phahon Yothin Soi 8 in 2017 and now runs six Bangkok locations, with a papaya salad menu of around thirty variations. The standard spice level is high and average spend is 500 to 700 baht.
Price band: $$
The only Michelin-starred restaurant on this page, in a 200-year-old family shophouse in Yaowarat that was a Chinese herbal pharmacy from 1910. Chef Pam's twenty-course tasting is built on five elements and five senses.
Price band: $$
Isaan cooking on Sala Daeng since 2013, in the Michelin Guide every year since 2018 with a Bib Gourmand, and with a New York branch that took a star in 2016. Crispy som tum, larb moo tod, crying tiger.
Price band: $$
A three-storey riverside room inside the Arun Residence, two minutes from Tha Tien pier, with a direct dining view across the river to Wat Arun. Thai classics alongside European dishes. Steep stairs, so not step-free.
Price band: $$
Pad thai on Maha Chai Road under the Thipsamai name since 1966, with sen chan noodles cooked in shrimp oil over charcoal and wrapped in an egg crepe. Weekend waits run 60 to 90 minutes.
Price band: $$
A beef noodle shop near Ekkamai BTS whose master broth has been simmering continuously since 1974, now run by the third generation. There is no written recipe; the pot takes roughly 150 pounds of beef a day.
Price band: $$
Because only fifteen of the seventy-six restaurants in the directory carry a recorded price band of one or two dollar signs. Twenty-three carry no band at all, so some genuinely inexpensive restaurants are missing from this page. The list is what the data supports, not a survey of cheap eating in Bangkok.
They are a relative band held in each venue's record, not a price. One dollar sign is the cheapest band and four is the most expensive. This page shows the band on every card so you can see which of the fifteen sit at the very bottom, and it names actual prices in the entries wherever the venue's own record gives one.
Not by this directory's evidence. Six of the fifteen hold a Michelin Bib Gourmand and Potong holds a star, all at the two lowest bands. The band records what a meal costs, not how well it is cooked.
Weavify reservations are not switched on for any venue on this page, so these have to be contacted directly. Whether a venue accepts a Weavify reservation is set per venue and is shown on that venue's own page, alongside its phone number, address and opening hours.
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