Another dining scene emerges at night in Bangkok, and there’s no better place to taste that other side of the city’s vibrant culinary culture than in Chinatown, a historic neighborhood of temples, old shophouses, gold shops and restaurants serving dishes that have been passed down through generations – yet also adapted to become quintessentially Thai. Bangkok is in many ways a Chinese city. Chinese immigrants began settling here long before Bangkok became Thailand’s capital, bringing with them culinary traditions that would become central to the way the city eats, while also incorporating Thai ingredients, techniques and recipes. On this evening tour, we'll explore both sides of that culinary exchange, eating our way through Chinatown while tracing the history of the communities that helped shape Bangkok's vibrant food culture. We’ll begin with a spread of Chinese-style roasted meats – duck, pork and more – at a contemporary restaurant that draws on the cooking traditions of southern China. From here, we’ll dive into the streets of Chinatown, where some of Bangkok’s oldest food establishments continue to serve dishes brought by generations of Chinese immigrants. We’ll stop for kuay jap, a bowl of flat rice noodles, crispy pork and offal in an intensely peppery broth, before exploring the special-occasion cooking of Bangkok’s Chinese-Thai families at a restaurant that has been operating since 1902. Along the way, we’ll learn about the Teochew, Hainanese and other Chinese communities whose influence is still felt across Thailand’s dining scene. As we make our way through Chinatown’s narrow market lanes, we’ll encounter traditional shophouses, vendors selling preserved foods and businesses catering to the neighborhood’s Chinese religious traditions. We’ll also discover some of the dishes that Chinese cooks developed in Thailand, including rice noodles fried over coals with chicken and egg. Later, we’ll settle in for a traditional Chinese-Thai meal of rice porridge accompanied by stir-fries and other dishes, a style of eating that remains a late-night staple across the country. There will be something sweet, too, including a chance to sample a dessert of chewy tapioca noodles in coconut milk. We’ll end our evening in a part of Chinatown where old shophouses have become bars, exploring how a new generation is putting its own spin on the neighborhood’s Chinese-Thai heritage – and further cementing its role as one of Bangkok’s prime nighttime destinations.
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