Cost per meal from market

[Rotagivan]

Hi

 

Would anyone be so kind as to tell me what, if trying to be as cost effective as possible, the price is per meal if bought from market? Like chicken with rice, pork with rice, vegetarian. 

 

Cheers

[Dante99]

Do you require sit down service or just plastic bags to take home?

[worgeordie]

25-35 THB, depending on market

regards worgeordie

[rawhod]

46 minutes ago, Dante99 said:

Do you require sit down service or just plastic bags to take home?

Same - Same

 

As "w.g" says 25 - 35 baht

[searcher22]

Around 30-40 baht. However, these are usually small portions. Make yourself a sandwich when you get home.

[elektrified]

27 minutes ago, searcher22 said:

Around 30-40 baht. However, these are usually small portions. Make yourself a sandwich when you get home.

Even my kid could not live on a 30-40 Baht portion of food. I would say 60-70 Baht which is what it would cost to feed my kid "market food". Then of course he would want a sweet snack, drink, etc. About 100 Baht for a complete meal.

[Ulysses G.]

The cheapest way to go is the Thai "J" vegetarian restaurants. It is something like 3 items for 30 baht with brown rice. Some places have big portions, but you have to try different ones to figure out which have the best food and most food for the price. A lot of them are on this website, but many are more expensive places catering to tourists. "J" style is really vegan food, but they don't use garlic and onions (if I remember correctly. 

 

https://www.happycow.net/asia/thailand/chiang_mai/?page=1

[Damrongsak]

17 minutes ago, Ulysses G. said:

The cheapest way to go is the Thai "J" vegetarian restaurants. It is something like 3 items for 30 baht with brown rice. ..

Good to know.  How are the basic prices on simple commodities now?  Like a Kilo of average rice or an egg?

[Ulysses G.]

Not sure. I always eat out in Thailand. Thai food can be very cheap and cooking at home attracts insects. Foreign restaurants can be much cheaper than back home in California too, but you have to figure them out. I alternate and keep the food bill down without cooking myself. 

[Dante99]

1 hour ago, Ulysses G. said:

The cheapest way to go is the Thai "J" vegetarian restaurants. It is something like 3 items for 30 baht with brown rice. Some places have big portions, but you have to try different ones to figure out which have the best food and most food for the price. A lot of them are on this website, but many are more expensive places catering to tourists. "J" style is really vegan food, but they don't use garlic and onions (if I remember correctly. 

 

https://www.happycow.net/asia/thailand/chiang_mai/?page=1

Isn't there a veg restaurant where you pay whatever you want?  I am thinking of the one on the West side of the moat, on the outside.  The road that runs one way to Ram but nearer the South corner of the moat.

 

Sounds like you are back UG, is that correct?

[sqwakvfr]

100 Baht per complete meal is realistic.  One plate at 30-40 Baht anywhere in Thailand probably will not be enough.  I often eat at the Tops Market food stands and they have meals(fried rice or some kind of curry and they range from 55 to 70 Baht) but the portions are bigger.  A bottle of water is 10 Baht and if you have smoothie after it is about 30 to 35 Baht.  Even if I spend 100 Baht it beats anything I can get in the US.

[dotpoom]

If you need to know there in lies the problem...methinks.

[steven100]

geez ...  25-35 baht for dinner ... that is cheap charlie.  I eat out most nights but never at the market, usually Marriot or Sherraton hotels ....love the lobster ..

[chrissables]

2 hours ago, Ulysses G. said:

The cheapest way to go is the Thai "J" vegetarian restaurants. It is something like 3 items for 30 baht with brown rice. Some places have big portions, but you have to try different ones to figure out which have the best food and most food for the price. A lot of them are on this website, but many are more expensive places catering to tourists. "J" style is really vegan food, but they don't use garlic and onions (if I remember correctly. 

 

https://www.happycow.net/asia/thailand/chiang_mai/?page=1

"Jaeh" means both a vegetarian in the normal sense of the word and vegetarian food with no milk, eggs and strong smellingg vegetables, according to thai-language.com. I knew it meant vegetarian, but the smelly veg part. Good to learn.

[FolkGuitar]

As said previously, figuring 100 baht per meal is a good estimate. You will certainly need more food than just the 30-baht bag of 'stuff.' Perhaps 1-2 sticks of some BBQ'd pork or chicken, maybe a bag of fruit, add in 5 baht for rice, another 7 baht for water, and you are close to 100 baht. But that is a 'full' meal. Keeping it cheap without the fruit or extra meats or sausage, and you 'can' do it for 50 baht.

[helloagain]

If you that hard up dont bother coming

[khunano]

52 minutes ago, steven100 said:

geez ...  25-35 baht for dinner ... that is cheap charlie.  I eat out most nights but never at the market, usually Marriot or Sherraton hotels ....love the lobster ..

You should try Le Normandie Restaurant at the Oriental Hotel sometime....

[steven100]

9 minutes ago, helloagain said:

If you that hard up dont bother coming

how can anyone live in Thailand on 35 baht per meal per day .....     how is the guy paying rent and what visa ?

[sfokevin]

Everybody time my partner suggest that we go and buy food for diner at the market it ends up costing me more than a salad and pizza at The Duke's... and the refrigerator  reeks of klong kritters and durian for days...

 

Edited May 8, 2017 by sfokevin

[chuang]

Khao neow 10 baht..one fried egg 10 baht == 20 baht....if you want to save on the egg then just eat khao neow with sauce...

[mike324]

it also depends where you live, outside of bangkok you can find "bagged" dishes for sale at the market for as low as 15-20 baht and 5-10 baht for rice. It would help if you state where you are located so people can point to you to the closest local market.

[Wazza1]

To be even more cost effective I have seen perfectly good food in bins outside 7/11's and that would be for free.

[elgordo38]

11 hours ago, elektrified said:

Even my kid could not live on a 30-40 Baht portion of food. I would say 60-70 Baht which is what it would cost to feed my kid "market food". Then of course he would want a sweet snack, drink, etc. About 100 Baht for a complete meal.

Sounds like its time to tell the kid to get a paper route if one exists here. You get the idea. Wean him off the Santa Claus 365

[sanukjim]

If you are this CHEAP then go home and get a job,save  some money ,then come back and you wont be a bxm.

[dundas]

At my local noodle shop in Chiang Mai, two of us will normally order three plates of food for around 120-140 (typically two rice dishes and a soup).The place is pleasant, the meal ins't huge but it's tasty and it's enough. Pretty cheap -- only issue is I hope it's not forming a diet rich in pesticide and cheap oil ... 

 

Breakfast I always eat at home -- it's pretty simple, egg, toast, maybe fruit and cooked vegetables. Easy to hit 100 or more per person because fruit can be relatively expensive. Dinner (bought back home) tends to be around 150-250 for two, and outside the starting price is around 250 to 600 or more for two, depending on where we eat, what we eat and whether we have beer with the meal. 

I think 300 per person per day is getting fairly close to a reasonable minimum. I wouldn't like to live on much less. 

 

 

[speckio]

seems like i am living in a different country than most of the people on this thread....

 

I spend on average 120 baht a day for meals.

 

your typical thai local food stall charges 35-50 baht for a plate of food and i am not sure why everyone is saying its not enough food.

 

an order of spicy chcken mint leaves over rice with a fried egg is on average costs about 40 baht and its more than filling imo. I would be hard pressed to finish 2 orders. when I first arrived in bangkok 3 years ago i weighed 70 kilos i am up to 90 kilos. so its a decent amount of food per dish. 160 lbs up to 195

 

dont want chicken mint leave fine.. order a hearty bowl of noodles for the same price 

 

either the people on this thread are eating only at the mall and avoiding local vendors completely or they are getting charged extra for looking like a farang.

 

 

 

 

[terminatorchiangmai]

Get your self 30 bath sticky rice and some chilli dip , you can  eat from it all day and spend the rest of your  happy cheap  life here.

 

Good luck

[bazza73]

The OP could do it even cheaper by cooking market food himself. Anywhere between 30 and 100 baht, depending on appetite.

 

If he wants to spoil himself occasionally, Le Coq D'Or in Chiang Mai has a lunchtime special for 2250 baht pp.

[buddhalady]

3 hours ago, steven100 said:

how can anyone live in Thailand on 35 baht per meal per day .....     how is the guy paying rent and what visa ?

Some of us live responsibly because that's what we want to do - and were happily doing it in our home countries before we even thought of coming to live in Thailand. Flashing the cash as is done in the USA and UK is not, ultimately, either good for the planet's environment or the  humans who live in it.

 

As regards steven100's post, I own my house, having legally leased the last for 30 years and have been on a retirement extension for ten years. If more people rejected the me-me-me culture of the West rather then bringing it here and boasting about it, things might well change for the better. Or not.

[sqwakvfr]

Well said buddhalady.  I spend the way I spend on food because I want to, not because I have to.  Really don't want to eat at Rock Me Burger everyday.  However 170 Baht for a well made burger is still good value.  I am slowly getting rid of my western viewpoint and enjoying the new lifestyle in CM.  Just had a great salad from the Tops Salad bar for 70 Baht.  Now I have to plan for dinner(so many choices in CM).  I recently overhead a Farang complain "how come a box of  Chips Ahoy Cookies cost over 200 Baht?".  He is probably an American( I am American and I am disappointed to hear something like that form a fellow American).