When visiting a foreign country, my favorite thing to do is to visit a (more like every) convenient store and supermarket. A lot of the time, you get an idea what locals eat and what kinds of food souvenirs you can bring home.
Our loot was rather small from this trip
We bought Lays in Smoked Ribs and Thai Spices flavor, whole coffee beans from My Choice, Cha Tra Mue 3-in-1 milk tea sachets (5 sachets per pack), various brands of banana chips and dried mango, packets of MAMA Tomyam Pork instant noodles, Loacker hazelnut wafers and a box of Mango Pocky.
Yeah, rather small.
The Cha Tra Mue 3-in-1 packets tasted a lot like those bought from the kiosks though it was a bit sweeter and needed more milk. The Lays chips were all delicious! Since it's locally made, they're not as expensive as the imported ones and there are more local flavors sold. We regret not trying and buying more! The Loacker wafers were bought only because it was cheaper in Bangkok. This particular variation is usually sold at the airport.
I'd suggest against buying the big pack of dried mango in the middle of the photo and instead, get those that are sold by weight so you get to try them and decide which one is better. The Mango Pocky was quite good but may not be to everyone's taste. As for the MAMA's instant noodles, that will be another post for another day.
Besides the snack loot we brought back with us, we were always eating and drinking stuff we bought from convenient stores. Our favorite? Milk-based drinks.
Because I had good banana milk by meiji when I was in Seoul, I was compelled to try the ones in Bangkok. It was okay but not as flavorful as the ones in Korea.
The one item I was recommended to try in Bangkok was their yogurt drinks. There are lots of brands to choose from so we resorted to picking brands that were familiar to us (e.g. meiji) and looking at the fruits pictured on the labels to know the flavor.
This was obviously an orange flavored yogurt drink. Their yogurt drinks come in various sizes unlike our tiny bottles and are relatively cheap. There seems to be less sugar and more tang too so I drank lots of it throughout our trip.
Another thing I kept looking out for were Cha Tra Mue kiosks. They are usually located at MRT stations or in malls. We depleted this particular stall of all their 3-in-1 milk tea packets. Unfortunately, attempts to locate the 3-in-1 packets in supermarkets were unfruitful. If you know where to get more of these, please tell us!
We've tried Thai milk tea at other stalls but nothing compares to Cha Tra Mue's nice balance of sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and tea. It was so addictive that my 3-in-1 stock disappeared in days. The good news is that Cha Tra Mue is now in KL. There are kiosks in Berjaya Times Square and Low Yat Plaza so you don't have to travel all the way to Bangkok I've tried it at the Times Square kiosk and the only thing that is missing is the hustle and bustle feel of Bangkok. It's just as good and served in the same plastic cup!
Our last thing consumed on Thai soil was a Blizzard sundae from Dairy Queen in Don Mueang Airport. DQ is not available in Malaysia so I got curious to try one of their soft serve concoctions.
This is what makes Dairy Queen special - the Blizzard is served upside down. Because it's so thick, nothing drops, not even the spoon. The flavor pictured above is Green Tea with Oreo crumbs. The super thick ice-cream turned out to be very good. No ice crystals and not too sweet. We'll probably attack more of this the next time we come back.
What are your favorite snacks in Bangkok? Is there something we should really try? Let us know in the comments and we'll check it out on our next trip, whenever that is :)