Welcome to Soi Arab

I knew I lived in between soi 1 & 3.  Soi 1 is a very small 2 way street while Soi 1 is a large 1 way street with 3 or 4 lanes.  Soi simply means street in Thai.

I have noticed that every time I walk up Soi 3 it’s a lot less like Thailand and a lot more like downtown Baghdad.   You see many women and men dressed in traditional Arab clothing as well as many businesses with Arabic script.

Rip-Off Alert

Nobody likes getting ripped off.  Regardless if the rip-off is for 10 baht or 2000 baht I will always mention it so anyone reading this is either visiting Bangkok or living in Thailand doesn’t have to find out for themselves.

So I’ve gotten papaya from the street probably 100 times since I’ve lived in Bangkok and each time it has cost 10 baht per.  Not on Soi Arab.  I think it’s a scam they pull when people come and order a fruit expecting to pay 10 baht and after they slice it and bag it, they say 20 baht!  The papaya was unripe as well which was a double whammy.

I know it is only getting you for 30 cents but is still enough to never buy fruit from Soi Arab ever again and I would recommend that you buy NOTHING from Soi Arab or the surrounding streets if you can get it anywhere else in Bangkok.

Falafel and Shawarma

One thing which isn’t very common in the rest of Bangkok is indoor/outdoor Mediterranean food.  To get there, from the NANA BTS station walk straight and take a right when you see a big street.  You will be walking onto Soi Arab from Sukhumvit Roid.  You on the right you will pass some sort of pipe smoking oxygen bar or something then you cannot miss a big outdoor set-up with 2 shawarma spits.

There was a friendly Syrian guy who took my order and had my food ready in 2-3 minutes.  I ordered a chicken shwarma and a falafel sandwitch because I was hungry and they are not very big.  One would be perfect for a light eater but I’m a very heavy eater.   They were both delicious as I devoured them in about 2 minutes.  My picture is embarrassingly bad but I’m posting it just to teach myself a lesson about photographic food presentation;)  There is an outdoor/covered area to eat as well.

Although I haven’t tried it yet, there is another place which is pretty much identical about 200 meters down the road.

Price

Falafel Sandwitch (burrito): 50 Baht ($1.46)

Chicken Shawarma Sandwitch: 50 Baht ($1.46)

Meat Shawarma Sandwitch: 60 Baht ($1.76)

If you’re in the area and would like to have a fabulous quick snack or meal these 2 outdoor shawarma spit locations are great.