This post is about one of our favourite activities to do when visiting a new place. Taking a cooking class in Bangkok is a fun and informative way to understand more of the Thai culture and bring delicious recipes back home with you, so you can recreate your Thailand trip memories at home for years to come.
If you read our post on the 7 must activities you have to experience in this city, you'll know that a cooking class is one of those things. Why?
Well.. First of all, the selection of cooking classes in Bangkok is huge, often times bigger than other destinations like Krabi or Koh Samui. This means that you're likely to get a better price and find a class that's truly to your liking.
It's also a great indoor activity which you can do to escape the city heat or any bad weather!
Cookly is a great platform to search for classes all over the world, Thailand and Bangkok included. This is where we found the Pink Chilli cooking school in Bangkok.
Heris what you can expect when attending this 4-hour cooking class in Bangkok.
Class Overview
Settling in: tea, coffee & a little lesson on traditional Thai ingredients
Thai cuisine is arguably one the richest in the world, and this 4 hour cooking class in Bangkok
will teach you about the history & background of basic Thai ingredients such as Thai sticky rice (which is actually a special type of rice grain), Thai basil, and others.
The teacher & chef for the day was super informative and we got to ask questions about cooking techniques or origins of ingredients at the beginning of the class, whilst enjoying some tea & coffee.
Time to get cooking!
When you're booking your class, you'll be able to choose a day of the week to attend, based on your preferred menu. Each day has a slightly different menu to choose from, including 3-4 dishes in each class such as a soup, curry, pad Thai noodles and mango sticky rice.
Since we attended on a Friday, the menu consisted of coconut soup (Tom Kha Gai), red curry (Gaeng Phet Gai), pad thai and mango sticky rice. All the ingredients were presented portioned out and we started this part of the class by making our own fresh curry paste, which required quite the effort with the traditional mortar & pestle.
Once the curry paste was complete and any additional chopping was done, we were able to cook our own portions in the kitchen of the cooking school. It was great to first see a demonstration and then get to try everything on our own. This means you can make things as spicy, salty, sweet or sour as you like.
The takeaway for me was the unique technique of how to fry the egg inside of a pad Thai, which I have been doing wrong for years!
Ending the class with a community meal
After you cook all the dishes, the staff helps you bring back the food to the communal tables, where we sat and enjoyed our lunch with new travel friends we'd met throughout the class. The recipes you bring home with you after taking a cooking class is one thing, but the experience becomes even richer as you meet other travellers & exchange overnight train stories whilst you eat your pad Thai.
Getting here
The Pink Chilli cooking school in Bangkok is located close to the Watthana neighborhood, right off of the BTS Sukhumvit line.
If you're getting here by local taxi or tuk tuk, remember that some locals will not be able to read english letters, (similar to how english speakers can't read Thai) so you can use this name ซ.อ่อนนุช 2 to show your driver.
Otherwise, take the BTS skytrain to On Nut station and walk about 12 minutes to the school.
Costs
Price per person: about 1200 Thai Baht / 34 EUR / 37 USD p.p
The price includes all your ingredients, the cooking experience itself, coffee & tea and you'll get to enjoy your food at the end of the class so this will be either lunch or dinner meal.
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