How to Order Food in Thai, at a Stall or a Restaurant

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You can order Thai food by pointing. Every stall has the dishes on show, and every cook has seen a hundred hungry visitors tap a picture on the menu. But a few words of Thai change the whole exchange. The cook smiles, asks you something back, and you get your lunch the way you actually wanted it.

The good news is that ordering is some of the shortest Thai you will ever need. Most of it is one word for “may I have”, the name of the dish, and a polite word at the end. This post walks through those few phrases, in the order you meet them: sitting down, choosing how much chili, the drinks, the price, and leaving happy.

First, the word at the end

When you speak politely, as you do with anyone serving you, most of what you say ends with a small polite word, and which one depends on who is speaking. A man ends with ครับ (khráp). A woman ends with ค่ะ (khâ), and when she asks a question it becomes คะ (khá), with a high tone. A man’s ครับ stays the same whether he is asking or answering.

The word follows the speaker, never the person you are talking to. A woman says ขอบคุณค่ะ (khòp khun khâ), thank you, to everyone. One more detail that trips up learners: after นะ, a woman always uses คะ, as the vendor does when she says ราคาสุดท้ายนะคะ (raa-khaa sùt-tháai ná khá), “that’s my last price”.

In the phrases below, a line ends with whichever word the speaker in the course uses. Swap in your own.

Asking for a dish

The key word is ขอ (khǒr), “may I have”. It is the polite way to order. เอา (ao), “I’ll take”, is plainer and perfectly fine at a market stall.

Dishes are counted in portions, ที่ (thîi), and the order is always the same: the dish, then the number, then ที่. The meat comes after the dish, so fried rice with prawns is fried rice prawn.

That last line is worth a second look. ไม่เอา (mâi-ao) turns something down: the dessert, the extra, the bag. With ครับ or ค่ะ after it, it is plain rather than rude.

A few menu words come up again and again: ข้าวเปล่า (khâao-plàao) is plain rice, ไข่ดาว (khài-daao) a fried egg, and พิเศษ (phí-sèet), “special”, is a large portion for a little extra.

How much chili?

Sooner or later the cook asks the question every visitor should be ready for. Thai cooks season to order, and many dishes can be made with as much or as little chili as you like, so your answer genuinely matters.

เผ็ด (phèt) is the word for chili heat, and ไม่ in front of it says “not”. เผ็ดน้อย (phèt nói) is the mild end, “a little”. ไม่ใส่พริก is the firmest answer of all: “don’t put chili in”. It is a good one to know for dishes like papaya salad, where the chilies are pounded in fresh for each plate.

And if you overestimate yourself, there is a line for that too: เผ็ดมากครับ ขอน้ำหนึ่งแก้วครับ (phèt mâak khráp khǒr náam nùeng gâew khráp), “That’s a lot of chili! A glass of water, please.”

Drinks: sweet, iced, or neither

Thai drinks are made sweet, and a good café will ask how sweet you want yours. Drinks are counted by the glass, แก้ว (gâew), or the bottle, ขวด (khùat), the same way dishes are counted in ที่.

Sweetness has three settings: หวานปกติ (wǎan pòk-gà-tì) is the usual amount, หวานน้อย (wǎan-nói) is less sweet, and ไม่หวาน (mâi wǎan) is no sugar at all.

Notice how the answer to “With ice?” works. Thai has no all-purpose “yes”: you repeat the verb of the question. The question is put ice in?, so “yes” is ใส่ (sài), “put it in”. To say no, the rule from the chili section applies: ไม่ goes in front of the verb.

The price, and paying

At a market or a stall without prices, point and ask อันนี้เท่าไหร่ (an-níi thâo rài), “How much is this one?”. เท่าไหร่, “how much”, always comes at the end. The answer is a number and บาท (bàat), as in ร้อยยี่สิบบาทค่ะ (rói yîi sìp bàat khâ), “That’s a hundred and twenty baht.” If numbers in Thai are new to you, that is the one thing worth practising before the trip: the question is easy, the answer comes back fast.

To get someone’s attention, for more water or for the bill, Thais call staff พี่ (phîi) if they are older than you and น้อง (náwng) if they are younger, with ครับ or ค่ะ. It sounds familiar to an English ear, but it is friendly, not rude. At many street stalls you pay as you order or as you leave; in a sit-down restaurant, catching someone’s eye and asking for the bill is enough, and the total arrives at your table.

Before you leave

Two lines finish a meal well. The first tells the cook it was good; the second tells everyone you are done.

อร่อย (à-ròi), delicious, is the compliment you will use most. It costs nothing, and a cook who has just made your lunch is always glad to hear it.

Where Sawasdee comes in

Every phrase in this post comes from the course in Sawasdee, our app for learning Thai on iPhone and Android, where each line sits in a short dialogue or menu that you read, and can tap to hear. Ordering has a run of units of its own in Level 2, เผ็ดน้อย, “a little chili”: unit 23, Food & Ordering, has Tom ordering for himself at a small restaurant; unit 24, At the Restaurant, is a menu to read; unit 25, Drinks & Café, is the sweetness-and-ice conversation above; unit 26, Fruit & Flavours, adds the five tastes and the mild way to order; and unit 27, At the Market, is where you ask the price.

The polite words come first. Unit 1, Greetings & Politeness, teaches ครับ, ค่ะ and คะ, and it is free, like the rest of the first five units: the consonants, the vowels, your first words and the five tones. The ordering units are part of Premium. Wherever a line is yours to say, the app shows it with your own ending, ครับ or ค่ะ, so the phrase you practise is the one you will use.

And if a dish you ordered stays on your mind after the trip, Tamrap, our Thai recipe app, has recipes for dishes like pad thai, written the way KK cooks them at home.