What to eat in Kanchanaburi
12 dishes, from river fish to raft restaurants

This is the flavour that truly belongs to Kanchanaburi — fresh freshwater fish straight from the River Kwai. Firm, rich yi-sok; soft, sweet snakehead (pla chon); fatty giant gourami — fried whole until crisp, dropped into a clear tom yum, or made into a choo chee with coconut. Many riverside restaurants let you pick a live fish and price it by weight. Freshness is everything, and river fish is sweeter and a different texture from sea fish. Order a plate of it on a raft and you've eaten what this town does best.

A way of eating particular to Kanchanaburi — sit on a timber raft floating over the River Kwai, the current sliding beneath the floor, the breeze cool, the hills and the Bridge over the River Kwai not far off. Many places are open to the river air, and dinner from late afternoon into the evening is when the atmosphere is at its best. Order river fish, tom yum and a stir-fry and settle in by the water for a long meal. To be honest, the bridge-view spots cost a little more, but the setting is worth doing once.

If fried and tom yum aren't enough, let the river fish meet coconut. Choo chee is fried fish topped with red curry paste fried in thick coconut milk until fragrant and rich, finished with shredded kaffir-lime leaf. Kaeng khua river fish (pla kang) is a rounder coconut curry that several riverside restaurants do well. The naturally sweet flesh of the river fish takes beautifully to the coconut and curry paste, and a plate of it with steaming rice will finish the rice pot. It's nicely spiced rather than fierce, so you don't need a hardened palate to enjoy it.

No trip to Thailand is complete without a som tam meal, and Kanchanaburi makes it easy — in the markets and along the roadside. Sweet-sour som tam thai, or the fierier salted-crab-and-fermented-fish version, paired with crisp-skinned charcoal-grilled chicken and a basket of sticky rice. Order all three and you have a meal that's filling, cheap and unfussy. Some shops also do fruit som tam, larb and nam tok to add. Heat varies place to place — just tell the cook mild or medium if you're not used to it hot.

This is what sets Kanchanaburi's food apart from other towns — up around Sangkhla Buri, on the Myanmar border, Mon and Karen communities have a table of their own. In the market and small shops in the Mon village across the wooden bridge you'll find bamboo-shoot salads, Burmese-style salads with beans and tofu, deeply seasoned curries, and border sweets. Many shops cook ahead and lay it out, so you point at what you want. The flavours may be unfamiliar if you've never tried them, but this is the real taste of the area, and anyone heading up to Sangkhla Buri shouldn't miss it.

Sun-dried beef has long been associated with Kanchanaburi — beef seasoned and then laid out to sun-dry on bamboo racks until it's just leathery, then fried so the edges go crisp while the inside stays chewy and fragrant with the marinade. Dip it in a sharp jaew sauce and eat it on its own or with sticky rice. You'll find it packaged as a take-home gift in the town's dried-goods shops, or order it fried fresh at restaurants and som tam stalls. It's a flavour locals are proud of, and a popular thing to carry home.

Kanchanaburi has a pad thai shop people talk about — Soon Heng, known for its Pad Thai Rai Sen, with chewy noodles stir-fried to a balanced sweet-sour-salty finish, with prawns, egg, tofu and bean sprouts, topped with crushed peanuts and a squeeze of lime. Beyond the pad thai, the same shop does herb-fried pla kang (a kind of river fish) and other local dishes to order alongside. It's a simple, affordable lunch that both locals and visitors stop in for, and an easy way to get good pad thai and river-fish flavour in one place.

The best-value dinner in town is a wander through the night market — the town's main night market and JJ Night Market opposite the train station are packed with cheap eats, from grilled skewers for a few baht to noodles, rice-and-curry, som tam, fried snacks, sweets and smoothies. Graze and pay as you go, one thing at a time, no need to sit down at a big restaurant. Honestly, the market gets you more variety for less than a sit-down place, and it's ideal for a relaxed evening — read more on the night-market and street-food page.

A central-Thai staple that Kanchanaburi does well — soft fresh rice noodles (khanom jeen) ladled with nam ya, a curry sauce pounded from river fish and curry paste until thick and fragrant, or with nam phrik or nam ngiao depending on the shop. Eat it with a big plate of accompaniments — bean sprouts, lemon basil, pickled vegetables, cucumber — that you add as you like. It's a light breakfast or lunch that fills you up cheaply, found at morning markets and noodle shops in town. A nam ya made with real river fish has a sweeter, fishier depth.

Finish the meal with a roadside sweet — banana roti, crisp outside and soft inside, drizzled with condensed milk and sugar, is the market dessert everyone enjoys. Around Sangkhla Buri and the Mon markets you'll also find Burmese sweets and border desserts like pumpkin custard, coconut-milk sweets and Burmese tea to try. In the town itself the night market lines up roti, Thai sweets, khanom krok and smoothies for just a few baht apiece. Following a savoury round with a roadside sweet is the most natural way to end a Kanchanaburi evening.

Kanchanaburi has more coffee shops than you'd think — riverside places where you sip a coffee watching the River Kwai slide by, and out-of-town cafés with hill and rice-field views out towards Erawan and the dam. Plenty take their drip coffee and baking seriously, opening from morning to evening, and they make a good stop mid-day or somewhere to sit and work. To be honest, some lean more on the view and the photo angles than the coffee, so choose by what you want — riverside atmosphere, or a properly made cup. Read more on the Kanchanaburi cafés page.

What makes a meal here memorable is the backdrop — many riverside restaurants look onto the Bridge over the River Kwai, which by night is lit and mirrored in the water, the scene quiet and lovely. Choose a place facing the river, order river fish and tom yum, and watch the historic train cross the bridge from time to time. Just keep in mind that this bridge is tied to the Death Railway of the Second World War, so it's a beautiful view held alongside respect for that history. A riverside dinner here is both a good meal and a setting you won't find elsewhere.