Where to eat raw food in Krabi’s Ao Nang, Thailand

After 4 days of feasting at Rasayana raw restaurant in Bangkok, I had high hopes for Krabi, thinking they must at least have good fruit. I do apologise that I don’t have good news for you.

Ao Nang is a raw foodies hell…

It’s not even so much that they don’t have salads, it’s the fact that nothing is fresh. I stayed only a couple of days in Krabi and spent half of that time in the loo… suffering after eating what looked like a nice salad.

There are no vegetarian restaurants in Ao Nang. Fruit was my backup plan. That one failed too as the only fruit they had were pineapples (of which you can’t eat too many) and watermelon. Ok that may be a seasonal thing (we went for Christmas), but they barely even had coconuts and bananas tasted horrible and were hard to find. Our first hotel, Mandawee, didn’t even serve fruit at the breakfast buffet! Our second hotel, Tipa resort, had salad for breakfast, and it was from dinner the night before (and it is a really good place too!).

Though to be fair, the evening salad at Tipa resort was pretty decent and fresh.

Worst restaurant to eat at in Ao Nang

There are many restaurants that serve salads in Krabi. I don’t like writing bad reviews but I feel I should warn you about an Arabic restaurant called Cleopatra, as we had an absolutely awful experience there.

The mixed salad stank really bad and was completely off, and the tabbouleh actually tasted like dishwasher soap. Besides the horrible food, they also tried to get us to pay for it and in general the staff had a nasty attitude.

The best place to eat raw food in Ao Nang

You will laugh at me when I say this and I honestly can’t believe I’m writing this, but the best place that we found to eat raw food was Subway. Until this holiday I considered it a junk food kind of place and never even knew they had salads, but it turns out it was the only salad in town that didn’t give me diarrhoea and I could actually choose what I wanted in it.

Do watch out for the sauces though, the vegetables may be fresh, but the dressings, pickles and jalapeños are full of preservatives. Read the list of ingredients here.

Can you eat raw on island hopping day tours?

Krabi offers many day tours to other islands as well as elephant rides, kayaking and quad biking. The longer trips usually include lunch and I was happy to see that you can tell the tour agent if you have dietary preferences. When we arrived at Phi Phi Don for a typical Asian, funny-smelling buffet, there were 2 plates on the side for us with tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage and onions on it. Sure it wasn’t the most amazing salad in the world, but it got us through the day, so if you are set on raw food, you can pre-order it.

Krabi Town restaurants

We’d didn’t actually make it to Krabi Town as it’s 40 mins away, but I did hear of a vegetarian restaurant there called Healthy 4 You, which seems like a decent place to go to if you’re there.

Something to consider

I’m not the first or last person to get sick from raw vegetables in Thailand, so if you feel like your stomach is acting funny, perhaps it would be wise to be a little flexible with your diet. I survived until the very last day of the trip and opted for bread and rice on the last day as I did not want to have problems on my 3 flights home.

Also, if you’re only here for a day or two – PACK SOME FOOD WITH YOU!! I’m serious, Ive been all over the world but I’ve never struggled staying raw anywhere else as much as I did in Krabi (ok Peru was pretty bad too…). If you can, take some dehydrated crackers and other foods that won’t go off fast with you. If I ever come back here, I’m packing half a suitcase of nuts and carrots with me.

One more picture from the Phi Phi islands…they’re just too pretty!

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Bernard Johannes Sleijster

    Oh dear I also struggled so badly in Ao Nang, thank you for writing this to give other raw foodies a heads-up about it! It’s not impossible, but just be careful.
    ~ Bernard Sleijster

  2. Kim Shields

    We have had many vegetarian meals in Ao Nang. Lots of the restaurants have page after page of vegetarian meals. We’ve never been sick either. Maybe you needed more time to look around.

    1. Anya Andreeva

      Thank you Kim, yes there are vegetarian options in Ao Nang, but this post was about raw food, not cooked vegetarian 🙂

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