transpac

I strongly recommend food courts to all visitors for the many benefits: clean, comfortable, wide variety of choice, inexpensive (maybe 5% more than the street vendor) and easy to find (each mall, shopping center, multi-purpose building has one, typically on an upper floor). These are extremely popular at lunch-time with nearby office workers. Check out the one at Central World (previously known as World Trade, the gigantic mall at the corner of Ratchadamri and Rama I (Sukhumvit) (Ploen Chit BTS then walk towards Siam Sq.), on the 7th floor: bright, open, airy, new, windows with a view.

In a single location you can find as much quality and variety as you'd find on two or three streets. In many cases families operating street outlets expand into the food courts so offer the exact same food.

Many food courts use pre-pay paper coupons, in 5-10-20 denominations, or an RFID card, so you pay up front, guesstimate 75-100 baht/person, then use to purchase food and drink and individual stalls. Then you obtain a redemption if you have value remaining. At Central World you get a RFID card then pay at the exit.

A-la carte items (complete single serving including rice) average 40 baht at a typical food court

There is a slightly higher class of food court (MBK: Fifth Ave; Paragon; Central) which is a bit closer to restaurant fare. You get a RFID card associated with an assigned table, then you walk around choose your food from ~ 20 stalls, then they deliver it to your table. Wider variety (international), better quality and more expensive. You pay on exit and do pay an extra fee, in some cases, for "overhead".

I know many people lamented the move of street-based (pushcart) food vending in Singapore ages ago when the government moved to the food-court system, but I much prefer the latter in Singapore. I wouldn't mind seeing that happen in Bangkok as I think it would be better for everyone, but it won't happen anytime soon.