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Calories · Thai & Vietnamese food
Thai and Vietnamese food calories, noodle by noodle.
Neighbours with a lot in common — rice noodles, fish sauce, fresh herbs, lime — but very different numbers. Thai restaurant plates lean on the wok and coconut milk; Vietnamese bowls lean on broth.
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In short
A restaurant plate of pad thai is about 600 calories (often 450–900), while a medium bowl of beef pho is about 440. Wok oil, palm sugar, peanuts and coconut milk push Thai plates up; Vietnamese noodle soups stay lighter because most of the bowl is broth.
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How a meal is built
Wok, curry pot, or soup bowl.
Thai meals out are often shared: a curry, a stir-fry, a salad and rice for the table, or a single noodle plate at lunch. Vietnamese meals tend to be one big bowl — pho, bún — or a banh mi on the go, with fresh rolls on the side.
Herbs, lime and chilli add flavour for almost nothing. The oil, the coconut and the sugar are where the numbers come from.
What drives it
Oil, coconut, sugar and peanuts.
- Wok-fried noodles. Pad thai, pad see ew and drunken noodles soak up oil in the pan.
- Palm sugar and tamarind. The sweet-sour sauce of pad thai is part sugar.
- Peanuts and egg. Small additions that add up on a big plate.
- Coconut milk. Green, red, panang and massaman curries are rich, and come with rice.
- Sweet drinks. Thai iced tea and Vietnamese iced coffee are made with sweetened condensed milk.
- Bread and pâté. A banh mi is a full baguette, often with pâté and mayo.
Lighter orders
If you want a lighter meal.
- Pho or another noodle soup rather than a wok-fried noodle plate.
- Fresh summer rolls instead of fried spring rolls.
- Papaya salad, larb or a clear tom yum alongside, rather than a second curry.
- Ask for less oil and sauce on pad thai, and go easy on the peanuts.
- Less rice with curry, or share the curry and fill up on stir-fried vegetables.
How the dishes compare
A Thai and Vietnamese menu, roughly.
Restaurant portions vary, so read these as rough. For a table of curries and noodles, PlateDiary’s calorie counter reads every dish from one photo — calories are off unless you turn them on.
| Order | Rough number | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Clear shrimp tom yum, no rice | ~160 | Creamy versions run higher |
| Beef pho, medium bowl | ~440 | Usually 330–650; most is noodles and beef |
| Bánh mì, mixed pork | ~550 | Pâté and mayo on a full roll |
| Pad thai with chicken or shrimp | ~600 | Usually 450–900; oil and sugar |
| Green curry with a cup of jasmine rice | ~680 | Coconut milk plus rice |
In PlateDiary
A rough number for the dishes you save — only if you want one.
Off unless you turn them on
Calories in PlateDiary are off unless you turn them on. Switch them on and, when PlateDiary AI reads your photo of the table, each dish gets one rough “~” number. Accept it or change it; a number you correct is remembered for that dish. With Calories off, the app looks exactly as it did before.
A read sends small pictures of the cut-out dishes, with the place's name as a hint — never the table photo, faces or your location. Calorie numbers never go to analytics, and nothing is written to a health app. PlateDiary AI starts with free tries; here is how it works.
Questions
Questions people ask.
How many calories are in a restaurant pad thai?
About 600 calories for a plate with chicken or shrimp, usually between 450 and 900 depending on the size, the oil and the peanuts.
Is pho lower in calories than pad thai?
Usually, yes. A medium bowl of beef pho is about 440 calories, because most of the bowl is broth rather than oil-fried noodles.
Are Thai curries high in calories?
Coconut-milk curries are rich and come with rice: a chicken green curry with a cup of jasmine rice is about 680 calories, against about 440 for a bowl of pho. Kitchens vary a lot in how much coconut milk they use.
Where are the calories in a bowl of pho?
Mostly in the rice noodles and the beef. The broth itself is light, though fattier cuts like brisket add more.
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