u m a m i

Bangkok Eating III- Restaurants

The Bangkok restaurant scene is very happening, so many places to try out, so little time.....

The Thai restaurant is the only place worth eating at from among the many available choices at Sofitel Grand Plaza. Suan Bua was very crowded with office workers the day we went for our group lunch. Normally I do not expect much, the catering for a large group of people probably means we have to sacrifice quality for quantity but this time I was proven wrong. Highlights included chicken in red curry which was a delicious aromatic blend of spices and herbs, and accompanied with blanched cabbage and fried anchovies, one can easily down two plates of rice. There was no time to take pictures of the perfect little spring rolls, but everyone lingered over their delicately sour and velvety soup of chicken with mushrooms and lemongrass.

Less successful was the dining at more upscale restaurant Naj. The blurb on the totally unreliable Tatler Restaurant guide gushed about this place is practically redefining high-end Thai cooking, but we kinda knew that we were in the wrong place the minute we laid eyes on the restored bungalow setting, the tuxedoed waiter and the costumed lady playing traditional music in front. But it was a humid night and the taxi had disappeared, so we decided to give it a chance. Impression was not improved when I saw the ugly plastic flowers lining the feet of the statues who were busy doing their thing. Maybe it was a hint of things to come. "We specialise in plastic"

Above: appetiser for two. Looks pretty but the taste was pretty generic. The only thing I liked was the crispy tomato rice. The chicken satay was tough and bland, the pastry cup thingies pretty to look at but indistinguishable in taste.

Papaya salad with sticky rice balls and dried pork was more successful. Like the appetizers, seasonings and spicing has been muted down to cater for foreigners. There was another beef dish and a much-lauded green curry fried rice; both tasted as if they came out of a Marks & Spencer foil pack, fine in London but definitely not acceptable in Thailand. As an example of how bad they can thrash their food, we ate the worst possible version of pad thai here- the noodles, and some too-funky pieces of tofu, were all fried thoughtlessly in a ghastly sticky sauce, it was so awful we nearly spat it out.

On the whole, we fared better with western restaurants. Our favourite was Kuppa, a place that the guide books say is popular with thirty-something people who come every weekend to eat while their chauffeurs wait outside for them. It wasn't that elitist feeling the night we visited. Being located next to a Somerset service apartment we saw more Japanese, Indians, Caucasians and some Singaporeans rather than local yuppies.

The menu has many items to please everyone. Grills and salads. Curries. Mediterranean dishes. Pizza. Pasta. Pies. All we saw were the beautiful fruit sitting at the bartenders counter. The efficient waiter brought large glasses of juice over while we decided on dinner. The food, when it came, was most excellent. We tore at the generous plate of braised lamb shanks with couscous, the meat tender and taking on all the flavours of the accompanying peppers, tomatoes and herbs yet never boring like lamb shanks can get. My deep fried whole garoupa was so yummy we even ate the bones, the deep frying thankfully did not conceal its evident freshness, and the accompanying sauce of green curry with lychees was another fantastic surprise. I can imagine a less than bothered person opening a can of readymade curry sauce and tumbling a can of lychees into it and there you go. But the sauce at Kuppa was a lot more refined, the lychee's fragrance adding an intriguing nuance but its sweetness restrained so that the aromatics of the curry could shine as well. No pictures, we were so bowled over by the food we forgot.

And then there were the 'white linen hotties' that we checked out, because the newspapers and the magazines say these are the ones making Bangkok such a happening food capital. Trendy independent restaurants with decor worthy of wallpaper* that apparently serves great food too. Most of these places can be recognised if you walk past them, they tend to have high ceilings painted in a bold colour as a dramatic backdrop for the antique-looking crystal chandelier, and diners get to sit in uncomfortable looking chairs designed by (or ripped-off from) designers with unpronounceable names.

But we only had a few nights, one already wasted on that pretentious neo-colonial fraud called Naj, so we narrowed down our choices to two. The first was Eat Me. The restaurant is located on the second level of an art gallery, and is run by a laid back Englishman. The food was good, as in well-executed, well-balanced and very pretty looking, but not wow. The breads were the best part of the meal, and good breads score high marks with me, this place got bonus point because their breads come with dukkah, a spiced nut dip. Dip and breads were so good I overlooked the less than spectacular dinner that followed. My spring roll with duck was quite lame compared to husband's starter of somen noodles with a big mess of tuna tartare. The tuna was beautifully seasoned, and very popular. But my mains of roast fish was considered better than his vegetarian risotto, well, risottos taste the same spoon after spoon so it is harder to get right. Eat Me is a beatiful space serving beautiful food to beautiful people, but to be honest, the food can do with a lot more passion and self-expression.   

Chi, on the other hand, demonstrated how it is possible to create a menu based on less than 10 ingredients in the kitchen. We ordered like 6 dishes (tapas-sized) and were astounded by the permutation possibilities of asparagus, cherry tomatoes, mayonnaise, cheap caviar, and salmon roe and miso. Almost every dish had these as base ingredients, save for the clam soup but I bet it had miso in it. Which is not to say the food was bad, on the contrary most tasted lovely on their own. Just not advisable to get greedy and order everything from the picture book menu.

I defintiely give points to Chi for creativity. For creativity in making the most of their ingredients. And of course, for their decor. Located in fashionable neighbourhood H1 Project, people come to Chi more to admire the highly ecletic decor. Every section of the room has a slightly different look, and the lighting is suitably dim. Suitable for parties, and for couples too, there are some retro sofas good to snuggle into.

Bangkok is indeed a sizzling food city. There were tonnes more places we didn't have time to try out. It was hard to tease out the good from the hyped, and we didn't know how to really choose. One thing that could have helped is a restaurant blog coming from Bangkok....

Eat Me Art Restaurant

1/6 Soi Pipat 2, Silom, Convent Road

Kuppa

39 Sukhumvit Soi 16

Naj

42 Convent Road, Silom

Chi

H1 Project

998, Sukhumvit 55, Thong Lor

Bangkok Eating II- The Good things to eat at the shops

It is possible you know. Where? At the mall food courts in Bangkok. Not the best, but really not bad at all.

This was a major discovery for me because I abhor food courts in general, dismissing them as places that sell uniformly indistinguishable mediocre foods to undemanding customers who don't know or don't expect better because they are happy enough just to eat in airconditioned environment. The thing is, food courts in Bangkok are not the same as their counterparts in Singapore. Over there, their food courts seem to have a little more soul, and the food remain yummy and closely replicates the tastes of their roadside cousins.

How it works is thus: You go to a counter and buy some coupons or a stored-value card. What is not spent can be redeemed, but only within the same day. An efficient and hygienic system which I am surprised has not been adopted in Singapore yet.

Another welcome difference is the dispensers of tissue paper placed on each table for customers to help themselves too. Nobody takes more than they need, something that I am not confident can be maintained in Singapore. Do they know that in Singapore people bring their own packs of tissue paper to 'chope' (claim rights to) the table instead?

One of the best food court dishes I tried was the combination of fried pork and braised pig trotter rice I had at the food court at Central Plaza  (Mo Chit) the first evening I arrived.The young lady at the counter kept stirring the braising liquid and from time to time would carefully baste the pieces of trotters and other 'spare parts' in the vat. A plate of rice with pork two ways, preserved salty vegetables and a braised egg set me back 30 bahts. Oh I really wish I had another plate of that wonderful gravy-soaked rice and flavourful pork before I left the Sofitel.

Above: kuehs made of tapioca, sugar and coconut milk. 20 baht for a selection of 10 pieces.

The most well-known food court to Singaporeans is the one located on the sixth floor of MBK shopping centre. It is huge, with loads of Thai as well as 'international' dishes. Prices slightly higher than the one in Central Plaza.

There was a long queue for this beef tendon noodle soup. The soup had an intense broth of beef, herbs and traditional medicine. Probably puts hair on chests and makes one strong, like how they say to Anthony Bourdain in A Cook's Tour. I loved the slippery noodles but found the soup too salty.

Pork rice from MBK centre not as good as the one I had at Central Plaza (Mo Chit) but husband loved it anyway. Pad thai was OK, not great. Fried radish cake heavy and boring.

Better choices were the desserts. 30 baht for glutinous rice with durians! 30 baht for Thai version of ice kacang. Yummy.

Above: tofu dessert with crispy dough sticks from upmarket food court at Central Chit Lom. The place is called FoodLoft, and instead of buying coupons, we get an electronic card which captures prices, customers pay after the meal at check-out counters. Their pad thai was better, so was the Vietnamese dishes but the Thai desserts were average. Surprise find was a perfect little caramel flan that reminded me of the countless ones I ate in Madrid oh, so many years ago.

We also checked out the food court at Emporium, but their food court is smaller and sadder looking. A better bet when shopping at Emporium is the smart cafe Greyhound, there is also an outlet at Central Chit Lom. Their food is always tasty and spot on, whether it is Western or Thai. I had the best pad thai of my trip and husband enjoyed his spaghetti with spicy Thai anchovies. Dessert of banoffee pie was quite scrummy too.

The malls also have their chain restaurants. Being stuck in a hotel next to a mall for five days one gets to know these cheap and crowded places well. The one I least enjoyed was Thasiam, distinguishable by their logo of an evil looking pig- their food is recklessly thrown together, our group of six could not find a single thing worth liking and my colleagues are nowhere as fussy as I am, that's how bad it was. Yum Saap was slightly better in my experience- one could actually see the salads being made on the spot, and my phad thai  had lovely soft curd-like pieces of omelet in it which made me happy.

Observant readers may have noted that I ordered pad thai quite frequently, and they are probably right. Phad thai was my personal indicator of how good the cooking at the establishement is, and strangely enough it was to prove quite an accurate tool. But more of that in the next post.

Enjoy!

Bangkok Eating Part I- The Good

Thai food is a big mystery to me. I don't know half of what goes into every dish, let alone what is the real 'authentic' taste. Thai food can be awfully intimidating, with its tendency to incorporate seemingly all the various taste elements, even the simplest salads delivers lethal bursts of chilli padi fire. Walking through the wet markets, I get easily overwhelmed by the pungency and bewildering smells of the various pastes and preserves. And what we are used to eating in Singapore and Malaysia does not prepare for the real experience, these places tend to dumb down considerably all the seasonings and spiciness.

This was only my third trip to Bangkok. The first time was at least seven years ago, on a company incentive trip. We ate mostly hotel meals, no surprises there, everything was bland and the only really exciting discovery for me was the banana jam served at breakfast.

The second trip was a short weekend with husband about four years ago. We ate at the highly recommended Baan Khanita restaurant. It is set in a traditional teak house, all resort like with gurgling fountains and dancing statues, but the food was strangely disappointing- the betel leaf appetisers were fun and novel but the rest of the food was too predictable and curiously, sweeter than I had expected. Maybe it was just us, because this time round I see that there are more Baan Khanitas lookalikes in the city. It was also during my second trip that I needled husband into trying some of the soup noodles sold along the streets, but was myself defeated because husband said the colour of the soup reminded him of the water in the monsoon drains and that made me lose my appetite, plus the soup  seemed to have an unreasonable amount (to my more subdued Cantonese palate) of fish sauce.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I set out for this 10 day long trip. Kind friends gave some useful advice, e.g. experiment with the condiment tray to get more balance in seasonings, eat the accompanying vegetables to offset the strong flavours and so on. I made a little resolution to not get upset if I don't get it, and let my palate adjust at its own pace. Seemed to work. This time I was able to enjoy the food more, and most of the eating was good. There are some not so good moments too (Part II) and some trendy places that managed to be good and not so good (Part III) but for now I will recount my favourites.

One of the best meals was at a restaurant that the local colleagues took me to. I didn't get the name, and it was a simple place set along the road near the Lat Krabang Industrial Park that we were at, colleagues said it is is the best restaurant in town. We sat in the shady and breezy wooden deck out back, overlooking the lazy river. The colleagues apologised, saying it was hard to order food for three people as the portions are big. Nevertheless,we managed handsomely. First some kangkong stirfried with salty bean paste, simple and homely, but I didn't eat much of it because ever since a friend told me how worm-ridden this species of vegetables are, especially in their hollow stems, I have never quite regained my liking for it, though of course I was not about to say so to my hosts. Next, a whole coconut baked with seafood curry inside, that dish was simply magnificient- all the seafood plentiful, sweet and succulent, and the smooth rich curry scented with loads of sweet basil and little pea-sized eggplants. In between mouthfuls of kangkong and curry, we also dug into a fiesty salad of fried catfish; a bonus was the little sacs of roe in the fish belly, fried till crispy and smoky. The dishes were more spicy that what my colleagues usually eat at home, they too were sweating and fanning their flaming tongues, hmm it wasn't just me who is not used to the spiciness then.

Another memorable meal for me was at the Chatuchak weekend market. There are many stalls selling cooked food, and we stopped at one because we were tired and wanted a cold drink, not because we were hungry. Everyone around us were eating this very simple dish of green chicken curry  on rice with duck eggs on the side, the two skinny young girls at the next table even ate two plates each. We ordered ourselves some, and were bowled over by how delicious it was, nothing in your face, nothing too spicy or sweet, just the right balance of spice and herbs blanketed lightly with coconut cream. A few pieces of chicken, plenty of sweet al dente eggplants-that-looks-like-tomatoes. The stall also serves wonderful spiced fish cakes, similar to otak otak but with extra bounce and crunchy green beans bits, as well as a subtly seasoned beef noodle soup that did not bring to mind any drain water images, thankfully.

Something else I ate quite a lot of when I was in Bangkok was the local pineapple. Very sweet, with just enough tartness,loaded with juice and not too fibrous. Absolutely fabulous. Missing them already. 

Back from Bangkok

Work went well in BKK. This time I did not lose my voice from talking all day. Should learn how to speak from abdomen, less strain on the vocal cords.

Dear husband flew in to join me last Friday. I checked out of Sofitelus horriblus, but not before eating a a most dreadful and overpriced lunch at their Vietnamese restaurant Le Danang. The F&B outlets at this hotel are quite dire, besides Le Danang, the Chinese restaurant and Japanese restaurants are just as bad. The only good meal we enjoyed was the Thai place Suan Bua. Will upload photo later.

We checked into the Ascott Sathorn, a shiny new serviced residence, all glossy and shiny with marble and granite. Huge bathroom, sitting room, kitchen and dining room plus utility room for washing machine. Duvet, yes, hard pillow no. It is not really that near the BTS, but taxis are plentiful so we usually taxied to the nearest station which is Choo Nongsi.

Moona the massage therapist at the Centara (at Sofitel) spa was very wise, she said the locals cope with the bad traffic by planning their journey ahead, and they adopt a Buddhist philosophy of not getting too upset with things they cannot change.

The taxi actually can function as a little sitting room on wheels. We conducted quite a bit of our holiday in the car.

Example 1

umami: Where are we eating dinner tonight?

husband: Sirocco. It is a rooftop restaurant with panoramic views of the city.

umami: The guide book says the only good thing to eat is the steak and dessert buffet. I can't fill my stomach by eating the view. Let's go somewhere else.

(Husband then calls up alternative #2, he knows my flippant nature and came prepared with a long list of hot new places.)

Example 2

While flipping through guide book for Hong Kong tourists (better than Lonely Planet IMO)

umami: Oh look I can have my teeth whitened.

(Husband calls the Dental Hospital and makes appointment. Their treatment is less than half the price quoted by my Singapore dentist. My teeth is now whiter by 6 shades)

Example 3:

umami: Massage tonight dear?

(Husband calls Body Tune and makes appointment. Scene repeated almost nightly. It is next to the Sala Daeng Skytrain station. The therapists there did a wonderful job aligning my spine and loosening the tight knots in my shoulders. Functional, clean teak and bamboo cubicles, very reasonable prices e.g. 550 baht for 2 hours)

Example 4:

umami: What are we doing tomorrow?

Husband: Lunch at the best Italian restaurant in town. Gianni's. Must wear long-sleeve shirt and tie.

umami: I don't have a tie. Let's go wash our hair instead. Have facial. manicure. Pedicure.

(The nail place at Central is equipped with massage chairs and inbuilt foot basin. And personal VCD player to view movies. Better than pretentious Italian restaurant right?)

That seems about it. Bangkok is great for a short break of shopping, eating and self-pampering. The shopping malls,for example, are all linked to the Skytrain stations so there is no excuse not to shop really. But better bargains are found at Chatuchak and Suan Lum night bazaar. My colleagues love MahBoonKrong too, where they bought up three years' supply of bras, yes, bras are very cheap in Bangkok in case you don't know.

The city itself, well, I have to say it is quite the ugly one with its unstructured town planning, hoardings and untidy tangles of electricity cables.The air is also heavily polluted so all the best things to do are indoors. At the Suan Lum night bazaar we sat outdoors; while we ate I was myself dinner for blooducking mosquitoes.

Bangkok is a city of many contrasts. Many Mercedez with drivers and sleek rich people inside. The more senior men wear four-pocketed short sleeve shirts, their female counterparts wear armour of stiff silk suits and poufy big hair. While street vendors crisscross the heavy traffic and wear weatherbeaten, resigned faces. A meal can be had for 30 baht or 3000 baht per person.

Everyone so polite and gracious, it made me feel quite a clumsy clod sometimes. Sawadeeka and gentle smiles everywhere we went. The guards in the hotel even salutes when he sees us. At the nail salon, husband was sitting in the waiting area while my nail polish was drying. All the girls that went past him bowed their heads and walked in a deferential manner in front of him. Men get better treatment, definitely.

The society also seems more permissive. Gay men walk about openly like in San Francisco. Male-turned-females and cross dressers flaunt their extravagant makeup and gesture dramatically in shopping malls. Foreign men walking about with girls half their age. Nothing seems impossible, or improbable here.

Isn't it a good thing Bangkok is only a 1 hour 40 minute plane ride away?

BKK

Going to Bangkok tomorrow. Work. Shopping.

Have put up a Flickr badge. Enjoy!