creme de la creme bkk thai restaurant recs?
Feb 17th, 2013, 11:36 AM
#3
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Thank you very much, Craig. I read a few reviews that imply the food isnt remotely related to Indian cuisine. Perhaps the only thing Indian is the chef? Nonetheless, sounds interesting. Thxx again!
Feb 17th, 2013, 11:51 AM
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Yes, Gaggan is amazing. Neither Thai food nor Indian, though we had Indian-inflected dishes there.
A few favorites: Lana Thai at Face excellent food and very atmospheric. I'm partial to restaurants in old Thai houses.
Lemongrass is one I've eaten at since the 1980s.
A few favorites: Lana Thai at Face excellent food and very atmospheric. I'm partial to restaurants in old Thai houses.
Lemongrass is one I've eaten at since the 1980s.
Feb 17th, 2013, 01:12 PM
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face has tons of ambiance and the food is very good..
we still like both tongue thai (behind OP Place at the oriental and harmonique, just off of new road..
most of the major hotels also have thai restaurants..
we still like both tongue thai (behind OP Place at the oriental and harmonique, just off of new road..
most of the major hotels also have thai restaurants..
Feb 18th, 2013, 05:02 AM
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Our favorite Thai restaurant in Bangkok is Krua Apsorn. It is in a simple store front but you aren’t going there for the décor. You’ll find the clientele mostly a mix of Thai businessmen and local ladies who appear to be taking a break from a serious day of shopping. The owner/head chef is Paa Daeng who opened the restaurant after being the personal chef for a sister of the current King of Thailand. Over the years we’ve ordered quite a wide cross section of the menu and everything has been good but among our favorite dishes have been the Miang Kana appetizer, the exquisite crab omelet, giant grilled river prawns and the lotus stem yellow curry. And we always try to order the grilled stuff chicken wings ahead of our arrival because they often times run out of it and it is a dish I would hate to miss.
Nobody can say where you’ll find the best Pad Thai in Bangkok but the best we’ve ever eaten was at Thip Samai in the Phranakorn section of the city. Different variations of Pad Thai is all that is on the menu. My personal favorite is known as Superb Pad Thai. It comes with stir fried vermicelli, shrimp roe and shrimp and is wrapped in a thin pancake of fried egg. On our last visit in 2012 it was 60 baht.
See http://www.se-asiatravel.com/thailan...aurant-report/ for reviews of earlier visits to these 2 plus a few other restaurants and a link to a short video shot in Thip Samai.
Nobody can say where you’ll find the best Pad Thai in Bangkok but the best we’ve ever eaten was at Thip Samai in the Phranakorn section of the city. Different variations of Pad Thai is all that is on the menu. My personal favorite is known as Superb Pad Thai. It comes with stir fried vermicelli, shrimp roe and shrimp and is wrapped in a thin pancake of fried egg. On our last visit in 2012 it was 60 baht.
See http://www.se-asiatravel.com/thailan...aurant-report/ for reviews of earlier visits to these 2 plus a few other restaurants and a link to a short video shot in Thip Samai.
Feb 18th, 2013, 05:41 AM
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Another recommendation for Krua Apsom. Delicious crab (shelled!) in simple surroundings. Too bad they ran out of the legendary crab omelet and we didn't get to sample it. There are two locations. The one we went to was stuffed with government workers from nearby offices.
Feb 18th, 2013, 07:53 AM
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As for restaurants, for me my personal choices are:
1) Basil Restaurant-I've eaten here several times, but back when Chef Sutthaporn Chulavachana was around. I don't know if she's still there. I even had a private cooking lesson with her which was great. From what I remember, the restaurant closed and then reopened and is now back and seems to be going strong. It's not cheap. I do lunch there. I can still taste that food in my mouth. Smiles.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...k.html#REVIEWS
2) Lemongrass-I really liked the food there. I have friends, here in L.A., who have been eating there for decades and they still go there and also request some dishes that are no longer on the menu, but the kitchen has no problem making them for them. I ate there with some of the fodorites on this forum. I had put it off for years although the place is across from the serviced apartment building that I stay in. I'm glad I tried it.
Lemongrass is very easy to find. Just take the BTS to Promphong BTS staition. When you get off the skytrain and face Emporium Mall, Sukhumvit 24 is the first street to the left of the mall. You can actually see the restaurant from the elevated skytrain station. It's at the beginning of the soi.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...s-Bangkok.html
3) Thanying- Some years ago, I decided to try it since I had been eating at the one in Singapore since the early 2000s (inside the Amara Hotel). So, a Thai friend and I dropped by the Bangkok one for lunch and we were both very pleased. It's over in Silom.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...k.html#REVIEWS
There are lots of other places where I've eaten in Bangkok, but I can't remember them all. Plus, I don't always eat Thai food as I get plenty of that here in L.A. County, and especially having Thai friends who own Thai restaurants. I eat more Thai food, here at home, than American food. So, I tend to mix things up when in Bangkok, along with cooking at the apartment.
Happy Travels!
1) Basil Restaurant-I've eaten here several times, but back when Chef Sutthaporn Chulavachana was around. I don't know if she's still there. I even had a private cooking lesson with her which was great. From what I remember, the restaurant closed and then reopened and is now back and seems to be going strong. It's not cheap. I do lunch there. I can still taste that food in my mouth. Smiles.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...k.html#REVIEWS
2) Lemongrass-I really liked the food there. I have friends, here in L.A., who have been eating there for decades and they still go there and also request some dishes that are no longer on the menu, but the kitchen has no problem making them for them. I ate there with some of the fodorites on this forum. I had put it off for years although the place is across from the serviced apartment building that I stay in. I'm glad I tried it.
Lemongrass is very easy to find. Just take the BTS to Promphong BTS staition. When you get off the skytrain and face Emporium Mall, Sukhumvit 24 is the first street to the left of the mall. You can actually see the restaurant from the elevated skytrain station. It's at the beginning of the soi.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...s-Bangkok.html
3) Thanying- Some years ago, I decided to try it since I had been eating at the one in Singapore since the early 2000s (inside the Amara Hotel). So, a Thai friend and I dropped by the Bangkok one for lunch and we were both very pleased. It's over in Silom.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restauran...k.html#REVIEWS
There are lots of other places where I've eaten in Bangkok, but I can't remember them all. Plus, I don't always eat Thai food as I get plenty of that here in L.A. County, and especially having Thai friends who own Thai restaurants. I eat more Thai food, here at home, than American food. So, I tend to mix things up when in Bangkok, along with cooking at the apartment.
Happy Travels!
Feb 18th, 2013, 04:55 PM
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Fantastic. Thank u Mediakzar, I'm drooling. Appreciate the bait!
Marija- will look for the poo omelet there! Thanks.
Guenmai- Im there! And there. And there. Thx so much.
Mucho apprecioso!
Marija- will look for the poo omelet there! Thanks.
Guenmai- Im there! And there. And there. Thx so much.
Mucho apprecioso!
Feb 18th, 2013, 06:59 PM
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PaganiPilot: I clicked on my screen name and my trip report was there. Below is what I had written about Basil. I remember mentioning it in another trip report,too. This was from Aug 2006, as I was in BKK twice on vacation that year; Dec/Jan and Aug. I haven't written trip reports every year that I've been there.
" As for today, well I went over to the Sheraton on Sukhumvit and the absolutely wonderful Chef Chulavachana gave me a one-on-one cooking course. The restaurant was closed between lunch and dinner so it was just the two of us....The other chef...the one that I talked to for quite a while...in December... has resigned, moved to Virginia, and opened a Thai restaurant. Good for him. So, the regular chef is back after about a year in Jakarta. She's really great. She said that the dream of many Thai chefs is to move to the States and open a restaurant...but it takes a lot of money.
We cooked Pla Gung...a spicy lobster salad with huge pieces of lobster...Tod Manpla....deep fried fish cakes...made from fresh,fileted fish that was food processed to look like meatloaf texture...At first I had chosen to cook deep fried crab cakes, but when I got there I noticed a big clump of something that resembled meat, which I haven't eaten in 30 years. Well, it was ground pork which is added to the crab. So,we had to move on to plan B and she had the sous chef prepare the makings for the deep fried fish cakes.
Then we made Tom Yum Kung soup...Hot and sour prawn soup which I eat a lot of in L.A. I love the stuff. It had huge shrimp in it. Then it was on to Pad Thai...which was perfection. And to end we whipped up bananas and coconut creme. You have to boil the bananas first.
I was eating between dish preparations. You cook it all yourself. Then I mentioned that my favorite Thai desert has always been sticky rice and mango. It wasn't on the menu for us to cook, but she disappeared and came back with a plate of absolutely beyond delicious sticky rice and mango. I had it there back in December. After it was all over and I could hardly breathe from having eaten so much, she wrapped all the extra food up and sent me on my way to fill my fridge. I have a huge kitchen at the apartment...and a nice size fridge.
She cooked up the whole mixture of fish cakes which looked like a mountain on a plate. I told her I'd eat them for breakfast tomorrow with scrambled eggs and toast. She looked horrified...absolutely horrified...and then we both started laughing hysterically. She and I had similiar senses of humor.
I paid 1950Baht plus a service charge and VAT for this experience...but it was worth every baht...priceless...Total...2295.15 Baht. When I ate lunch there in December I spent not far from 1900 baht so I figured this time it would be cost saving to take a cooking course and have tons of leftover food to take home. The telephone number is (02) 649.8888 if you're interested. The course is for three hours or until you pass out from overeating...whichever comes first. I arrived at 2:45PM... She starts at 3:00PM. I was finished by 4:45PM and was back in my apartment by 5:00PM.It's a minute and a half on the skytrain from my building."
Happy Travels!
" As for today, well I went over to the Sheraton on Sukhumvit and the absolutely wonderful Chef Chulavachana gave me a one-on-one cooking course. The restaurant was closed between lunch and dinner so it was just the two of us....The other chef...the one that I talked to for quite a while...in December... has resigned, moved to Virginia, and opened a Thai restaurant. Good for him. So, the regular chef is back after about a year in Jakarta. She's really great. She said that the dream of many Thai chefs is to move to the States and open a restaurant...but it takes a lot of money.
We cooked Pla Gung...a spicy lobster salad with huge pieces of lobster...Tod Manpla....deep fried fish cakes...made from fresh,fileted fish that was food processed to look like meatloaf texture...At first I had chosen to cook deep fried crab cakes, but when I got there I noticed a big clump of something that resembled meat, which I haven't eaten in 30 years. Well, it was ground pork which is added to the crab. So,we had to move on to plan B and she had the sous chef prepare the makings for the deep fried fish cakes.
Then we made Tom Yum Kung soup...Hot and sour prawn soup which I eat a lot of in L.A. I love the stuff. It had huge shrimp in it. Then it was on to Pad Thai...which was perfection. And to end we whipped up bananas and coconut creme. You have to boil the bananas first.
I was eating between dish preparations. You cook it all yourself. Then I mentioned that my favorite Thai desert has always been sticky rice and mango. It wasn't on the menu for us to cook, but she disappeared and came back with a plate of absolutely beyond delicious sticky rice and mango. I had it there back in December. After it was all over and I could hardly breathe from having eaten so much, she wrapped all the extra food up and sent me on my way to fill my fridge. I have a huge kitchen at the apartment...and a nice size fridge.
She cooked up the whole mixture of fish cakes which looked like a mountain on a plate. I told her I'd eat them for breakfast tomorrow with scrambled eggs and toast. She looked horrified...absolutely horrified...and then we both started laughing hysterically. She and I had similiar senses of humor.
I paid 1950Baht plus a service charge and VAT for this experience...but it was worth every baht...priceless...Total...2295.15 Baht. When I ate lunch there in December I spent not far from 1900 baht so I figured this time it would be cost saving to take a cooking course and have tons of leftover food to take home. The telephone number is (02) 649.8888 if you're interested. The course is for three hours or until you pass out from overeating...whichever comes first. I arrived at 2:45PM... She starts at 3:00PM. I was finished by 4:45PM and was back in my apartment by 5:00PM.It's a minute and a half on the skytrain from my building."
Happy Travels!
