I Eat Bangkok

Reading the “Business Times” interview with Chef Ton on Saturday had me reminiscing about my dinner at his restaurant - “Le Du”. Although it has been a few months ago since my visit, I still am in awe of the multi-course meal that I’d luxuriated in solo bliss.
A revelation in itself as I had never had a fine dining Modern Thai meal before, I found every course exquisite in plating and taste.
In spite of me feeling full to the point of bursting thanks to the parade of fantastic dishes I had throughout the evening, the dessert of Duck Egg Custard still managed to astound, enticing me to scrape up every bit of it.
Duck eggs are known to be more flavourful than chicken ones, so this was above the ordinary. Chef Ton served his rich, smooth and slightly sticky custard with lotus seeds and a shockingly good fried shallot ice-cream. The blend and balance of sweet and savoury was absolutely spot-on.
Dining at “Le Du” is very reasonably priced even though it is considered a fine dining experience. The basic 4-course set meal starts at 1,690 Baht (about SGD 72) with the option of upgrading within each section of the menu. I recommend doing their Tasting Menu though (2,990 Baht, about SGD 126) because I think it’s the best way to try the restaurant’s signatures.
All prices stated above excludes the 10% service charge.

It’s been about three weeks since I dined at “Le Du Bangkok” but that meal is still vividly etched in my memory as a string of superlatives.
Having only been exposed to Modern Thai cuisine for the first time ever at that point, I basically sat through my entire dinner in wide-eyed wonder, as my tastebuds were taken on a joyride of Thai spices and ingredients prepared using fine dining techniques.
One of the courses that left a particularly deep impression on me was the Local River Prawn with Organic Black Rice. It featured a tom yum bisque that was thickened with prawn brain and airy-light bits of crunchy scrambled egg. The rice which came from Pai, a town in the Mae Hong Soon Province of Northern Thailand, was cooked risotto style but instead of cheese, shrimp paste was used. Honest to goodness, I was blown away by how incredible it tasted after I followed the instructions to mix in the sweet pork belly jam, diced onion, fresh chilli padi, long beans and sour mango. So yup, as hard as it may be to imagine, that modest looking mound of carb practically stole the show from the giant prawn. And that’s saying a lot considering how sumptuously sweet that prawn was.

Throwback to when I was in Bangkok’s Siam Paragon food hall. Spotted this stall with huge slabs of roasted pork belly as far as the eye could see. I swear a drone camera would have done a fine job of swooping across that wide, expansive terrain of crackling to capture all the gloriousness.
Anyway, if you happen to go there and come upon this stall, I highly recommend buying a box. They serve the pork belly with three kinds of dips: mustard, a sweetish dark sauce and a spicy Sichuan-style of chilli paste. All were a good match with the meat but my top pick (despite it being an oiliness-on-oiliness scenario) would be the Sichuan one. A mouthwatering albeit arteries-clogging combo.

If I had to choose one type of seafood to have for the rest of my life, it would be squid.
My guess is most people are likely to gravitate towards premium items like sea urchin, oysters and lobsters. For me however, nothing beats the universe of umami embedded in the squid’s flesh and ink. It also doesn’t have the saltiness that is part and parcel of certain ocean-dwellers. Instead, a primal sweetness permeates. One that is showcased to stunning effect when cooked right. Ineptitude is punished hard though (quite literally) with rubberiness.
An all-time favourite of mine is the “Sotong Assam” by my mum. She marinates the squid in assam (tamarind) before stir-frying and it becomes something I can easily demolish a huge heap of, accompanied by a plate of rice.
On a recent trip to Bangkok, I chanced upon a stall in “Talad Rot Fai Market” selling grilled baby squid. Naturally, I pounced on it and got my order with a generous splash of very spicy and sour “nam prik noom” sauce. It was supremely tasty with the smokily-done squid.

has all the flavours that make us fall in love with Thai food plus the bonus of crumbly richness from the crustacean roe.
I like that they slice the green mango long and thin but not too skinny so their sour, crunchy succulence is front and centre.
Do note the default level of spiciness in this (and I’m guessing, the rest of their spicy salads) is ferocious. If you want it tamer, you ought to request for that when placing your order.

I didn’t have to travel to Bangkok’s Chinatown because it came to Siam Paragon. For a short while anyway, which is how I got to feast on this tasty bowl of braised fish maw with big, wobbly cubes of pig’s blood (something I really miss!). A dash of vinegar, a touch of chilli and a flurry of pepper, then mad slurping followed.
I am sure many of you like the food court and food hall in that shopping mall as much as me. The former allows for tucking into many kinds of Thai street food in air-conditioned comfort, the latter for its ever-changing themed events that promise a smorgasbord of delicious finds. Honestly, I don’t think I have ever visited Bangkok and not stepped in there.

My evening here was a series of jaw-dropping moments as I dived into each course of “Le Du’s Tasting Menu”, all of them intriguing and delicious interpretations of familiar Thai dishes and ingredients in contemporary guises.
This pretty plate of carbs featured a source of protein popular with the Thais - ant larvae, and it was prepared in two styles: fried and tossed in a salad for duality in texture and taste. Besides this rather exotic fare, the aromatic fluffy rice also came with snowy white chunks of blue swimmer crab meat and tender young bamboo shoots. In the basin hollowed out of the mound of rice was a pool of aromatic, lipsmackingly delicious Southern Thai style curry. Mixing everything up to eat was the best way to enjoy the immense deliciousness presented here.

The humble dish of fried eggs leapfrogs to nirvana-dom here thanks to the way they fry it in a lot of extremely hot oil until it bubbles. They then proceed to make it disappear (like the mob to a snitch), by burying it under a hefty load of raw garlic, shallots, chilli padi and fresh coriander. Seriously terrific flavours for something considered a basic.

Prior to my visit to @ledubkk, I have never had Modern Thai cuisine because whenever I get a craving for Thai food, my mind immediately leaps to classic dishes like Tom Yum, Green Curry and Drunken Noodles. A visit to Thailand has always been about where to get the tastiest version of those.
But with my epiphanic meal by @cheftonn at “Le Du”, I am now aware of the infinite deliciousness found at the intersection of Thai food and fine dining. A fine example is shown above.
The traditional local dish of rice in jasmine water is reborn here as a floral scented ice-cream. It shares the plate, and then the palate, with a large ball of minced pork, salted fish and shrimp, dried wild ginger, pickled radish, pork powder and a tiny sphere of shrimp paste.
Eating this dish is exciting to say the least because the brain is bound to be momentarily flummoxed as the tastebuds are hit. And even after it registers and calibrates to take in the new blend of flavours and sensations, it stays on high alert for the continuous intrigue and pleasure with the bites that follow.

This is a dish easily found but the one I had at Soei in Bangkok was in a league of its own. Besides the very fresh seabass, the hot and sour broth it came bubbling in had more complexity and fragrance from the fresh herbs used. It was also spiked with a lot of lime and the spiciness level was off-the-charts. So much so that I had to chase each sip of it with a bite of cucumber to cool my mouth down.

Never did I expect to indulge in innovative Turkish cuisine in Bangkok, let alone a multi-course meal that astounded and allowed me to learn about Turkish heritage and food.
Listed in #asias50best restaurants 2017, @thehouseonsathorn serves a Signature Journey Tasting Menu in “The Dining Room” that I found to be thoroughly enjoyable.
It isn’t everyday one gets to dine in a colonial mansion that’s almost 130 years old, furnished in the most resplendent style. Any fears I had that I was in for a stuffy time evaporated once I read the menu. Chef and Culinary Director @fatih_tutak is a man with a sense of humour.
As each course arrived, Chef shared the story behind it, so the meal unfolded like a culinary tale of Turkish history alongside references to his own life. It began with delicious Mezzes: Foie gras & sweet fig jam in Turkish wafer halva, “Lady’s Thigh” Wagyu kofta, Black mussel in an edible shell, “Menemen Egg” (a soft-cooked egg with “sucuk” & kashkaval cheese), as well as Pide bread served with “Kaymak” (clotted cream and honey comb) & a spicy “Cokelek” that‘s to-die-for.
Next was a dish with the funniest moniker: “Thailand Has Plenty Of Crab Hallelujah” which I‘ve posted about separately, so please go read it.
Then came the “Most Delicious Part Of The Turkish Salad”, a refreshing cold soup of feta, tomato, juice of salad & “Ekmek”, followed by the “Zeytinya Of Summer”, a trompe l'oeil of sweet peppers, umami cream & green paste.
A tribute to his mother appeared after, in the delicious form of “Manti”, “Kaymak”, vegetables and mint cream.
Representatives from the ocean and the sky were the last two courses before desserts. The former was seabass with artichoke and avgolemono, while the latter was a 17-day-aged charcoal-roasted Anju quail with rainbow chard and grape.
The desserts of “Bici Bici” (rose flavoured shaved ice) and sheep cheese curd with goat milk ice-cream were playful and really scrumptious. Same goes for the pair of petit fours, one of chocolate and the other of pomegranate liquid encased in white cacao, that were delivered on a bonsai tree.

This seems to be the must-try dish at Soei. And if it’s good enough for @chefaz of “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern” fame and Mark Wiens (@migrationology), it’s definitely good enough for me
Super light and grease-free, the garlic-loaded fried mackerel mouths (which are essentially hollow fish heads), are guaranteed to hook and reel you in with their all-too-tasty crunchiness. It sounds cliché but honestly, it was impossible to stop once I had my first one.
Thanks @djxnth and @happygreedyfoodie for sharing about this place. It is now on my list of must-visits-when-in-Bangkok.