Was there from 18th till 20th July. My first time at BKK, while it's a recurring trip for the rest of the gang. We ate twice at Platinum Fashion Mall 'coz it's conveniently located opposite our hotel...
Platinum Fashion Mall
Food Centre at Level 6
At Platinum Food Centre, they go by cashless concept, and you got to purchase the Food Centre card from counter at Level 6 (opposite the dessert stalls). Food prices start from roughly 40 baht onwards, while drinks from 12 baht onwards. So armed with 3 cards, we went around various stalls and bought a couple of items to share.
The orh luak was nice, although it's more starchy than SG's version. Plump oysters (not very big) coated with fried egg and eaten with beansprouts that has been heated up by the hotplate.. yums!
oyster omelette, with phad thai next to it...
Had a shock when I first saw the chicken satay. First thought, "So flat??!" Haha, second thought, "Served with toasted bread?!?" Hahaha, talk about food culture shock! The chicken satay has very lean meat, and is well marinated with tumeric. There's a pork version as well, and it is darker in color. I felt that the pork version has a much nicer texture. Maybe because of its higher fats content.
chicken satay
The stalls selling satay has this jar of yellow liquid that I thought was oil. Apparently, it turned out to be some vinegary syrup that they will pour into the bowl of raw cucumber, onions and green chili salad. Sweet and refreshing (because I didn't eat the chili!)
salad (came with the satay)
If you want clear tasting soup, go for the fishball soup. Very clean tasting. The assorted fishballs had some tasty ones, some bland ones and others tasted pretty ordinary...
assorted fishball soup
Do order the beef noodles soup served in claypot. I don't know which stall it came from, but it has a rich flavoured robust soup. Spicy as well! Shioks!
Another winner is the fried chicken cutlet rice. Simple dish that fills you up, and the chicken was super crispy! The rice if not wrong, shoud be tumeric rice?
fried chicken cutlet rice
Apart from Platinum Food Centre, we also ventured into Chinatown for some sharks fin and bird nest. How commonly typical of us Asian tourists! :P
sights from Chinatown (Yaowarat)
My friend brought us to this dingy looking little restaurant. It's kitchen is right at the front of the restaurant (at the left hand side), while on its right flank, is selling cakes/dim sums. In the middle is the entrance to its dining area where you walk up a little step to the dining tables. As we enter, we were greeted by a Caucasian chef, who sounded French. Wait a minute... a French chef, in Thailand, and in a Chinese restaurant no less... whoa! The world has just gotten smaller. ;)
inside the restaurant
shark fin (500 baht, feeds 2-3 pax)
scooping it up
into my bowl, add a little pepper, add a little vinegar
with mushroom, a little crab meat, some fins and lots of beansprouts, and starchy soup
morning glory or 'kang kong' that looked 'old' but still yummy!
Is it just me? But I felt that roasted duck meat in Thailand, was so good! The sauce tends to be on the sweeter side, but the meat was really tender. Yums!
roasted duck (small @ 120 baht)
crab tang hoon
The crab tang hoon was another favourite. Probably because I needed the carbs! The noodles has a glistening sheen and has absorbed much of the essence. You can practically taste the sea with each strand of the noodles! However, towards the bottom of the pot, it became overly salty! The crab tang hoon here is cooked together with pork fats layered at the bottom of the claypot. The crab meat itself was firm, but lost much of it's taste to the noodles...
disappointingly tasteless meat...
Our group of 4 were full to the brim, but two of them decided to go ahead with the finale. Birdnest! Another friend and myself, were too stuffed to eat one more drop...
murky looking soup
bird nest shreds...
The birdnest was served warm, and has a mild sweetness to it. It certainly is different from the birdnest that mom cooked. Heh :P
Other restaurant that we tried, was MK Restaurant. It's a steamboat place, ordered ala-carte style. It's unlike the steamboat in SG, because the soup base was practically just plain water. Or maybe sweetened plain water?
mushrooms and vege (feeds 4)
beef slice, pig's liver and kidney, shrimp wantons, spinach noodles...
nothing left...
The soy chili sauce dip, was sweet! Hahaa, in Thailand, seemed like they like it spicy and sweet! The attraction of MK, should be of it's reasonably priced items and, a sudden dance routine performed by their staff, when you were in the middle of your meal! Yea.. dance! Quite entertaining.
cute staff doing the mk dance
We also explored Chatuchak and Aw Taw Kaw (farmer's market). After listening to horror story from colleague who fell ill after drinking tea from roadside stalls, I have this fear of eating from the streets. Yup, blame it all on him! But better to err on the safe side, I think. My tummy did felt uncomfortable after that dinner at MK... but most likely it was my own doing of not properly cooking the food 'coz no one else who ate the same thing felt ill.
food and drinks vendors at Chatuchak
mango stall at Aw Taw Kaw
The prices at the Farmer's Market tend to be pricier than standard market price in Thailand.
ripe and sweet mango (200 baht for 1kg)
I like the Black Canyon Cafe at Platinum Mall for it's inexpensive coffee and snacks. 1 cup of mocha for 65 baht? That's about SGD$2.80+.
super thick cafe mocha
smoked chicken sandwich
Of course, we explored a bit of our hotel as well. Amari Watergate was a pleasant hotel to stay. It has a cafe, called 'Bakery' that is open from 8am till 10pm. Of course, eating in the hotel means we gotta pay tax and service charge.
at 930pm, not much cakes left...
thai iced tea
Bakery's Thai Iced Tea costs about 150 baht before taxes, and it was quite delicious! But the price is double of the cafe just across the road!
Typically, the standard deluxe room do not come with breakfast. According to the staff, the breakfast price is 1200 baht. Which sounds really exorbhitant! However, we managed to get the breakfast at a discounted rate during our last day of stay, at a more reasonable rate.
It was rather disappointing, really. The spread was not like wow, but the quality of food was ok. The omelette counter was most popular! That was the only hot food counter that cooks fresh on the spot. The rest of the items available include the usual breads and pastries, salads, cereals and juices. I wished they had local items like phad thai, or something like that! But they only had fried noodles, which was just passable...
what was on my plate... well, no appetite after bouts of tummy ache the night before..
My friends found that the meal was quite ok for the price we paid.
sausages, noodles and ham
pastries
Was an enjoyable experience, but wished we had more time to try more of their local food!
Posts
