This Southern Thai restaurant was highly recommended by a friend who took us there. No where around the restaurant or the name card did it mention its English name, but I’ve translated it to be Khua Kling + Pak Sod which I think is the name of two Thai dishes. Hidden in a small street, the outside of the restaurant is very unassuming and if I just drove by (and not knowing Thai), I would not have known that it was a restaurant. Inside, the restaurant is like a relaxing family style restaurant, simple yet cozy. While for most dishes, presentation is not the main focus, for sure the taste of the foods are, and they are excellent!

Pork Leg with Tofu and Eggs – A simple dish yet very flavourful. The pork was cooked very tender and the hard boiled eggs went well with the sauce. The tofu was the fried kind and tasted great as it soaked up much of the sauce.
Fried Basil (Ka-Prow) with Chicken – Another simple dish, but I love my spices, and the fried basil was cooked really nicely with the chicken.
Thai Style Omelet – This looks exactly like the corned beef and eggs I’ve eaten at Hong Kong bing sut’s, but instead of corned beef, this one uses minced pork. Again, very simple, very tasty. Yum!
Southern Green Curry and Chili with Beef – Most Thai green curries I’ve tried tended to be watery. This Southern Green Curry had a thick sauce for a change and was nice. There was good spice to the curry and the beef was soft and tender. Perfect to mix with rice.
Fried Fish with Turmeric Flavor – Very appetising when you first look at it, and it reminded me of a fried fish that I ate in Jakarta which was excellent. While the fish was nicely cooked and not oily, unfortunately, I felt that the flavours were slightly lacking.
Deep Fried Prawn with Tamarind Sauce – This was easily the best dish of the night and highly recommended. The prawns were fresh and succulent and the sauce was slightly sweet but went really well with the prawns. The fried garlic chips also added some nice crunch and flavours to the prawns.
Khua Kling with Soft Bone – I said that I liked spicy foods and so this dish was ordered. What can I say? Slow burn… and once it gets started, it doesn’t stop! Don’t get me wrong, this dish was wonderful and the name of the dish is in the name of the restaurant afterall!! The burning sensation though, is totally different from Sichuan spice and perhaps suprised me a bit. Very spicy but good!

This restaurant is truly a great place to eat. Though there is English on the menu, it seemed like everyone else in the restaurant was Thai, and that’s just the way I like it. The best foods are usually where the locals eat and therefore this is the kind of place I love to visit.

Highly Recommended:

• Deep Fried Prawn with Tamarind Sauce
• Fried Basil (Ka-Prow) with Chicken
• Khua Kling with Soft Bone (if you like spicy)

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Khua Kling + Pak Sod (คั่วกลิ้ง + ผักสด)
98/1, Thong Lor Soi 5, Bangkok, Thailand (near-ish Thong Lor BTS)
+66 02 785 3977

In The Mood For Love, the name is funky for a sushi bar and is based off of the Wong Kar Wai movie. It sets the tone for their specialty rolls which are a mix of funky new styles and old traditional recipes. For the most part, the food was excellent but at the same time, quite expensive for a restaurant in Bangkok. The decor at the restaurant is quite cozy and the seating is nicely spaced.

Sweet 16 – eel . spicy tuna . avocado . shrimp roe . strawberry
The Sweet 16 is the restaurant’s signature maki and showcases their funkiness. Strawberries? I gotta say that I thought this was a bit weird. Who puts strawberries in their sushi? But upon trying it, the sweetness of the strawberries surprisingly went quite well with the spicy tuna. All in all, it was pleasant surprise.

Guilty but happy – shrimp tempura . ebiko . cream cheese . scallion . mayo . red sauce drizzle . wasabi mayo . nitsume sauce
You can’t really go wrong with shrimp tempura and cream cheese. The shrimp was nice and crispy and the roll tasted good, but perhaps could use a bit less mayo.

Aikamo toban
This is pan-fried duck breast with bunno sauce. The duck was cooked well and very tender whilst the sauce was not too sweet.

C4 – deep fried bbq eel . mozzarella . spicy salmon . cucumber . drizzle of nitsume sauce
Another funky roll as the deep fried BBQ eel was nice and crispy and tasted great with the spice of the spicy salmon.

Spicy tuna roll
There was good spice to the tuna roll and it tasted fresh.

Gindara saikyo yaki
Grilled black cod with miso. With cod being such a fatty fish, it should taste good no matter what you do it. It was grilled nicely with a nice colour and a squeeze of lemon adds nice acidity and taste to the fish.

Black widow roll – soft shell crab . avocado
Soft shell crab and avocado were fresh and nice.

Roku nigiri
More fresh and tasty fish!

Four seasons roll – Thai-French beef with four dippings
A nice light sear on the beef.

Recommended:

• Guilty but happy – shrimp tempura . ebiko . cream cheese . scallion . mayo . red sauce drizzle . wasabi mayo . nitsume sauce
• C4 – deep fried bbq eel . mozzarella . spicy salmon . cucumber . drizzle of nitsume sauce
• Aikamo toban

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In The Mood For Love – Sushi Bar & Bistro
9/9, Sukhumvit Soi 36, Klongtuey, Bangkok, Thailand 10110 (near Thong Lo BTS)
+66 02 661 5076

Located on Sukhumvit, Bella Napoli looks like a classic Italian restaurant with the red and white table cloths. Its walls are lined with articles of restaurant reviews and felt quite cozy. Its menu looks like it was slapped together on the fly as the words are not always lined up, with a mix of capital letters in sometimes odd places and certain words highlighted. But in the end, what the menu looks like is irrelevant as long as the food is great. In this aspect, Bella Napoli does it pretty well.

Spaghetti Misto Mare
The pastas at Bella Napoli arrive in a unique way in a clay pot and are covered with pizza bread. The pizza bread was excellent and tasted great with the pasta sauce. The spaghetti misto mare itself is a mixed seafood pasta and minus the squid rings, it also tasted pretty good. Note: I can’t comment on the squid not because it was bad or anything, but because I hate eating squid.

Lasagne del Chef Ragu’whit Tenderloin
The lasagna was just average. The beef was tender enough and it tasted fine, but unlike the pizza, it was nothing special and next time I would probably order something else instead.

Pizza (half-half) – Truffle White (mozzarella . mushroom . parma cheese . truffle oil) and Carpaccio (tomato . mozzarella . beef-slice . parmesan cheese . rocket)
In order to try more flavours, we ordered the pizza half-half. When ordering, it was the Carpaccio that I really wanted to try as it sounded really good. But during tasting, it was easily the Truffle White that blew me away. Everything on the Truffle White just worked well with each other and the cheese just flavoured the slightly crunchy crust really well. With the Carpaccio, perhaps it was just the high expectations I had prior to trying it that left me a bit disappointed.

Authentic Tiramisu (homemade)
It says authentic, but the Tiramisu just didn’t taste that good to me. It looks pretty nice, but perhaps not enough mascarpone for me.

Authentic Italian Ice Cream (homemade) Drown in Coffee
I love ice cream, and I love coffee, so this was just excellent. The bitterness of the espresso went well with the creaminess of the ice cream making this thoroughly enjoyable. Simple, yet yummm!!

If for nothing else, the pizzas here are good. There were many many other types to try, yet we only got to try two, so definitely will need to try another one next time I’m back in Bangkok.

Recommended:

• Spaghetti Misto Mare
• Pizza – Truffle White (mozzarella . mushroom . parma cheese . truffle oil)
• Authentic Italian Ice Cream (homemade) Drown in Coffee

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Bella Napoli
3/3, Sukhumvit Soi 31, Bangkok, Thailand 10110 (near Asok or Phrom Phong BTS)
+66 02 259 0405

This place is like the Inside Out/Frites of Bangkok. They serve some Belgian food but its mixed with other fusion types, along with a decent selection of Belgian beers. What I was super impressed with though, was the availability of Trappistes Rochefort 10 (so far still the BEST beer in the world, IMO) at a somewhat reasonable price. A bottle was still 290 baht ($79), but this is still better than the $110 that I saw at Frites. I did think that their Chimay Blue though was overpriced considering I could get it in Hong Kong for $30.

HOBS is located in what appears to be a very cozy complex although its Ari branch seems it might be a bit far from the BTS. The complex though is nicely decorated with an open air, relaxing garden environment. There is also an indoor section for those that wish for air-conditioning.

Belgian Fries
The fries are supposed to be ‘Belgian’ fries, but were well, just fries to me. They tasted pretty good, and it came with 6 different dipping sauces. They include pesto, wasabi, garlic mayo, curry, ketchup (I think) and mayo (I think). I thought that the best two were the wasabi and the garlic mayo sauces. They are worth trying as a snack with your beers!

If I have time the next time I’m back in Bangkok, I will definitely be back for my favourite beer if nothing else! You can check out my simple review of beers here: https://anotherdreamytraveller.wordpress.com/beer-anyone/

Recommended:

• Trappistes Rochefort 10
• Chimay Blue “Grande Reserve”
• ‘Belgian’ fries

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HOBS House of Beers @ Aree Garden
Soi Ari Samphan 11, Phaya Thai, Bangkok, Thailand (opposite Ministry of Finance)(closest BTS is Ari)
+66 02 617 1600

I love breakfast for dinner and Matchbox has a Special Set and a Normal Set that is interesting. The Special Set consisted of the “Floating Platform Chicken Pie” (雞批浮台), Banana Pancake and Coffee/Tea. The Normal Set consisted of Buttered Toast, Scrambled Eggs & Ham, Roast Pork Macaroni and Coffee/Tea.

Special Set – “Floating Platform Chicken Pie” (雞批浮台) . Banana Pancake . Coffee/Tea
“Floating Platform Chicken Pie” (雞批浮台) – If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been going on about pea soup recently. Pea soup at Amber, Caprice and FINDS. Now for pea soup at a bing sut. Like I’ve said before, I hate peas but I have been relatively impressed with the pea soups I’ve tried so far. The pea soup that surrounds this chicken pie though, is super pea tasting and not to my liking… almost like mashed peas. BUT I have to say that when you mix the chicken pie with the pea soup together, it becomes something totally different and amazing. Add some ketchup with the pie and WOW! This mixture had to be an accident in the making. I cannot imagine anyone mixing these foods together saying that it would taste good, yet when it is actually done, it is simple and great! I will definitely be back for more of this!

Banana Pancake – Simply just pancakes, banana and walnut. This was much better the second time around that I tried it. The first time, there really was not enough sauce. The pancakes are average while the sweet sweet bananas were great, but I did not think that the walnuts were necessary. The sauce though, went well with everything.

Normal Set – Scrambled Eggs & Ham with Toast . Roast Pork Macaroni . Coffee/Tea
Scrambled Eggs & Ham with Toast – The toast was tasty and the ham added the saltiness necessary to the scrambled eggs. The eggs were a little bit overcooked (not always, so a consistency issue) as I love them runny.

Roast Pork Macaroni – Not much you can say about roast pork and macaroni, but the pork here was quite tender when compared with that at Capital Cafe, while the macaroni was average. Note that I do much prefer instant noodles over macaroni!!

Hot Milk Tea – I don’t think I’m a good judge of milk tea as I prefer coffee, but in this case, it was pretty good.

Overall, I would definitely come back for the Floating Platform Chicken Pie. Its just too good not to try again and again!! The other foods are nothing special, but aren’t bad

Recommended:

• “Floating Platform Chicken Pie” (雞批浮台)

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Matchbox (喜喜冰室)
G/F, Highland Mansion, 8 Cleveland Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong
2868 0363