My third lunch at what I will now officially declare my favourite restaurant in Bangkok: Sanguan Sri, next door to our hotel. Only open between 10AM and 3PM so mostly catering to the office crowds.
Today I had Thai fish cakes, and fried mackerel with a spicy, sour sauce. The fish cakes were excellent! Really nice with the sauce consisting of raw onion, cucumber, cilantro and diluted fish sauce. The mackerel wasn’t my favourite, but still a good dish. For dessert I had zalacca fruit in syrup.
I really like their cooking - I like to think it’s how a good Thai home cook would cook.
The breakfast situation. So I stay in a hotel renowned for having one of the best breakfast buffets in Bangkok.
Thing is: I don’t like to eat a lot for breakfast because it will mean I cannot eat as much during the day sampling the local cuisine. So usually I don’t do hotel breakfasts.
Luckily, in Bangkok food is everywhere, literally everywhere. Our hotel occupies floors 23 until 34 (the top) of a large building, with the below floors occupied by offices, meaning there are a lot of office workers around.
Downstairs is a small mall, where I sometimes get breakfast from a bery friendly lady who cooks everything herself. Every weekday she offers different options. This week I had shrimp ‘congee’ which isn’t like the HK congee, but with rice in a soup. Very nice though.
Today I had suki with pork konjac noodle, also very good. I sometimes also get some fruit, like guave here.
The other option is to go outside, to hawkers selling their stuff on the street. One guy only sells chicken rice for 50 baht, which I have had numerous times now (only option in the weekends). I then also get a Thai ice coffee from the lady next ‘door’, and or some fruit and freshly pressed orange juice. All very tasty and freshly made.
Anthony Bourdain had the roast suckling pig at Tang Jai Yoo and declared it “the best in the world”!
Tang Jai Yoo and its two close competitors, Sin Kwang Meng and Jim Jim are all Teochew/Chaozhou restaurants (called “Taechiu” in Thailand) and they practically face each other here at at the intersection of Thanon Phat Sai and Thanon Yaowaphanit, off Thanon Yaowarat. All three restaurants had been around before World War II.
Ah, I didn’t know that! Now I wished we had ordered one as well! No worries, I’ll be back…
Today is my last day, I’ll be flying home in the afternoon. Thoroughly enjoyed staying here. It’s not a perfect city what with all the broken pavements, elevated street crossings, traffic jams, but there is much to do and even more to eat!
Yes, agree, and that is also the reason why I have been going to Phuket instead of Bangkok over the past decade. I also think the food in Phuket is better, with the caveat that I know Phuket better than I know Bangkok.
I’d still recommend going to Bangkok though. There has been an influx of money going into the city over the past few years (more than in other SE Asian cities I feel) and one can sense that through eg some new very good hotels, and those still manage to offer value compared to say Hong Kong or Singapore.
But Bangkok is less of a walking city compared to especially Hong Kong. There you can just wander around comfortably plus if one is in a hurry it’s very efficient to go from a to b. In Bangkok, I usually had just 1 activity during the day just because of the travel time needed and then the need/desire to recuperate from the heat and overall city craziness.
Overall my favourite dishes were: the curries at Sanguan Sri (roast duck and beef), the oyster omelet in Chinatown, and then the black bean clams (at Oi man) and beef ribs in Hong Kong. Each of these four dishes were less than 10 euro!
These four dishes I will dream off the coming week when I’m back in ice cold Europe!
