Best Of Bangkok : The Food

When it comes to Thai food, I always make a beeline for any vendors selling Luk Chup, mung bean flour desserts mixed with sugar, coconut cream, clear gelatin, and food-colouring. They’re so cute and I just love all the creations as they resemble mini fruits and vegetables such as carrots, mangosteens, apples, corn, bananas, chillis, cherries, etc. I have seen how they are made on tv programmes and I am sure it’s harder than it looks as you need nimble fingers in order to shape them. The colours are natural and what’s great about them is they can be brought back to Malaysia and kept in the fridge for at least 2 weeks. Paragon Bangkok food court has such a huge variety of these colourful desserts.

During my last trip there, I stumbled upon MBK’s lower ground food court and was astonished by the quality and variety of the food as well as the prices, all of which cannot be found in Malaysia. You order from a counter after perusing the menu and are issued a receipt. You then wait for your number to be called and collect from counters A to E or was it A to F?

They had a variety of fruit smoothies all of which are only 250 baht and they came in these tall glasses with a flower just as you would expect from a 5 star hotel except this is just a humble food court. Mine was a delicious coconut smoothie, you can choose from watermelon, papaya, orange and many more.

My main course was below 100 baht, it was garlic chicken, not terribly memorable but much better than what I have tried at KL shopping mall food courts. Portion was reasonable for the price.

However, the most outstanding dish was the tom yam which came in a bowl so big that it was certainly enough for 2 persons. It was just 100 baht and you could choose from mixed seafood, fish, squid tom yam. There was so much squid in this bowl that every spoonful yielded some squid. They don’t stinge on ingredients and it’s all so fresh. The soup……oh the soup was so mouth-watering that I could have consumed the whole bowl by myself. That’s what happens when one is deprived of really good tom yam in KL until one’s next trip to Thailand.

The pineapple fried rice was very, very good too. The most surprising thing about this meal is that 2 smoothies + 2 main course + 1 bowl of tom yam cost just 270 baht, unbelievable or what? How to get this kind of quality + price anywhere in KL?