Banh Khun Mae

And I'm disappointed that after all these years of pilgrimage to Bangkok faithfully year on year, I still cannot speak a sentence in Thai. :(

For what I can't speak, I'll just point and eat :)

"Secret recipes passed down from generation to generation were collected, treasured and presented for your delectation by Ban Khun Mae, the restaurant that is equally famous for its authentic tastes, ambience and warm Thai hospitally." taken from their website. Which I will concur, save for the typographical errors. :)

If you've never heard of the term repeat visits, then you have not joined my family on our repeats. It's a cycle really. A fixed pattern of change. Every year we go on our annual Bangkok trip and for at least one meal, we have it at Ban Khun Mae.

This was our version of the restaurant.

Nigel says, "Which one? The dark and dim place? There's live music at night?"

Yup. That's right. :)

 

The dollop of coconut cream that must be stirred into the green curry to enjoy the richness of the tender chicken green curry gravy that makes you want to eat a lot more rice than you already are having. :p

Just in case you don't know what gives it that green color, it's not the eggplant but a mixed paste of green chillies that have been pounded and mashed before its addition to the curry paste that gives it a green colour. Likewise for red curry, which gets its colour not from the curry paste but made a deeper shade of red by the red chillies pounded and mashed into a paste.

This is lard nation. Honestly. Thick pieces of pork fat give that glistening texture to the glass noodles and that also accounts for all that flavour and more bite! You can't stop eating those flavourful glass noodles fried with shallots and dark soy sauce perhaps till you see those pork fat pieces but even then...

Huge river prawns accompany this dish. Fresh and firm prawns. Mmm.

Pla Gow, the garoupa is used for this deep fried fish dish drizzled with tamarind and sweet Thai chilli sauce. This is the dish that saw my dad eating both the head and the tail, crunching his teeth on those deep fried pieces of fish meat, cartilage and bone!
The sauce might be too sweet and cloying after a while but the flesh of this fish stays juicy and sweet, well encased in its deep fried exterior. :)

And let's not forget our greens. I'm not biased but really, even this was well done.

Fresh and crunchy kai lan fried with straw mushrooms and oyster sauce.

No one's gotta tell us to eat our greens when cooked like this :)

458/6-9 Siam Square Soi 8, Rama 1 Road, 10330, Thailand

11am - 11pm

Mondays- Sundays.