What’s up with Bangkok traffic these days? Yes, I know that bad traffic is nothing but typical of Bangkok but it’s gotten so much worse since the public holiday ended. Not only is being stuck in a car extremely annoying, but bad traffic could also take you from an amazing dinner to a very average meal in an instant.

As I already mentioned before, I’m taking classes at Le Cordon Bleu, so most of my days are spent wandering around The Dusit Thani hotel. Due to the extremely bad traffic and the rain this evening, my dinner plan at Honmono, Thonglor, was called off. I ended up having to grab a meal at the hotel instead. My mom recalled that she had a nice Vietnamese meal a long long time ago at Thien Duong. So we decided to go there.

The brilliant meal she had must be really long considering the restaurant has been opened for 19 years and the meal we had was, sadly, very average. It was one of those meals that you could find faults in every dish if you look for them, you end up pretty full at the end, but you wouldn’t remember a thing about it a week later.

First, the décor was very outdated and the light too dim in an unromantic way. The menu had all the dishes you would expect at a Vietnamese restaurant and we ended up ordering the most typical dishes – appetizer platter which consisted of “Namm Nueng” or grilled pork ball,  fresh spring roll with shrimps, minced shrimp skewered on sugar cane, and beef wrapped in “good king Henrey leaves” (that’s what it says on the menu,) beef noodle soup, and Vietnamese crepes stuffed with shrimp and bean sprouts etc.  Sadly, none of them wowed us. The shrimp balls were TINY and the Namm Nueng didn’t come with any of its usual accompaniments such as young banana and chillies. How odd, right?

Two of the dishes, however, were great! First was the fried fish with lemongrass. Like I said before, I don’t eat most of the animals that swim with the exception of fried stuff like tempura or calamari. And this dish would be one of those exceptions. The fish was so crispy without being oily and the tamarind-based sauce cut through the fat nicely. Another dish that was good was the lotus root salad. It had a nice balance between sweet and sour and the fresh vegetables were refreshing.  Although I wish that they didn’t cut the roots so fine – I would have liked more crunchiness in the dish.

Sorry that I don’t have more to say about the meal, like I said, I already don’t remember much.

Here are some pictures from the meal:

 

 

 

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Still, Bon Appétit!

Dusit Thani Bangkok , Thailand
946 Rama IV Road
Bangkok 10500

T: +66 (0) 2200 9000 ext. 2199