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Bangkok Visual Diary - Part 1
Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2014
Hello! I've been struggling to find time to post about Bangkok since it's been exactly a month since we first embarked. Luckily for Justin and myself, we were traveling with equally foodie couple Jiehui & Renhao so we pretty much stuffed ourselves silly non-stop throughout the whole trip. It's always a little scary going overseas with new friends cause you never really know people till you travel with them, but I'm happy to say that we chose a really good couple to go with because we all had the pretty much same temperament and objectives, so everything was smoother than what we could have asked for!!!
After that we took a 700 baht maxi cab to our hotel. The price sounds super unlegit but it was from a proper taxi stand outside so guess we had no choice :(
Home sweet home for the next 4 days! We didn't know when we booked it, but on top of being a 5 star hotel, the Chatrium Riverside Hotel is suppose to be where all the Korean stars come to stay and is comparable to the St. Regis lolol. We just booked it cause it was 60% off thanks to the military coup. Score???
First foodie stop of the night - Somboon Seafood! We arrived pretty late so luckily the place was open till 11pm. Watch out when you tell the taxi drivers to come here because apparently there are copycat restaurants around Bangkok called like Sowboon or something to trick poor tourists (only in Thailand lol).
Food wise the 4 of us spent around 800 baht in total (SGD8.00 a person???) on a small Sweet Curry Crab, Tom Yum Soup, Crab Fried Rice, Fried Prawn, Fish and drinks. The Crab Fried Rice was pretty awesome cause they stuffed giant crab bits inside like it was free. The zhap (sauce) on the Sweet Curry Crab was super yummy too. The Thais like sweetness in their dishes so it's not your usual spicy curry. It was just all so cheap and value!!! Ambience wise, Somboon Seafood is more of a restaurant. It looks clean and proper and while the food was indeed good, it wasn't "dirty" enough for me haha. I'm obsessed with the fact that it ain't Thailand if it isn't on the streets and you half fear for your tummy.
We take a 10-15 minute cab ride from Somboon Seafood to find what is suppose to be damn good Mango Sticky Rice at Sukhumvit Soi 31, and it really is! It was 60 baht for the small one, 70 baht for the medium one and 80 baht for the big one (approximate SGD3.00). Obviously, we order 2 big ones for 4 of us to share. Really good stuff! They give TONS mango, but what I really like is the sticky rice (wish they gave more!) with the coconut sauce and crispy deep fried mung beans on top for added texture. Sigh if only we could eat just one more!
And the boys order a Phad Thai to share from a push cart nearby because it's not like we just had a seafood dinner 1 hour ago.
We take a stroll to walk off the food and stop by a 7-eleven to stock up on snacks and drinks for our hotel room! I always buy this giant yakult when I come to Thailand.
The next day...
We have breakfast at the hotel since it's included and it's actually quite nice with dim sum, thai noodles, the normal western fare and those egg stations with a chef to make custom omelettes etc.
We get picked up by our tailor Savile Row (the fake one) to head over to their place and make ourselves some shirts cause it's just a Bangkok thing to do! I'm a little disappointed how their service has dropped ever since I came here two years ago. The shirts are still OK but the whole fun is being treated like a queen right!!! Hehe.
Off to our next foodie adventure!
Quite a queue outside SabX2 Wanton at Petchburi 19! It's right opposite Platinum Mall but it's been so well covered on the Instagram / Blogging scene that we had to see what it was about. The pig trotter really was solid, and the wanton was i would say NICE but are we the only people who noticed that the portions are tiny??? I think Justin finished his in 3 big mouthfuls. But I guess anyway it was a good thing cause then it left more space for us to try other stuff :D
Crepe time! It's right on the corner of Petchburi 19 before you cross over to Platinum Mall. Such a long queue outside this small roadside stall, so we had to join in. I think we waited a good 10minutes just to get these. Crispy, solid, ginormous crepes. A little on the messy side to eat but worth it!!! Jiehui kept reminiscing about them for the rest of the trip hahaha.
We girls went to hit the mall for shopping while the boys did their own thing, so not much photos there. One thing we definitely needed after that was... Foot massage! Would definitely recommend Mr. Feet / Mr. Foot (talk about branding inconsistencies) nearish to Platinum mall. 300 baht an hour, so comfy that... Justin fell asleep. Hahaha. Jiehui and I just talked most of the time and instagrammed! She's super ticklish and scared of massages so I laughed at her half the time.
Dinner at Som Tam Nua! Yet another long queue. The place was again like a restaurant and very clean (sniff), but I wouldn't deny that food was good! We spent around 800 baht (SGD8.00 a person) here for 4 of us even when we ordered like 7 dishes. Their best seller is supposed to be the fried chicken which was indeed good, but I personally really liked the pork shoulder and would recommend you ordering that! I'm not a huge fish fan but the rest really, really liked it + it's only like 100+ baht (whattt). Too cheap! The namesake of the restaurant, Som Tam or Papaya Salad, was also was not bad. We had them with salted egg which is quite unusual to me.
After dinner we load up on them snackies!!! Krispy Kreme (just SGD1.00 a piece!!) and Macs cause they have awesome spicy mcwings + this fried fish ball thing. Seriously the food was non-stop.
Ok and that's all for now cause there's really too many photos to go through! I actually finished making our little video montage a week after we came back, but I'm gonna save it till when I post everything up so it won't spoil anything. Jiehui and I keep lamenting and wishing we could go back to our baller life. Sighh. Till next time!!!
