Little Beast

Represented by their illustration of French bull dog, Little Beast holds its nest at Thonglor soi 13. The ambience portraits the cage of the beast with black tone iron and dim lighting. As the chef, Chef Nan has been working at starred restaurants(French Laundry , Per Se, Jean-George) in U.S.A., This American infused French bistro serves various unique dishes in style.

  

We had 2 combination of chacuteries as our starters. Salmon Rillettes and Fennel Chiken Sausage. Salmon flesh is finely shredded and the fat was very creamy. Chicken sausage has a nice chunky texture and was enjoyable, even though I couldn’t sense the flavor of fennel in there.  

Another starter, Lamb meat ball. The texture was soft and moist. In another word, too soggy. It could have been more a little chewy and chuncky. I couldn't feel the taste or the smell of lamb from the meat ball at all.

Braised pork cheek with truffle oil penne. This is the star of the meal. Penne was cooked to perfect al dente. The sauce was rich and creamy, intensified with truffle oil. Braised pork cheek was tender that it almost melt in our mouth. 2 thumps up for this dish.

Crispy Chicken Stew was panfried Chicken in a light stew soup. The meat was packed with juice. And the skin was crispy. I wish the meat has absorbed the flavor in stew soup somehow so that the overall flavor is united. Yet consider this as a poultry main dish with light sauce(stew), it was satisfying.

Another star of the meal was this  Corned beef tongue. The tongue was nicely braised and wasn’t as salty as we expected from the word ‘corned’. This was a finely cooked tender piece of meat with creamy sauce of potato coulis. Very enjoyable.

   

This Cheeseburger slider was finely made. Even though the Beef patty was cooked well done and we found it was a bit harden. The patty was fully pack with flavor and has nice aroma. The speciality of the dish lies between the patty and the bun. It was onion bacon jam made from Caramelized onion and bacon. This enrich the flavor of the dish perfectly.

Despite lip smacking dishes above, I must say some of the food wasn't my cup of tea. Crispy pork belly is one of the main dish we ordered. Even though this is braised nicely to tenderness that the fatty part melts in our mouth, the meat part could have been more juicy than this. It was rather dry. I don't think this dish has been sou vide, may be it was slow cooked with some other method.

Overall it was a great dinner. Only that the menu is very limited. 13 kinds of starters. 12 kind of platters. 3 kinds of dessert. I would visit them again after a while but not too soon. As I would like to savor new dishes from the promising Chef after the menu is updated.

Little Beast

44/9-10 Thonglor 13, Bangkok

Tue - Sat:  5:30 pm - 1:00 am

Sun:  5:30 pm - 12:00 am

02-185-2670

Benihana 紅花

Located at Anantara Riverside Resort and Spa, BENIHANA is one of the most authentic Teppayaki restaurant in Thailand. This restaurant is originally from America. Serving meat and seafood grilled on hotplate with playful cooking method.

BENI = Red Color. HANA = Flower. That explians why the restaurant is decorated with Red tone contrasted with Black color.

This is the man behind our meal. The slogan ‘Eatertainment’ of BENIHANA sure lives up to its name. He cooked ingrredients right before our eyes all entire meal. His cooking is eye cathching and very fancy.

The chef manuer his cooking tool skillfully. He tossed everything from spatular to salt shakers and catched them agilely. EX : in this pic he catched salt shakers with his chef hat.

The plate and the logo of BENIHANA, the red flower.

If you are one of those who can’t use Chopsticks perfectly, BENIHANA has a solution for you. These are tied with rubber bands. It works like a small plier, which is easy to use.

We has young green Edamame beans to start our meal.

This is called Onion volcano. The chef piled up onions in pyramid shape an poued in Oil and Sake before litting the fire.

While we are waiting for the ingredients to be cookedm we had ourselve a few dishes from Sushi station. This is called Motown, roll sushi stuffed with creamy Alaska King Crab. The stuffing is rich  and full flavor.

 

The next one is called River Park. A nice combination of Tuna (River) and ripen Mango(Park).

This is Tai Ceviche. Sashimi grade Snapper diced. Seasoned with Red hot chillies sauce and Hawaian Pink Salt. Refreshing and I must say this can be addictive.

Soup was Shiitake mushroon and deep fried Onion clear soup.

Tiger Prawn is the first ingredients prepraed for us.

The Prawn was plump and fresh.

The chef slowly cooked the tail of shirmp and made it a crispy snack for us.

This is aromatic and has light texture. An enjoyable treat.

Pork Fillet marinated with plum. Served with grilled Pinaapple.

Pork fillet was incredibly tender. It took almost no effort to chew. And this goes well with butter grilled Pineapple.

The next one is scallop.

The scallop was in nice quality and fresh. But I wish it was a little more plump.

This is agruably the highlight of our meal. Wagyu fillet. This is one of House Specialties, Hibachi Tuna Steak. The wagyu is accompanied with Sesame Tuna.

The sesame coating was grilled to the light crispiness. This sure enrich the flavour of Tuna very well.

Wagyu was grilled to medium rare as we ordered. The meat was tender and full flavor.

Sesame Tuna is served with stir fried veggie. Giving it a refreshing touch.

The next set of House Specialties was Salmon and Sweet sauce Saba. The salmon was grill from the skin to make it crispy.

Also Saba was grilled nicely.

Salmon was seasoned with salt. While Saba is season with sweet sauce.

The sauce was roasted on hot plate intensifyng its aroma and flavor.

The last savory was Fried Rice. Look at the height of eggyolk, and you know how fresh the egg is.

Chef was playful enough to stir fried and make a heart shape out of the fried rice. LOL

The portion was big. This is seasoned wirh sesame and Japanese Soysauce. An enjoyable fried rice.

We ended our meal with Green Tea Icecream. A rich one. Nice finale to our meal.

Overall it was another satisfying meal. The service and the chef was very friendly. We had our food cooked playfully in front of our eyes. This is more like we had been to a show or something. It was more than a mere lunch we had at BENIHANA. The slogan Eatertainment was there for a good sake afterall.  

Benihana 

Anantara Riverside Resort & Spa

11:30 - 14:30 / 18:00 - 22:30

02-476-0022 #1416

Indigo

There are some curtain reasons a reatsurant in the back of dead-end dull, dark, small alley can be so successful. Delectable food, Attentive service, Great ambience and etc. Without a doubt, Indigo has all that it takes to become one of those successful restaurants.

Indigo locates in a non-eye-catching small alley on Soi Convent. At the end of this alley, lies a colonial style house which is IMHO one of the best French restarant in BKK. Indigo is renowed for their expertise on beef menu. We came here to try out the famous beef tartare. Yet I found other treats also delightful.

  

The first starter landed on our table, Lobster mousse. Creamy, fluffy and packed with flavor of Lobster. This one of the greatest starter.

Cheeese Souffle was rich and zesty. This is aromatically burned out side, hot and melting inside. So full flavor and rich.

I am not a fan of Escargo to begin with, yet this was prepared nicely and the herbal puree in hot olive oil was indeed a delightful seasoning. I enjoyed it.

Here comes the star of our meal. Beef tartare is prepared before our eyes right next ti our table. Depends on how hungry you are, this performance is considerable a torture.

This is how it looks when the dish is completely prepared. Look at the color and the shining, you can tell the beef is in extremely good quality. Finely chopped lean top round, intensified with Caper, Pickles, Onion, Wooster Sauce, Tabasco and Egg yolk. This is to die for.

Beef tartare is accompanied with thick cut frenchfries. A hot treat like this makes a good side dish to chilled food like beef tartare.

We oredered one  of the catch of the day. It was Seabass on the day of our visit. Baked Seabass was served whole before being deboned right next to our table.

The fish was in good quality yet somehow the flesh was too dry and tastelss. After those decent treats above, We expected better from this dish.

The good news is that the Seabass was acconmpanied with Ratatouille which was delectable. The sauce was very concentratred and packed with flavour. Vegetable was soft and absorb the sauce well.

Calf Liver was the special dish of the day. The liver was nicely pan-fried and glazed with  brown sauce. This is another enjoyable treat.

It was cooked just right that ouside was not too harden and juicy inside.

The last dish was Veal Steak. The meat was so tender and juicy. It was cooked to the perfect doness of meduim rare. This is as impressice as the Beef Tartare. Empty plate left me a big smile.

  

We had our finely preapred meal (Except the fish which were disappointing) in a beautiful colonail style house. The service was friendly and attentive. When it comes to the beef menu, Indigo is agruably one of the best in town.  A meat lover like myself is more than ready to visit them again soon.  

Indigo
6 Convent Rd., Bangkok

Open daily 11:30 - 1:00am

02-235-3268

Kourakuen Ramen

It’s been only a couple of months since the opening of Gateway Ekamai, one of the newest shopping mall added in to Sukhumvit. Despite its compact size, Gateway Ekamai has quit  a number of eatery. And among those restaurants, Kourakuen Ramen is one of the most popular right now.

Ramen is kind of a cheap comfort treat for Japanese. And Korakuen inherits that conception well. Menu are all in reasonable price. A ramen for majority would be the perfect word to describe.

The menu has so many variation. Recommended menu was Original Shouyu Ramen. We took the chance ordering one. The soup was light and throat soothing. Noondles were a bit thicker than regular noodles and chewy. The only problem would be bamboo shoot which was a bit too hard to chew.

Shoyu Ramen is also available in luxury version with extra roasted pork. This wasn’t much different from the Origianl one. The only difference was the number of roasted pork.

I ordered Tsukemen myself.  They serve this concentrated dipping sauce with a pot of light soup. So that I can afterward mix the light soup with the concentrated one. Which would make the salty thick soup become more easy to drink.

Gyoza(Dumpling) was okay. Crispy shell with juicy minced pork with veggie stuffing.

In case that anyone want extra topping. Roasted pork, half boiled egg and bamboo shoot are available as set menu.

Overall it was an okay ramen joint. When it comes to the ranking of Light soup ramen in BKK, Yutaka-tei Chita Ramen remain the best for me.

But again, Korakuen Ramen is available in much cheaper price. I am sure Korakuen Ramen would be a significant alternative choice for ramen lover.  

Kourakuen Ramen

Gateway Ekamai G Floor.

Sukhumvit soi 42