Erawan Tea Room, Bangkok

lovely icy cold Lemonade. Awesome on a smoking hot day in Bangkok. This isn't the first time I'm posting about Erawan Tea Room. So it's kinda like a must go whenever you are in town for its comfy ambience and amazing food. How I saw its price list crept over the years from 240 baht for a tea set to 380 baht and during festive seasons like Christmas it would be hovering around 450 baht.


Look!!! it's the same plate and cutleries as those in our room :))) Lovely lotus leaf platter.

This one must order....crispy fried fermented pork, to be eaten with bird eye chilis, chopped ginger and fragrant lime, some chives and crispy fresh cabbage. Basically this is like a street food which u can get anywhere in Bangkok. Somehow it's just nicer to be able to enjoy them in a proper setting like this.

My "towering high" hi-tea set - according to JS but it's definitely not as high as Baiyoke tower in Bangkok.

So let's see wat we have here. Some thai pork sausages, steamed otak, dumplings, kataifi prawns, pomelo salad and a chiang mai sausage. I lurve their sausages!!! so yummy!!!

banana fritters, pipping hot scones, my favourite kanom krog, beautiful cute "loke chubs", a chocolate cake :)))) happy days are here!!!!

every trip bounds to have something different. The main star on this platter was the mango sticky rice, this time around they served the choco cigar with toasty sesame seeds on it, and the famous traditional Thai desserts

bcoz I lurve the crab meat dumplings so much, we had to order more!!! hahahahaha. Freshly made and steamed upon ur order.

sorry pic wasn't great....hands must be shaking from over-excitement of all the food....and it's only for high tea :P Deep fried chicken with turmeric

Another Thai Pork Satay with fragrant rice. This is like almost a meal on its own!!!!

Prawn toast served with cucumber pickles on the side. There's so much of eggs around the toast I could not see the bread!!! so the yummsss~~~~~this was really a bomb in my mouth bcoz it's just so darn good. Must order!!! in terms of price, nothing really cost a bomb here...everything was just so affordable with such finesse and quality from the food, taste, texture and presentation. Not to mention 5 stars service.


and because I'm so into their crispy shell kanom krog with soft creamie fillings, Monkey had to order another plate. U can choose between fillings of sweet corns, spring onions or yam.

Whatever it is, this one u must order. I kinda forgotten wat it's called in Thai nor English coz when it comes to Thailand....JS speaks and writes That, so he did all the talking + ordering. My best bet would be to show them this awesome pic and your platter of crispy crunchy fermented fried pork will be served in no time. Pipping hot!!!
Erawan Tea Room
Level 2, Hyatt Erawan Hotel,
494 Ploenchit Road,
Bangkok 10330.
Tel: 662 250 7777

Pad Thai Pratupee @ Thip Samai

The famous and the holy grail of Pad Thai, the national dish of Thailand. Hmm I've alwiz thought it's Tom Yum. Peakie D and Globe Trotter Wei insisted that this is worth the visit, and not to mention its queue.

and so on hot a evening our hotel doorboy tried so hard to hail a cab for us. During peak hours, no sane cabbie would wanna come here....just to earn your RM 15. The bad traffic only means your journey would take about 45 minutes for a place 5km away. So JS decided he's gonna hail the dangerous Tuk-Tuk instead.

JS: "TUK!!!!"
and the ferocious driver just zoomed in and stopped right smack in front of us.

hotel doorboy stared at us in horror.
"sir!!! this one is dangerous and they don't have meter!!!"
yes my dear cutie pie Thai boy, we are not Tuk-Tuk virgins either. In 10 minutes we have arrived at a sleepy area along the road of Maha Chai.

The queue basically has about 48 people...yes I've actually counted....but surprisingly it was not a long wait bcoz ppl just come, eat and go. The menu only consisted of Pad Thai coz no brain cells to kill while ordering it.


Even if u arrive in a Rolls Royce Wraith, u still gotta join the queue and wait. No exception. But this Thai guy was really a head-turner bcoz of his million dollar car. By the way, Malaysia just received the first shipment of wraith in June.

While we waited, there was a lot going on here to watch. Maybe that was the reason that we didn't exactly felt that time passed by. The fire flickered and the cooks move the wok as fast as he could. 

U won't believe it, everything was cooked with charcoal fire here. In fact this entire Maha Chai street, there's 3 restaurant/stalls that are worth visiting. All cooked with charcoal fire. 

First you pour in some animal fats onto the wok, swirl it once....scoop some mixture of eggs, and u swirl another time.

The plate of cooked Pad Thai was then dunked in.....


move once more time to wrap the pad thai....

and off to the plate!!!

Seriously I can't even time it, We had to snap so many times to get the entire sequence right. Bcoz the cook was just too fast!!! He just went wham wham wham and done. Definitely under a minute. Well with that kinda crowd, u better cook fast boy!!!

Yea especially when there's so many plates of Pad Thai are waiting for you.

Basically pad thai is a street food of stir fried flat rice noodles with eggs, toufu, beansprouts and chives. These days, there's meat and prawns innit. Flavoured with tamarind pulp, fish sauce, spices, chili and sugar. Usually served with a lime wedge and a generous dash of chopped roasted peanuts.

As we queued and made our round, we saw this huge like bath tub of fresh orange juice!!! WAHHH it looked so good man. These were made from local oranges - the one with green colored skin. No preservatives and had to be consumed within 48 hours?

Then we were finally seated and we got to choose between dining inside the shoplot or al-fresco. We wanted outdoor for more ambience....hahahahaha and to snap more pic of curious customers queue-ing up along this street. 

To quench our thirst from the evening heat....the yummy fresh orange juice with tonnes of pulps. One can get full just by drinking a bottle. There's so much of fat juicy pulp in here. It's about RM 15 for a big bottle to be shared for 2.

before we could order, the typical mise-en-place arrived at our table. A plate of raw banana tree flowers, fragrant lime wedges, clean and juicy beans sprouts, and chives.

and the star dish arrived....

it has a very good balance of savouriness, sweetness and spices.
its noodle still has got its al-dente-ness and aroma from the charcoal fire.


the other version that we've ordered consisted of a lot of big prawns, freshly peeled crab meats, finely sliced green mango. I prefer this version bcoz it has got such tanginess from the mango.

Suddenly....our table has to be moved.....
careful of my orange juice there boys!!!!

bcoz the next door shop tenant needed to get out from her building.

yeah so hilarious that Monkey had to pose. Bout 8 tables were moved to somewhere in that short 1 minute. Yes it only took one minute to move and to place everything back in order.

Nobody was grunting, no one was complaining....it was a quick affair.

the boys replaced back the table in proper order with the correct side. Look ma!! my plate of crab meat pad thai was still on my side!!! 

so u mix the crab meat with the tangy mango along the pad thai....and enjoy.
NOM NOM NOM...so so yummy and worth waiting for :)))

Next door to Thip Samai, there's a few other vendors selling other kinda Thai Food. So if u would like to indulge while waiting, u could :)))) 

After our yummy Pad Thai, we walked down to the last stall/eatery that you must try along this road. Local Thai noodle....that smells so darn good. No tourists ate at this stall, they dun even have an English menu and nothing in A B C on its signage.

JS: "Monkey, u sure u can eat sumore?"
Monkey: "YES!!!!"
The menu consisted of only 3 items, from wat u could see on its banner...so I guess for tourists like us just point wat u want? But JS spoke such fluent Thai, he just ordered like a local.

the lil gal at the back was playing with her father while he was feeding her. I wondered wat kind of food could a young child consume here bcoz it's super spicy can die.

the simple RM 4.50 thai noodle in pork broth with some char siew, pork balls, fish paste slices and loads of vegetables. Lookin at this pic just made me salivate bcoz the memories of its taste just came gushing into my head.

nope this isn't bee hoon but really fine and thin flat rice noodle

the standard mise-en-place for noodle shops in Thailand. With pickled chili, chili flakes, sugar and the 4th one is usually the signature chili paste from that particular store. In this case it was smashed bird eye chilis in some vinegar. There was also a bottle of Thai fish sauce if u wanna add more saltiness to your food.

OMGawdddddddddd it was the hottest thing I've ever eaten in my life!!!!!! but it was so tasty and good. The broth/soup has got so much for tiny local Thai garlic innit. Still wrapped in its thin skin. The taste profile was so complex that we were thinking hard, wat else was in there.

that bowl of spicy Thai pork noodle got me thinking hard the entire nite. I should have tapao a pack to be eaten in my room for supper hehehehe.

So this Maha Chai road is really worth visiting for:
1) the yummy crab omelette at Raan Jay Fai *read bout it here*
2) the holy grail of Pad Thai at Thip Samai
3) and this hot spicy noodle stall

Thip Samai Pad Thai
313 Maha Chai Road,
Samran Rat, Phra Nakhon,
Bangkok 10200,
Thailand.
Opening hours: 5pm to 3am daily

Raan Jay Fai ร้านเจ๊ไฟ, Bangkok

During our short lil 45 minutes transit at Suvarnabhumi Airport from Hokkaido, both JS and Monkey skipped the airlines meal, saved the stomach for some yummy slurpy spicy noodles at the airport. While enjoying our hearty bowls of broth, both of us stared at each other....giggled at our greediness for dashing from gate to the restaurants then back to the new boarding gate just for some authentic Thai food. JS had to raise the subject...."We must go to Thailand soon."

Monkey leaped at this green light opportunity and arranged for it in less than 24 hours. Flights and accommodation were booked, sooo efficient especially when it comes to holiday. Hahahaha. Actually...*ahem* I'm alwiz that efficient...kekekeke....*cough cough*
The pic above is the famous Phra Prom or known as Erawan Shrine. One must not miss visiting the shrine whenever in Bangkok. Our hotel is just located next to it - Hyatt Erawan. Just a great location, everything within walking distance.

JS loves this shrine so much that he will give up his sleep, wakes up early in the morning for some street photography around the shrine. For some outstanding-photography-exhibition-quality-pictures taken by JS last year *click here to read*

Look at the restaurant's signboard on top. We almost walked past this place!!! so understated.

Our mission this trip is.......FOOD!!!!! hahahahaha so it's gonna be a lot of posting on food in the next few days. Peakie D and Globe Trotter Wei highly recommended this lil hole in the wall by a rather hip hop name - Raan Jay Fai. When they mentioned it a few weeks ago, I thought it's some hip modern contemporary new hangout place in the hustling bustling city of Bangkok.

Since JS could read speak and write Thai, I got him to translate Raan Jay Fai
Raan = Shop
Jay = Sister as in "jie jie", so it's a borrowed word from the chinese language and more commonly spoken rather than written.
Fai = Mole or birthmark

soooo I guess it's Mole Sister Shop? hahahahahahaha

We sat outside to enjoy the view of tuk-tuks buzzing through, the enormous long queue 2 doors away for the holy grail of Pad Thai *I will blog bout this soon* and of coz it's more "romantic" to dine al-fresco.

Just kidding......both JS and Monkey are not the cuddly romantic types. To us romance  = great food!!!! hahahahaha for JS, romance = preparing awesome food to feed Monkey and to Monkey = baking his favourite cookies, chiffon cakes and madeleines. I guess our love for food is so strong, everything has to revolves around it.

Singha Beer to quench our thirst.

"Neng Beer Sing!!"
yes one must survive and at least learn the local language to order food. Beers are so cheap here in Bangkok, including imported ones. We went to a hangout joint later and they practically have all kinds of beer from around the world!!!! I wished I have more space in my stomach to do a beer degustation.

I was searching hard for her mole....think I saw it hehehehe. Not only one mole, she has got a few!!! This lady is indeed awesome, she's been cooking since she was young and is still cooking now. She's almost 70 and this place has been operating for more than 50+ years!!!!

Watching her cooked just mesmerised us. The way she skilfully handle her woks, lifting them effortlessly, tossing her ingredients around and dishing them out. By the way those are charcoal fire. From time to time she had to step out to hack more charcoal and feed her burner. The electrical fan at the back is not to cool her body down, but more to increase the intensity of the charcoal fire.

a huge pot of stock was perpetually boiling, also by charcoal fire.

While waiting for our food, we were bz doing people-watch and spotted the other must try restaurant 2 doors away. The queue is perpetually long with locals and tourists alike. At least it's a moving queue and the service was pretty efficient and quick.

The famous Holy Grail of Pad Thai - Thipsamai...again...charcoal fire. Gosh!!!! This is a charcoal street!! or charcoal must be too cheap here in Thailand. This place will be the subject of another posting, so let's now focus back to Raan Jay Fai our dearie 70 year old Mole Sista!!!

I'm so sorry I HAD to order this!!!! When I saw it on the menu....it was like Hallelujah~~~~ Comfort food!!!!! Jok Haeng = Dry Porridge is in fact a fried porridge. It's very different from the one we had in Malaysia. This one has got cleaner ingredients, instead of everything in with the dark soya sauce.

Jok Haeng is just porridge fried in her famous stock with seafood, garlic and shallots. Served with some crispies and a par boiled egg. The prawns were enormous and there's 3 huge one in this tiny bowl!!!

When it arrived on the table, Monkey had her nose glued to it. Ooooooo the smell of smoke and charcoal was infused in this bowl of porridge. It was so so so so tasty!!! Goodness me~~~it's a poor man's food but trust me, the dimensional and palate isn't. Only a skilled chef could master this.

a saucer of crispies to add texture to the porridge.


Sen Yai Pad Kee Mao Talay = Fried Flat Noodles with Seafood and wine. Or famously known as the Drunken Noodles. Where's the noodles?!?!?!?! I want my noodles!!!!

The flat noddles were silky smooth, thin and yet with some bite innit. All the vegetables and seafood has got a good char on the outside. This dish also smelled of smoke aka "wok hei" One of the best wok hei in my life. Did she actually throw in some charcoal dust onto every dish to create this profile?? hmmmm. So so so so good~~~~

The other must try and signature of Raan Jay Fai is Kai Jeow Poo = Crab meat omelette

Yes it's an omelette, not pohpiah. Could u just zoom in at the crispy edges??? Do u wanna imagine its fragrant egginess that triggers your salive glands?

Now focus on the chunky meat.....yes chunks and chunks and CHUNKS and chunks and chunks of crab meat. This is definitely the best way to eat a crab without having to peel them....and mind you this omelette consisted of 2 CRABS!!!!!! TWO!!! TWOOOOOOO!!!!!

oh LORD~~~~~~
OH MY FREAKING GAWD
How could an omelette be this good???????

Expect to pay about 800THB for this omelette. That's about RM 80. Hello u are getting 2 crabs!!! peeled crabs encased in this crispy egginess that was fried to perfection in animal fats.

After these few dishes, Monkey gave up.....don't think I can do the holy grail next door. Coz I wanna save some space for street food later instead of loading more carbo into my body. So JS said Okie let's come back tomorrow for Holy Grail Pad Thai.

Do come here off-peak hours else there would be a queue. Also be prepare to wait a bit, it wasn't that long in my opinion coz I have waited longer for food elsewhere before. Since every dish has to be cooked individually over charcoal fire, you just gotta have some patience.


then we hailed our Tuk-Tuk to get back to the heart of Bangkok. Tuk-Tuk is alwiz a scary ride, just don't look forward....concentrate on the views next to you. I may have a heart attack if I just focus on the way he drives or how he overtook dangerously. So just look to the left or right and believe me you, this is the fastest ride in Bangkok. Via taxi = 40 minutes, via Tuk-tuk 10 minutes, u choose.

Selfie taken by JS with Canon 5D MK 3. We definitely can't use any selfie pod because it's impossible to support the weight of this gigantic camera. Hahahaha. I do have a selfie pod from Cat but have yet to use it....hahahaha maybe it's time to bring it out to play!!! Okie I will take it out for my next holiday next week :D:D:D:D

Raan Jay Fai
327 Thanon Mahachai,
Bangkok, Thailand.
Tel: +66 2 223 9384
*just tell the cabbie or the Tuks u wanna go to the famous Pad Thai Thipsamai instead. Raan Jay Fai is just 2 doors away*