11-Gallery Restaurant, Suk 11

Sometimes while staying over the Sukumvit side of town, we would miss our regulars haunts of the Banglumphu side of town. But Suk 11 and it's surrounds had some little gems. For instance, the 11-Gallery restaurant right at the entrance of the little sub-soi.

A beautiful wooden two-story structure, we're ushered away by a beautiful Thai girl in a Sabai (cloth wrap) and decide to perch upstairs. We sit at the tiny little ledge,



with a pleasant view down to the happenings on the street and get to watch the little pinto's being carried from the downstairs across-the way kitchen over to the restaurant.



Kim starts with a gin fizz, a delicious refreshing combination of gin, soda and lime.



I start with a young coconut juice,



as well as a pandan juice. The pandan juice is served with a little syrup on the side, but I find myself adding the pandan to the coconut as I slowly sip down ...



The menu gives a nice little run down about the balance of Thai food and the way it should be eaten (you can also check it out on the website). We're almost seasoned pro's so dive right in !! First up, our salad, fried bits and curry all arrive carried in a little yellow and green pinto, a tiered / stacked set of little boxes.

The yam ma keaur yow - eggplant, shrimp and pork mince salad with boiled egg was dressed with a tangy tamarind dressing and the perfect way to set of on our gastro journey.



The next stop on our gastro journey, gai ta kai - crispy fried chicken that's topped with a dried and shredded lemongrass floss. The floss is textural explosion of flavor and adds a bit of zing to the fried, salty chicken.



~*woot woot*~, chu chee goong.  A rich red curry thats rather mild and full of coconut cream. The prawns, sweet and delicious, and the kaffir lime adding another dimension.



We take a little detour, and find ourselves feasting on some pork toasts. Resembling that of the Chinese style prawn toasts, this version a nicely seasoned pork minced is slathered onto white bread and fried until golden. A cucumber and chilli dressing cutting a bit of the richness.



The tom yum goong ma phrao oon was one of the recommended dishes. I love Thai soups and I love coconut, so the idea of a soup served inside a coconut, awesome! The only disapointment was they had ran out of coconuts ;( They still served us the more expensive option (claiming there was still coconut flesh in there ... well then where was the coconut?!) I even thought to offer up my drinking coconut so they could make the soup in there ;) But it was divine, none-the-less. Rich with coconut, but still somehow light and fresh with all that lemongrass and tamarind leaf.



The last pinto to pull in for the evening contained a typical Thai dessert.



More a palate cleanser, nice and refreshing and not to sweet ... red beans and tapioca floating in a salty/sweet coconut cream.



Definitely discovered some art we liked at 11-Gallery, and were lucky enough to take it all home in our bellies !!

11-Gallery Restaurant

1/34 Soi 11, Sukhumwit Rd

Bangkok, 10110, Thailand

P: 02-651-2672

Mor Din, Koh Samui

"This traditional Thai pot, the Mor Din, is earthenware, large and rounded at the bottom and narrowing at its neck, opening out at its rim. It was originally used to cook rice: the narrow neck ensured minimal evaporation, and allowed excess water to be poured out easily. It also reduced the chances of ash dropping into the cooking pot, something that is not always meant to be included in the ingredients. Being of unfired clay, it was also less likely than a fired pot to shatter when exposed to a naked flame." - Glenn Walis, a friend of ours and publisher for C Holiday magazine in Samui describes the Mor Din in this way. Below, is our encounter of this little gem on the south of the island.

We remembered talking about this earlier on our trip with Mike & Glenn, but it wasn't until one of our last nights in Samui, we were actually trying for dinner at home cooking, but it was closed, that we spotted the Mor Din sign. We take a turn on the Thong Krut road down a windy little dirt road, then we see the lights. It is a jungle setting, with soft lighting and a little fountain in the middle.



I start with a refreshing saparot pun, frozen pineapple slushy. Delicious!



Then we start with a banana flower salad, before the mordin pot's arrive. The salad is packed full of crisp, fresh, banana flower that's enhanced with some fresh coconut and a tangy chilli dressing.



The first mordin pot to arrive at the table for tonight is the tom yum. Delicious spicy broth, with a nice kick of lime, is full of corrinader, spring onion, tomato and chunks of chicken.



Gaeng som, the sour orange Thai curry is something we both love. It's usually done with fish, but we spot a pork verison on the menu. It's the next pot to arrive. As the lid is lifted the chilli wafts into the air and tickles our nostrils. The chunks of pork are tender and full of flavour, and there's some nice little sweet surprises of fresh pineapple and we naviagate our way through this incredibly spicy, and delicious, interpretation of the gaeng som.



Even the rice arrives in a mordin, cooked in the pot which it's served, with all the crunchy bits of rice on the bottom of the pot.


We thoroughly enjoyed our meal at mordin, and we found ourselves glad that Home Cooking was closed on this occasion, otherwise we may have missed out alltogether. Next time we'll be be back with a few more persons as the pots are huge.



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Home cooking, Samui pt 2

Back at home cooking, we had rung ahead and asked Khun Beat to just cook what ever she felt like. We arrived to a warm welcome and we quickly given dish after dish.
First up are two whole fried fish, crispy skinned and soft fleshed, spiked with garlic and pepper. With the fish came a new lesson in Thai superstition, as we ate we stripped of the top half then removed the bone and ate the bottom. The belief is if you flip the fish to eat the other side you pass that along to the fisherman and may flip him and his vessel.



Next a dtom yam of pork ribs hot sour and succulent, nuggets of pork rubbing shoulders with plenty of tomato's and pieces of Asian celery.



A stir fry of glass noodles with vegetable and egg made it's way to the table next.



Followed by a spicy green curry of pork, apple eggplant and beans.



Finally my favourite for the night small squid stuffed with pork and glass noodles simmered in a clear broth flavoured with oyster sauce. The squid was tender enough to cut with a spoon.



Then as we were saying "no more no more" a special surprise ... a dessert.  Small dumplings cooked in a palm sugar sweetened coconut cream with young coconut. Seasoned in the Thai way with salt, the result was a deliciously savoury dessert that we all suddenly found room for.



Once again Khun Beat had lived up to her street sign of home cooking, food cooked so when you ate you could feel the love.


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Grill master Doraemon.

Not wanting to waste our time in the sun, I mean after six months of snow we were transparent, the beach was the only thing on the schedule during the day for us. So it was left to the nights for time to find something tasty. Years age we used to go to a small stand on the side of the main road for really good som dtam and grilled chicken, looking for the same place again we found that the stand has expanded to now a full structure with real walls and everything.

The grilling has now been taken over by younger family members who have moved the grill stand across the road to make more room for the woks and such at the original place. They have squeezed into a small grassy space next to (uhggg) yet another girlie bar.



They only open one at a time, the wok side during the day and then the family migrates across the road to grill at night. The smell of the grilling meat as you walk past is intoxicating, you can almost taste the flavor. We had to have some.





First night grilled pork, grilled chicken, beef salad and salad of three crispies.

The pork, a huge chunk of goodness, soooooo good, carriying all the promised smokey flavor as well as the grill rendered fat.



The chicken was still as good as we remembered, crispy on the outside and soft and moist in, the light tumeric marinade giving it something else.



The beef salad was a real fire starter, packed with loads of chilli. Also apple eggplant, tomato and asian celery all coated with loads of limey dressing. Thai style salads tend to have a lot of dressing so you have some for your rice.



The three crispy salad, well thats what we read yum sam krop - salad, three, crispy, though we could and probably are mangling the language, was indeed a three crispy salad with deep fried pork skin, deep fried chicken and tiny school prawns along with cashews, shallots, tomato and asian celery all tossed with a slightly sweet, chilli dressing. First time for this one and wow it won't be the last. I mean spicy, sweet, sour and crunchy, it's got it all.



So full after trying to finish it all we rolled home only to be back a few days later, on this night the grill was manned by a two foot Doramon who was studiously grilling her packet of potato chips one by one around the cooking meat.







Thinking we had learned our lesson about portion sizing the other night we only ordered three things, a tom yum, a white fungus salad and some sun dried pork.

The pork - Muu dat diaw - is more of a drinking snack but it's tasty any time, marinated in fish or soy sauce, coated in a varitey of spice and left to dry in the sun before being deep fried and served with chilli sauce. It's quite addictive.



White fungus salad was great, usually seen the dry but the fresh fungus had much more texture, and we learnt a new Thai word; Het huu nuu khao - white fungus.



The soup was where we came undone. It was huge, easily enough for four, it must have had a whole school of prawns in the bowl. Really good but we just couldn't finish, sorry.



We came here once and there was a shack, we came back a few years later and its grown, what'll be here next time??? Just don't go changing the food!!

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Bagus Cafe, Kutchan

Kutchan is a little haven of all things food .... Well, perhaps so when you're living in Hirafu, anyway. There's quite a varied array of food to be had, and it's our mission to try it all!

After a recommendation from Y & A from work we headed in. It's true Japanese style, the way it's in a rather large almost office-like building. The building doesn't look much from the street, it's only thanks to the neon lighted sign out the front that we eventually find it.



When you arrive, open the door, it just leads to a long white sterile corridor ....



Then venture down the corridor and right at the back on the right hand side is a little doorway with the words "Bagus Cafe".



We walk on in, it's surprisingly full... and feels like you could be in a little warung in Bali. It's decked out with batik, bottles of Indonesian and Thai beer and the type of music that could drift you away to Dreamland Beach .... We are led around to a table and stunned to see Y & A eating there. They were there just 2 nights ago, so it must be good! (That, and in Autumn most things in Kutchan close around 8, Bagus is open much later)



The menu is a combination of Indonesian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and many other South East Asian offerings. We start with an order of spicy beef fresh spring rolls. The beef is spicy and full of flavour, wrapped in a rice paper casing with crisp lettuce and vermicelli noodles. To the side is a lightly spiced vinegar dipping sauce and a pile of wafer thin fried potatoes. A very nice start to the evening.



Next is a Thai style salad of vermicelli, pork and prawn. It has a nice pungent dressing with a little kick of chilli. There's crisp lettuce, mitzuna, red onion, chilli, peanuts and generous juicy chunks of prawn and pork throughout.



Then comes out a terracotta soup pot, sitting over a burning fire. This is their tom yum. It does smell good! We leave it to simmer for a few minutes ....



It's not got the hot we expect, but maybe we've spent too much time in Thailand. (Japanese are crazy for their wasabi, but they're not big on chilli-hot) but the flavours are still there. The sour is added from a bottle of Thai vinegar that's bought out with the soup.



We finish with a big stone bowl of Korean seasoned rice, braised pork & beansprouts. The pork belly has been braised for hours, and is deliciously tender. The seasoned rice starts to crisp on the bottom of the stone pot, and this stirred through gives each bit a nice texture. The wok-fried beansprouts and little bit of mitzuna balancing it out nicely.



It's all delicious, and we've been able to take a little trip around South East Asia by only travelling about 10km from home.



Bagus Cafe
North 2, West 1
Kutchan-Cho
Tel: 0136 23 1118
Open 6pm-11pm