 Benjarong
Where: Mowbray’s Road
What you get: Thai cuisine
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| Khao Suay |
It
has been a while since I checked out a restaurant and one of my aunts suggested
that I go to Benjarong. I have always wanted to check out Thai cuisine at a good
place and I didn’t need to be told twice to head to this site. So off I went
after finding a friend who owed me a treat ;)
When I landed there after
French class, my friend was already waiting outside the restaurant. They have a
sit-out, so those who want to inhale vehicle fumes before heading in for a
delicious spread are free to do so!
After another friend joined us,
we headed inside. It was pretty empty, we were early, maybe. The first thing I
noticed was the ambience. Highly pleasing and exquisite furniture and décor. I
made a mental note to give a thought about decorating my home the Thai way. Once
we were comfortably seated, our hostess laid napkins on our laps. Hmm…. been a
while since someone did that to me; and then we were handed our menu cards.
I have a thing for spicy food,
so I kept checking the ones which had the icons of two chillies next to pretty
tough-to-comprehend names. One of the first things we did was to ask him how to
pronounce and what they meant. I must mention that the host was very polite and
patient enough to answer all our queries. It could also be because there were
not too many people even by the time we left. But I must give it to him.
We were first served a very
interesting dish called Meeyakaum. It’s a dish from northern Thailand and is
traditionally served on banana leaves, but we were served on bone china. On a
small plate, raw spinach leaves were served along with small separate bowls of
small pieces of lemon, peanuts, onion, red chilli, ginger, dry coconuts and in
the middle there was a bowl with a sauce made from palm sugar.
This is how it works. Much like
our Paan. You take a leaf of spinach and fill in all the ingredients, fold it,
and eat it. Well at first, when I heard that I had to eat a raw spinach leaf, I
didn’t take too kindly to it, but believe me, you will fall in love with it.
That’s when I thought that I hadn’t made quite a mistake in choosing this
restaurant.
With this good start we went
about ordering our starters. Khao Pod Tod Prik Pon, (yeah, yeah, the names are a
mouthful) priced at Rs 108 was babycorn tossed with crushed, dry red chillies
served in rice tartlets. Looks a bit like our Pani Puri – only a dry version.
Man Farang Tod Nam Prik Pow (Rs
108), crispy fried potatoes, tossed with roasted chilli paste and Thai sweet
basil; Broccoli Tod Nambouy, (Rs 138) crispy fried broccoli glazed with apricot
sauce; Tom Yam Phak (Rs 98), a classic Thai clear soup with vegetables; and Tom
Kha Phak (Rs 98), an aromatic coconut cream soup with vegetables were our
choices for soup.
My favourite here was Tom Kha
Phak. I have never really savoured anything with coconut milk. But this one was
heavenly, and I decided not be prejudiced, at least as far as food was
concerned.
By this time I had grilled the
host asking about this and that on the menu. And once he was done with my set of
doubts regarding the pronunciation, he kindly brought my attention to a
hand-carved pumpkin made to look like a rose. Until then we hadn’t really made
a note of that.
Another thing I realised was
not to have too much of a good thing, with reference to the starters here,
because we were pretty full before the main course. So, we ordered Khao Suay (Rs
58), which is a steamed rice with Kaeng Pa Je (Rs 168) which they called the
vegetable jungle curry. We found that amusing. It has its nomenclature that way
because it doesn’t have coconut in it, or so our host said. This one had
babycorn, broccoli, basil, green pepper and zucchini.
Though we were satiated, all of
us were in the mood for dessert. And I stayed safe with ice cream, while I asked
my friends to experiment on Tub Tim Siam (Rs 128), water chestnut rubies in
chilled sweet coconut milk, and Aitim Tod (Rs 98), which is fried ice cream
topped with honey and nuts. Yeah and my plain ice cream had a name too. Aitim (Rs
78)
Mineral water here is charged
at Rs 38 per one litre bottle. Meeyakaum and the herbal tea they served were on
the house.
Our bill came to a cool Rs
1,400 but each paisa was worth it. Absolutely divine food, excellent service,
superb ambience and the feeling of satisfaction that you have got your money’s
worth. My buddies thanked me for finding this place for them, and I mentally
thanked my aunt. The time I spent at Benjarong I savour, I treasure and for long
shall remember.
Chinmayi
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