BO + DyLAN = Bo.lan!
Don't you just love the imaginativeness?
Seriously, minus the cheesiness of the restaurant name, I love husband and wife tandems. This British-husband-Thai-wife couple does not just own this house-turned-restaurant, they do the actual cooking, too. I am a sucker for this kind of set up. It assures me I am getting the best in quality and taste.
So I give it a dinner slot in my eating-filled Bangkok itinerary. After all, it is recommended to me by Sam, whose taste in food I trust one hundred eighty eight percent. And while googling for Bo.lan's address, I discover that the restaurant made it to Chubby Hubby's 10 Best Meals of 2009. Wow.
We arrive some 10:30pm after a day of walking and shopping, with not enough energy left in us to browse through the one-page menu. Thank Emerald Buddha for the Bo.lan Balance, a set menu which contains a bit of everything.
she brings us each course
Ya dong grachai dum served with sour fruits
Thai rice spirit, pandanus juice, and local fruits - kamias, some brown thing, green mango. I take a baby sip of the spirit and I suffer instantly from a bad hangover. That is how poisonous! I eat the little fruit bits and my face wrinkles. The sourness ignites my appetite.
Pear with peanut and crispy coconut, crispy wafer with chicken and basil, lime-cured prawn and pork skin wrapped in egg net, steamed egg with pork and crab topped with garlic, fried taro dumpling. I like the first two pieces.
Net warns me about the heat level of this soup, but I am naturally stubborn and the name of the soup sounds like something we shouldn’t miss. Let’s just say, I’ll heed my server’s advice next time. This is so hot it burns everything it touches, from my lips down to the very last organ of my digestive tract. Let me not mention it here. Anyway, ouch.
Coconut based soup with prawn and young tamarind leaves
This is so delicious I wish we skipped the spicy torture soup and had two orders of this. My stomach warmly welcomes another bowl.
Salad of grilled Ayutthaya river prawn with mangosteen and salty duck egg – love all the flavors in my mouth fighting for my attention.
Stir-fried santol with with tender pork and shrimp paste – honestly, at this point, my tongue has turned completely numb. I taste nothing. Sorry.
Net gives us a plate of sliced fruits and vegetables and some cured pork strings to help our tongues cool down.
Net smilingly instructs us to: 1. Eat the longan, 2. Pour the coconut milk into the glasses, and 3. Enjoy. We follow her obediently, most especially that very last part. We enjoy this dessert. Very, very much.
We are given some more itsy-bitsy sweets that I don’t really care for that much.
I love the mint infused sugar served with the fruits. So minty, and pretty!
a nice end to the meal
The food Bo.lan serves is not the typical Thai dishes we’re used to. I can’t really say I’m in love with the food and that I will be back again soon, but dining here is quite a nice and unique experience overall.
Bo.lan: 42 Soi Pichai Ronnarong, Sukhumvit 26 Road, Klong teoy, Bangkok, Thailand.
Tel : +66 2260 2962 to 63
