Tag: Food

Wine Connection Bangkok

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Wine Connection is a chain of restaurants with branches spread across Asia. Bangkok has quite a few branches itself – Wine Connection provides great quality western food, mainly European. This is a great restaurant for indulging on home comforts from the west…

The Wine Connection Restaurant

As already mentioned, there are a couple of different Wine Connection locations across Bangkok city including Rain Hill Sukhumvit 47, Silom Complex and K-Village. If you are living in Bangkok and missing some of the finer quality foods as you might find in Delicatessans in the west, then a visit to the Wine Connection is a definite must.

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The interior of all Wine Connection Restaurants tends to be modern and fashionable with industrial brick-effect walls, dark furnishings and dim lighting. Most branches have outdoor seating and the K-Village branch allows dogs.

Wine Connection Menu

The Wine Connection menu serves a range of foods from steak and potato wedges with ratatouille; pizza and pastas; a great range of healthy salads; and other dishes such as paella and Greek moussaka. If you head to one of the ‘Deli & Bistro’ branches of Wine Connection such as the one in K-Village, you’ll also find a great menu selection of cold meats, cured hams and cheeses. It’s quite rare to find decent quality meat and cheese in Bangkok like at the Wine Connection.

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For the cost of between 120 and 500 baht for a meal, and 80 to 120 baht for a dessert, I believe the Wine Connection in Bangkok is a bargain! Not only is it a rare treasure to find this kind of food in Bangkok, but for the same good food as in say, England, it would cost at least four times the price. I’ve not found such good salads in Bangkok as in the Wine Connection either, it is a refreshing restaurant to visit for some healthier yet delicious food.

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I think that the Wine Connection is one of those special restaurants where whatever you order from the menu, it is going to taste amazing – guaranteed. And everything that I ordered was indeed amazing. I don’t normally order salads… and I don’t normally order key lime pie either, I’m much more of a chocolate person. But it was pretty damn good.

Another great bonus about the Wine Connection is that the drinks aren’t extortionately priced either. Soft drinks on the menu start from around 40 baht – usually at this sort of high standard restaurant in Bangkok, drinks would cost double the price. It’s great value.

 

 

Secret Garden Cuisine Bangkok

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secret garden meal

Secret Garden Cuisine is a cafe/ thai restaurant in Bangkok famed for it’s cakes (particularly it’s special ‘crepe cake’). Secret Garden Cuisine is situated in the Northern end of Sathorn Road in an old, white colonial English style building with huge bay windows and a pretty fairy-lit garden. Inside, the restaurant part is decorated with green walls, pristeen white furniture and twining plants and ivy. The cafe area of Secret Garden is very cosy, with comfy sofas and natural daylight streaming in through the large bay windows. Meals cost around 150 – 600 baht plus tax and service and cakes cost around 120 baht plus tax and service.

 

Is Secret Garden in Sathorn any good?

After having heard so much about Secret Garden in Bangkok before I went, I had high expectations for it. Especially the cake which is supposed to be absolutely amazing… Well, for me, it didn’t quite meet my expectations but the food was still good, and good portions as well as quality for the money. I ordered Green curry with pandan rice and papaya salad for 250 baht, and for this I got two generously sized plates of food, and very delicious too. I ordered the recommended Secret Garden crepe cake with strawberry sauce and it just wasn’t quite what it was hyped up to be. It was a little creamy and sickly about half way through. And the brownie cheesecake tasted quite strange, with a slightly rubbery texture.

I have had better cakes in Bangkok, for example Secret Recipe. However, I would consider going to Secret Garden for cake again sheerly for the pleasant ambience and décor of Secret Garden – especially in the cafe and garden areas. It would be a good restaurant to take visiting friends and family. The staff were very dilligent and friendly with quick delivery of food and excellent customer service. They may be construed to be a little pushy at times, like pushing to order starters and dessert, but sometimes this is not necessarily a bad thing if you just need a bit of a push to make decisions! In total, for smoothies, a decent sized, tasty main course, cake and coffee – this costed 600 baht each. Not too bad considering.

If you want to try some delicious and authentic thai cuisine with a twist, if you are or a great fan of seafood, or if you just want somewhere to take your night-club-loathing friends who are visiting for the week, then give Secret Garden Cuisine a try – daytime or night time for a cozy sit down in a charming environment.

Eating Out In Bangkok

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eating out in bangok

 

It’s quite hard going in Thailand when it comes to food. I say that because I am a bit a of a health freak. I have a preference for vegetables, whole grains, low-fat, low-sugar, low-salt foods. Food and health is important to me. So, after just a few weeks in Thailand I will admit I am struggling – food is not particularly healthy; so far at least. Lots of deep-fried, non-vegetable, sugary dishes. And in Thailand, they put sugar in everything. In the 7/11, if you’re feeling hungry wanting some snacks… well you’ve got a choice of sugary buns, cakes, steamed buns, sugary yogurts… not to mention the neon coloured drinks. Order a smoothie and usually you will get syrup added to it. At first I was loving all the sweet stuff, but now I am just hungering for some healthy, sugar free food and drinks.

 

The local eateries on the street sides are probably the healthiest option but even then things are fried. You can get a meal from 20 baht (65 cents or 40 pence) upwards which is way cheaper even than cooking at home yourself; it really is a bargain. The locals are very friendly and welcoming too, as it can sometimes be intimidating among locals in a foreign country. It’s really quite tasty, with simple ingredients and I think it can more often than not, be tastier than eating in a restaurant and paying triple the price. The problem in Thailand I find though, is the portion sizes. They’re more like child portions and I yearn to feel full up! For this reason, I do have a tendency to treat myself quite regularly to a 100 baht (about $3, or £2) steak/ burger and chips.

 

As for the fried meat and unidentifiable meat balls on the streets… The street meat guys have got me, my tastebuds have adapted and I now love the meat skewers. You can buy sticks of meat including sausages, meatballs and deep fried chicken from the streets for 10 baht a piece, granted some of it is weird and over processed… but it grows on you. Especially when you have it smothered with the chilli sauce which I have also now acclimatised to (although it is actually reasonably mild anyway). You can also, although quite rarely seen, purchase cooked insects from some of these vendors.

One time I picked out some skewers from a street vendor in Bangkok.. thought they looked nice and meaty.. Well, one of them was barbequed livers and the other, which I thought was pieces of chicken – I took a nice, big mouthful and… crunch. It turned out to be something like baby birds on a stick… I don’t have a clue. They had boney spines along the middles and some kind of yellow, inardy substance inside. For the more adventurous though… sure give it a bash!

I did, however, manage to finish them – I do hate to waste food… or anything for that matter – but it was not a very pleasant experience.