Happy New Year 2016 and Happy Chinese New Year!!!! HAHAHAHA
I know it's a little too late for both greetings but hey, better late than never eh! Just noticed that my last post is in November 2015. Yikes! Been busy with my thesis, I know I know, you've read about this excuse throughout my post since 2013. But I'm back with an awesome post!
Took some time off in January this year with my sis to travel to Bangkok because we actually saved up for US but US didn't happen, and it was also a post exam trip for her! And it's also because we wanted to scout the place a bit before our family trip to Bangkok in July. You know, it's always better to know the place before you bring mum. We want the best for her and we ain't got much time in July so only good shopping places and good food please!
Talking about good food, the best food that I had in Bangkok would be my first meal that I had there! Hence, this post!
Lek & Rut Seafood
Yaowarat, Bangkok
Initially, the plan was to go and eat at the famous green shirts seafood shop at Chinatown but we ended up trying Lek & Rut, which is the Red tshirts seafood shop right opposite the green shirts shop. Don't worry about me being a little vague but these two seafood shops are so famous in Yaowarat (Chinatown) that you wouldn't have a problem looking for it on Google Maps or Waze!
This is Chinatown in Bangkok at night! Around 9pm and it's very lively!!
Ha! You see that yellow signboard shop in the middle of the picture? That is the green tshirt seafood shop and there are a lot of good reviews about that shop. But as mentioned we opted for the Red shirts one (notice the guy in red tshirt).
You can choose your seafood outside and have them cook for you or you can just place your order from the menu and let them help you with the selection, which was what we did.
The prawns in Thailand are HUGE! I'm not kidding you. It's probably 100% bigger than our prawns here. I initially thought they were lobsters because of their size.
As for seatings, there is an option to sit outside or inside. Noticed that a lot of people loved sitting outside so outside is full and you have to wait for a table. It was a no brainer for us so we immediately headed inside where there was comfortable seats and less wet floors.
This is how it looks inside Lek & Rut. Once seated they will come to you with their menu. Items are labelled in both Thai language and English so ordering wouldnt be a problem. Plus, they have pictures in the menu as well- better describes the dish this way.
A sample of their menu. This is probably a special pull out. The full menu is in a folder.
We had in mind a few things that we wanted prior to making this trip because we wanted to taste their signature (food that everyone else raved about) but also stick to our budget. We initially set our budget to a maximum of RM100 for a dinner for two. But... you know, things don't always go as you plan HAHA
Oh ya, I did my research on dishes based on the green shirt's shop but I could actually find everything that I wanted from the green shop in this red shop! I bet they taste as good as the greens. One of the reason we chose to dine at Red as that my sis' friend kinda recommended Red so Red it is!
Upon placing your orders, they will bring over your cutleries and chilli dippings!
There are two types of dippings, one sweeter than the other but but pretty good especially with fried fish! More on that later.
Our drinks: I think that was guava juice, chrysanthemum and Chang beer that the major really recommended. I didn't had any because I can't hold my liquour LOL
Something to note is that beverages in Bangkok is generally very sweet. So drinking that chrysanthemum drink without adding ice was little too sweet to handle. In this case you cant ask for "Wan Noi" (Less sweet) because the drinks were prepacked, so just make sure you have ice to dampen the sweetness.
Okay, from here onwards I'm gonna show you what we had for dinner. The total for all of these were about 3000 Baht! That was like tripple of our budget HAHAHAHA But I am really grateful for our dining mates because we evenly split the bill despite us eating most of the food :P
Sorry I can't tell you exactly how much each dish cost because they didn't had an official receipt and I didn't note it down from the menu. But I'll probably give you an estimation if I can.
Thai Steamed Fish with Lime. I was looking forward to having this dish because I had it when I was in Pattaya and it was really good! The one that I had in Pattaya had just the rice sourness from the lime and the right spiciness from the chilli! This one at Lek & Rut, meh.. wouldn't order it again because it tasted just like normal steam fish. I think this was about 400 Baht
Seafood tom yam, about 250 Baht? This is very very very good!! The soup tasted so flavourful and spicy, this is a real good Thai tom yam! Ingrediants were generous and fresh! Tasted a bit like Thai Mama instant noodles broth though haha
This is stir fry morning glory. They call it morning glory there but it's actually kangkung. Not bad, quite yummy. The cooking style is pretty much like what we have here in Malaysia but this tasted yummier, maybe a little more chili and MSG? lmao
Was damnnn hungry that time because it was 9pm (10pm Malaysia time) and we haven't had dinner nor lunch!
By the way, the fish and the tomyam was in our planned meal as in we budgetted for that earlier before we went to Bangkok. We were thinking, okay one fish, one tom yam, one small grilled river prawns and maybeeee... one oyster omelette. But when the day came for seafood dinner in Bangkok, these were what we actually had:
Fried rice! OMG their fried rice was so so so soooo good! It tasted like crab meat I have no idea why. I don't think this is seafood fried rice but I could be wrong since I wasn't the one doing the ordering. Okay, just so we are clear my sis and I ordered one bowl of steamed rice each. But lo and behold came additional fried rice because major wanted us to try as much food as possible! LOL
Curry crab. Curry crab sauce was sooooo good that I'm really suspecting that they used a lot of MSG haha The crab on the other hand wasn't that meaty but it was worth the order because of the sauce! Eat that with steamed rice is enough already, no need other dishes! Oh, but one thing good about the crab is that it had a lot of crab eggs, I loves!! This serving prolly cost around 500 Baht.
Sauce. Is. Goddamn. Good.
Fried fish. This is another dish that my sis and I didn't order but magically appeared on our table. By magically, it meant that major ordered them LOL When the fish came I was like errr... don't look very appetising. I'm not a fan of fried fish even back from my hometown because I just find fried fish very 'dry'. I don't mind if they fried the fish and drizzle with sauce la but not fried fish by it's own.
But guess what? I shamelessly whacked finish the fried fish here because of the chili dippings!!! It was the ultimate combo I tell you, fresh fried fish and the dippings they gave! I also liked to dip it in the sweeter cili sauce that is slightly greenish in colour. VERY GOOD!
Us again, this time when more food came!
Oh ya, we had our grilled river prawns which were huge as hell. I think the prawns can be ordered in small or big portion but I think major ordered big. I know no Thai language but by his body language, I'm pretty sure this is the big serving LOL The best part was sucking the brains off the prawn!
You see, these kinda prawn has a really big head if compared to body size.
It doesn't stink really! It was so fresh that all you tasted was the sea!
Initially we didn't know that it's the brains that we are paying for. So we ate the body and left the head. But then our Thai dining mates told us that that's the best part of the prawns!! In fact, there are shops in Bangkok famous for selling Pad Thai that serves a premium version using these prawn brains. Okay, I call them prawn brains because I forgot the correct term that I was told of but you get the idea.
Steamed mussles with bay leaves? This is another dish that I was skeptical about because it looks so... sad and a little scary LOL but, it's true that locals know best!! The mussels were so fresh that when it's steamed/ poached with those leaves the scent is captured in the mussles. Ooh la la, that subtle infusion of scent was so refreshing and good!
Yums, yums, yums, yums, yums!
These were not all because more dining mates came later on! HAHAHA
We were told that more friends were coming for dinner so we ate according to proportion la meaning that we didn't want to finish up all the dishes before other people came but we were told to just eat!
I got a little worried here because by that time we already ordered a lot and the bill was gonna be over our budget. Not sure if this dinner will be a treat, you know like a welcome treat? If it's a welcome treat then nevermind la, but if it's going dutch... yikes. But no point worry because what is done is done so I just whacked finish all the dishes that I like. HAHAHA
So when more friends came, as expected they ordered more dishes. So we had more grilled prawns and a few other dishes like these:
Siput sedut. They taught us how to pluck the bugger out with a toothpick but this was my least favourite dish la because it was so chewy it was like chewing on rubber and I didn't fancy the taste that much. Not my favourite seafood in Malaysia, definitely still not my favourite seafood in Thailand.
Eeee... that's what it looks like. You dip it with chilli but no thanks LOL
Grilled squids! This wasn't too bad because it was a nice smoky taste to it but it was also very chewy and rather dry so I didn't had much. Plus I was soooooo full, just had a bite to try different dishes that the rest ordered.
Prawns with soysauce glass noodles. OMG I don't even know who or why they ordered this because no one actually ate this! haha I think it's because everyone was full so nobody was gonna eat up the glass noodles of which was heavily soaked in soysauce. The dish was a little too salty but it went well with the prawns though.
Dining with us Malaysians! Really funny bunch of Thai friends:)
