Lek & Rut Seafood, Bangkok

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.

In the end, everyone was pushing the remaining food to everyone else HAHAHAHA It was obvious that we over ordered but it was such an amazing experience of having seafood with the locals! Also, we went dutch! But the bill was evenly split even if my sis and I ate like 70% of the food. So each of us had to fork out only 500 Baht, still within our budget after all! Thank you generous new friends of ours haha

Dining with us Malaysians! Really funny bunch of Thai friends:)

Seafood Dinner @ Nang Nual, Pattaya

Back with more updates because I have a little more free time this week! So I had a short getaway to Pattaya about three months back and I managed to find three good eats there! The first would be buffet breakfast at Casa Pascal, the second is this seafood dinner and the third is my upcoming post on probably the best kebab I've ever tasted!!

One thing about Pattaya is that it's hard to find street vendors. I don't want to make sweeping accusations la, but based on my experience it was so hard to find street vendors other than those selling orange juice. Talking about orange juice, Kave recommended me to try Thai's orange juice because she said it was really good and cheap. One bottle cost 20 Baht I think and while it was very fresh, it wasn't our typical orange so it has this kelat aftertaste. Their orange look more of a lime species:

With the unimpressed orange juice seller LOL

Ok, back to the seafood dinner story. We reached Pattaya beach are around 7pm (Thai time) which was about 8pm (Malaysia time). Was super duper hungry and was hoping to eat something authentically Thai. Walked all the way to Walking Street, a famous tourist attraction, expecting to find street vendors like those in Bangkok but don't have! Found a few food trucks but those look like they cater more to locals i.e. the Thai people working there. 

Oh! Now I remember why we walked to Walking Street! I wanted to find this seafood restaurant called "Marine Seafood" which had rather good reviews on Trip Advisor. However, the review did wrote that it was quite difficult to locate Marine Seafood because it's tucked between alleys. With a rather whiny travel mate and a very hollow stomach, I just couldn't comb through each alley to find it so we settled for another seafood restaurant on Waking Street.

Nang Nual

Walking Street, Pattaya

Website

This is Nang Nual on Walking street. It's situated further down the road towards the pier. Very bright and clean restaurant that you wouldn't miss!

If I've not mistaken, this place serves Chinese style Thai cuisine. So of course you can find Thai food like tom yam and what not here but the cooking style is very Chinese. Once you walked into the restaurant you will be greeted with all kinds of seafood!! I think you can pick and choose the seafood that you would like to have because I've seen people choosing fishes and what not then instructing the waiters how they want it cooked. 

I didn't go through all that hassle though because it's not like I'm a pro in seafood also LOL So I left it in the hands of the restaurant people. Some pictures:

Mr Crabby still trying to escape to no avail.

Mr Lobster. Not a big fan of lobster meat because I feel like it's texture is in between a crab and a prawn so the in between texture confuses my brain. It's a bit mushy also so by far I haven't found a cooking style that brings out the loveliness of the lobster meat.

Prawns are more of my thing and the prawns here were pretty huge! It was quite big till I didn't know if they were big prawns or baby lobsters if not for the labels:S

Fishes and vegetables.

The waiters there weren't the friendliest bunch so we had to make our way to the seating area ourselves. Initially was very unsure if we should actually pick the seafood first or what? No one told us anything so I just followed the crowd LOL On the way to the dining area, I noticed this wine shop! I think you can select your wine to go with dinner! Not so much of an alcohol person so I gave it a pass.

Wine shop. Quite impressive because so bright and attracting!

This is Nang Nual's seating area!!!! It's by the beach! I don't know why but I was so surprised that it was this pretty!! Probably was just expecting to get my stomach filled before going back to the hotel. But yes, it was very beautiful and quite romantic I would say.

After standing there for like 5 minutes like a goon, finally a kind waitress asked how many of us were there and showed us to a table. The theme of this restaurant is marine I think because you see everything is blue and white and the waiter were dressed in those sailor uniform! So cool!!

There, the waitress in sailor clothes. Very facinated with the overall theme and deco. It's pretty simple but just really really beautiful.

View I had when it got darker

This was their menu. Very simple and clean in design, I like!

We agreed that we should have a Tom Yum soup so we chose seafood tom yam! I think this was about 250 Baht. I lost the receipt so I can't be certain. Total bill was about 1,000+ Baht

 (Approximately RM100) for all three dishes, rice and drinks.

The tom yum didn't taste like what we usually have here in Malaysia probably because they use a lot of dry chilli and it didn't taste as sour. The seafood was fresh and they were very generous with it. Despite the soup looking rather clear, it was SPICY! We ate up all the ingrediants but didn't manage to finish up the soup. I think we probably had 1/4 of it then too spicy to go on with all the mucus flowing HAHAHA

I was rather autocratic on having a fish in whole because I usually don't get to eat it. Good thing Nit was agreeable to order a huge ass fish too if not I'd probably be eating it on my own anyway lol. 

We ordered this spicy steam fish and it was the star of the day! Gravy was heavenly! So flavourful, spicy with a tint of sweetness coming through.The fish was super fresh with very thick meat. Forgot what type of fish this was. Normally I will have problem ordering a fish in whole because I don't know the name of the fish I want. When doing groceries, I'd pick out the fish based on its look but I never knew their name HAHA Surprisingly I manage to name the fish that I want then, which I have now forgotten:S

Don't underestimate this mix vege dish because it was our LIFE SAVER from both of the spicy food!! The tom yam was like dragon breath spicy and the steamed fish was spicy but sedap so die die also we drank every drop of steam fish gravy then faster eat vege to counter the spiciness. The fish itself isn't that spicy but probably because it came hot so it accentuated the spiciness. 

My coconut shake! Nothing beats Klebang's coconut shake though. Malaysia Boleh!

Leaving you with a few more pictures of my dinner because I've got to go prepare dinner already before the cows come home! Oh yes, Nang Nual serves Western meals like fish and chips and what not too! I saw people having Western like so sedap onlyyy! But didn't regret our orders though because it was pretty good! The table next to us, a couple dating (hehe) ordered this flaming dessert which looked very impressive.

You can try if you make your way there someday! Got to go for now, happy weekend!

Big fish, big yums!