Lunch @ Shintaro, Four Seasons Hotel

So sorry for the lack of updates. Hungry Hamster has been too busy eating, no time to update *blushed*

Another Japanese post yet again. I've been deep in love with Japanese food lately, actually my friends would probably argue that I just love all food. One of my friend once said "I can see the sparkles in your eyes when you see food!"

We originally wanted to try Madison at the Four Seasons Hotel, but since it was fully booked when we arrived, we decided to try out Shintaro instead. I will blog about Madison in my next post.

Their little cute spices set


Lemon Crush
Very refreshing indeed!


Grilled Sirloin with Garlic Butter sauce

I normally prefer eating beef without gravy, providing it's a good quality beef, so I can taste it's true flavor. However the sauce here complemented the beef very well without being over powering.

Unagi Kabayaki

Shintaro's unagi was done quite well compared to other Japanese restaurant that I've tried in Bangkok. It tasted fresh and flavorful without the irritating little bones found in some other restaurants.

Duck Udon with miso and spring onion

I normally prefer Ramen over Udon, but since I do not normally see duck in Udon, I decided to it out. It did not disappoint me! The soup was full of flavor, much better than what we had at Don Don. They were very generous with the duck meat too.

Unagi Sushi

Our dessert was ginger pudding. It didn't sound very appealing at first, but it tasted a lot better than I'd expected. The ginger flavor wasn't overpowering, just enough to give an extra touch to the pudding. The top was caramelized, it was a lot like ginger flavored creme brulee.

I am very glad we got to try out Shintaro as it was probably one of the better Japanese restaurants I've tried in Bangkok, and probably my favorite at the moment. I will definitely go back to try their other dishes.

Lunch @ Don Don, Bangkok

After reading about Don Don in several Thai blogs, I decided to try it out myself. Don Don is a little Japanese restaurant which specializes in their fresh homemade Udon and is situated at Sukhumvit 39. The restaurant itself has two levels, in which I personally preferred the top level as there was a more Japanese kick to it. We were kindly brought to the traditional Japanese type of seatings where we had to sit on the floors instead of on the chairs. It was fun at first as it really added an authentic Japanese touch to it, but I eventually got pins and needles half way through the meal.

We ordered several appetizers to nibble on while we were waiting for our mains.

Cheese Wontons

I've heard ravings about this, but I didn't find them to be that fantastic. The wontons were quite hollow, without much cheese to be found.

Japanese Dumplings

Okonomiyaki
This was really good with the extra mayo

In the blogs I've read, I was told about Don Don's Monjayaki, which is a Japanese pan-fried batter similar to Okonomiyaki, but with a lot more runnier texture than Okonomiyaki. There were a lot of flavors to choose from, and I wasn't sure which one was good, so we went with the cheese flavor. Although it wasn't very authentic, but it did sound sinful and that was what got me convinced. The batter was first poured into a hot plate and delivered to our table, then we had to wait anxiously while it was cooking before we could dig in with our spatula.

The adorable little spatulas to aid in scraping the Monjayaki


The Monjayaki bubbling in the hot plate


The cooked Monjayaki
After it's cooked, we flipped it over using the large spatula. The crispy texture is lovely!

Since Don Don was also famous for their Udon, we tried out several of their Udon.

Deep Fried Vegetables Udon
I thought the soup tasted pretty good, but the deep fried vegetables were a bit too salty


My brother found the soup a bit bland, but the Udon itself was good.


Cold Udon with Tempura

I think the texture of the homemade Udon was really brought out in this dish. You could really taste the springy and chewy texture of the noodles. Something that you can't get from those ready made ones!

If you are a fan of good quality Udon, do try Don Don out when you have a chance! I had fun eating there, and the owner and staff were friendly. I do hope they improve the flavor of their soup for their Udon though.

Happy New Year 2008

Happy New Year to all my dear readers. I hope you all had a great New year celebration! I'm currently in Bangkok and would probably be here for the next few weeks, so most of my posts will be related to all my food adventures in Bangkok.

New Year in Bangkok was quite interesting, a lot of beautiful fireworks. The atmosphere overall was very lively and eventful, with the surprising lovely cool weather. I'm so glad I'm not suffering from the heat stroke in Melbourne right now.

I decided to try out this Thai restaurant while I was walking around in Siam Paragon looking for a place to eat. Just the variety of choices that were available already gave me a headache as all of them looked fabulous and trendy, but I ended up trying this out as I was craving for Northern Thai food. This place is called Cafe Chilli, and it serves Northern Thai style food with a bit of a western kick. The taste was pretty authentic though, better than I'd expected. However, price-wise, it was on a high side for Thai food! All the portions were small, so we ended up ordering quite a few.

Sticky rice wrapped with pork
This was my favorite!


Somtum (Papaya Salad) with fried sticky rice


Thai style grilled chicken with turmeric
This was good, with natural sweet flavor. It goes very well with the papaya salad.


Tom Sabb Hed or Spicy Thai soup with mushrooms


Laab Moo or Minced pork salad


Thai style grilled lamb cutlets


Laab Moo Deng, this tasted like Thai Minced Fish balls to me, even though it was made out of pork


Deep Fried flowers


Steamed chicken. This was better than I'd expected, more flavorful and really tender.


Deep Fried Chicken wings

The food here is pretty good, but price-wise, I think there are a lot of other better alternatives. With the beautiful unique interior, and good service, this would be great for entertaining guests though !