Crazy cocktails and comfort food

ENERGETIC restaurateur Kulsiri Chaiyanoppakul believes in keeping busy. In the past few years, she’s turned her eatery, All Six to Twelve on Soi Langsuan into one of Bangkok’s hippest hangouts and given its older sibling Amontre Playroom & Brasserie on South Sathorn Road, a younger and more playful look. Now she’s back with a second branch of All Six to Twelve and this time she’s focusing on warehouse chic.

Kulsiri prefers to place her restaurants inside residential buildings and the latest branch is no exception, taking up space on the ground floor of the upmarket apartment block 39 Boulevard Tower on Sukhumvit Soi 39. Entry is via a huge wooden door, which opens to reveal a warehouse-like eatery with a cement floor, wooden beams and rustic walls with blistered paint. Facing the entrance is an open bar made of old corrugated iron adding to the space’s edgy urban feel.

While the Langsuan outlet has a high ceiling painted black, white brick walls, metal ceiling lamps and black furniture, the new branch has a low ceiling painted white, pallet-like wooden furniture and tables inspired by industrial cable spools – giving the whole ambience an industrial look. There are no tablecloths. Instead, the tables are covered with large sheets of plain paper.

“Simple, cool and stylish is still the theme but the atmosphere has changed from New York loft to Nordic-style warehouse,” Kulsiri explains. “However, All Six to Twelve’s signature Thai dishes are still available and we’ve also created eight new dishes specially for this branch. The a la carte breakfast menu boasts Thai, Japanese and Western dining options that range from soft-boiled egg with butter toast to crispy roti and pancakes with honeycomb butter and banana,” says Kulsiri.

As the name implies, service hours run from 6am to midnight. You can start the day with a quick breakfast, have comfort food for lunch or linger at night with an array of drinks after a long day at work.

Our breakfast line-up starts with congee and onsen egg (Bt75) and features smooth brown rice congee with chicken, spring onion, ginger, soft-boiled egg and deep-fried dough stick. 

Next up is grilled salmon with pepper and garlic (Bt135) served with Japanese rice, home-made kimchi and spicy miso soup. Typical street food grilled pork and glutinous rice gets a contemporary makeover on a Chinese-style tin tray and comes with Isaan-style jaew dipping sauce (Bt75). Glutinous rice with shredded pork is a favourite quick breakfast for many but Kulsiri gives it a twist by serving the sweetened shredded pork with capellini dressed with chilli, basil, tomato and caper (Bt95). 

Those who like to go to work on an egg won’t be disappointed by the range of egg dishes served here. Like the comfort food khai katha - an all-in-one sizzling-hot plate dish, the eatery has fried eggs with moo yor (steamed ground pork sausage), crispy bacon and minced pork (Bt75). Another tempting choice is baked eggs with paprika sausage topped with crispy bacon with hashbrowns and grilled tomato on the side (Bt135). The scrambled eggs are served in a tray with six holes – each holding scrambled egg topped respectively with pickled cucumber, shallot, chilli, lime juice, smoked salmon and cheddar cheese and comes with salad and sabayon sauce (Bt135). For a heavier start to the day, opt for beef muffins with egg benedict (Bt175) – fillet steak and poached egg with lettuce, cheese and bearnaise sauce served on an English muffin. 

Comfort food with a contemporary twist is a great choice for both lunch and dinner and the selection here covers everything from sandwiches to Thai fusion dishes inspired by all four regions.

The jumbo crab sandwich (Bt250) is a toasted brioche stuffed with meat taken from the crab’s paddle-leg along with iceberg, tomato and spicy coriander mayo sauce and served with hashbrowns. The sweet brioche is crispy outside but puffy inside and goes well with sweet and thick crabmeat. 

The North meets Isaan with sai oua and sai aom sausages (Bt125). The Northern-style spicy sausage of sai oua is stuffed with minced pork seasoned with lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, chilli and garlic while the Isaan-style gaeng aom – a spicy herbaceous veggie soup – is transformed into a sausage stuffed with minced pork, lemongrass and dill leaves for a truly unique flavour.

Also worth savouring is the adaptation of the South’s much-loved klua kling (Bt85). The ground pork is dry-fried in yellow curry and seasoned with chilli and tumeric and rice then made into balls for deep-frying. It’s served in a bamboo basket with fresh vegetables. Equally tempting is fried marinated chicken served in a glass together with a dip made of chopped spring onion, cashew nut, garlic, ginger, lime and chilli (Bt55).

Kulsiri also twists the Southern-style herbal dish of khao yam by substituting steamed rice with La Molisana rice-shaped pasta. It’s cooked with chopped shallot, lemongrass, pomelo, spring beans, cucumber, betel leaf, dried shrimp, crispy fish and shredded kaffir lime leaf. Served on the side is a budu fish sauce and ground chilli (Bt95).

The eatery is known for cocktails with a punch and some new drinks have been specially mixed for this new branch. Among them is the Samurai, a mix of vanilla vodka, peach liquor, schnapps, lime juice and topped with plum. The pale orange Twinkle looks innocent but kicks hard with its blend with raspberry vodka and raspberry syrup, lime, fresh strawberry and fresh lychee. And while the White Chocolate & Jack Daniel may look like an iced coffee, the near lethal blend of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and white chocolate is unlikely to keep you awake.

 

 

FUNKY FUSION

>>All Six to Twelve Cafe & Social Bar is on the ground floor of 39 Boulevard Tower on Sukhumvit Soi 39. It opens daily from 6am to midnight. Call (02) 160 0311.