Dining out on community spirit

FAMOUS for their chic cafes and restaurants and art spaces, Bangkok’s Soi Thonglor and Soi Ari have long wooed the trendy crowd. Now, though, they are facing competition from a suburban interloper – Soi Nak Niwat off Lat Phrao Soi 71.
A great place to chill and shop, the area is a delightful blend of residences and happening restaurants and art spaces, all mixed in with a lifestyle shop that sells coffee as well as fashion, a health food store and an organic urban farm.

Food Art & Craft offers comfort foods and workshops on cooking and arts.

Delicious dishes and amazing artworks can be found at Food Art & Craft on Nak Niwat Soi 38. Open just two months, it’s run by the heavily tattooed Natt Panchangkakul, who splits his time between art, fashion and interior design and producing ads. When he’s in the kitchen, though, his focus is strictly on his cooking. 
Inside the shophouse, a mustard-coloured wall all but disappears under of prints, drawings and photos of His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. These are works both by Natt himself and his artist friends and he’s delighted to see visitors paying respect to the late King who he regards as the supreme artist.

 Chicken spicy salad with phak paew (Vietnamese coriander) 

Chumphon-born Natt was taught how to cook Southern dishes by his mother, who ran a small eatery-cum-dressmaker’s shop. After graduating, he went on to study fashion design at Kent University in the UK and earned some extra cash working in a restaurant. When he returned home, he spent time in the kitchen at a riverside hotel in Bangkok, learning Western cooking techniques while working as an interior and landscape designer.

Khun Nai Geg Huay’s pad khanom jeen

The pad thai – his take on a family recipe – uses fresh khanom jeen rice noodles in place of the usual dried rice noodles. The cooking method is pretty much the same –stir-frying noodles with dried shrimp, chopped bean curd, beansprouts, garlic chives and roasted peanut and flavouring the mix with tamarind sauce, fish sauce and palm sugar. It’s served with sweet shredded pork, fresh beansprouts, fresh pennyworth leaves, and garlic chives.
“The dish called Khun Nai Geg Huay’s pad khanom jeen (Bt120) is named after my mum whose Chinese name is Geg Huay. My mum used to run an eatery selling khanom jeen and the leftovers were used in pad thai for the family,” he explains. 

Spicy shredded mango salad with crispy small fish

Those who like their food hot will enjoy the spicy shredded mango salad with crispy small fish for Bt120, chicken spicy salad with phak paew (Vietnamese coriander) for Bt150, and spiced calamari larb (Bt150) seasoned with dried chilli, ground toasted rice and chopped fresh pennyworth leaves, giving it slightly bitter taste. For the kids, he offers deep-fried bean curd dressed with parmesan cheese and bacon crisps for Bt90.

Spiced calamari larb with fresh pennyworth leaves

Natt is also planning to offer cooking classes and is setting up a menu for delivery service. Expect to see him riding his vintage motorcycle bringing your orders at your door very soon.

Fabric Living is a lifestyle shop where you can sip a cup of good coffee and enjoy shopping for casual apparel and bedding and natural-made skin care products.

Adjacent to chef Natt’s eatery is Fabric Living, a lifestyle shop that serves hot and cold drinks alongside bed linen and clothes that are simple in design but outstanding in quality, as well as a selection of natural skincare products.
The friendly coffee shop on the ground floor seats about 10 and the back of the store is devoted to apparel and bedding – all made from super-soft pure cotton. A screening and printing studio is upstairs.

Orapan Tangviriya and her partner have been in business for more than a decade. They opened their first shop at Chatuchak Weekend Market, selling cotton T-shirts screened with funky designs under the brand Fabric. They expanded the name to Fabric Living after introducing the cotton bed linen. 
The shop moved to Nak Niwat Soi 38 two years ago and a coffee shop was added to draw in more customers. Here you will find cotton dresses, blouses, shirts, T-shirts, skirts and shorts in pastel shades and a collection of cotton bedcovers and sheets in single, queen and king sizes, along with pillowcases and bolster cases which have no join. The linens are available plain as well as with stripes or polka dots. 

“I only use pure cotton. The weaving technique ensures that the clothes and furnishings are ventilated, comfortable and soft to the skin,” says Orapan, a graduate in film from Rangsit University.

Courtesy of Fabric Living

She recently added a skincare line under the name Fabular offering body lotion, body scrub, hand cream, shower gel and soap. Comfortable socks made in South Korea and a selection of second-hand, woven rugs from Mexico – all in colourful shades – are also available and it’s worth staying longer to try her coffee brewed from pure Arabica beans or a glass of honeyed Thai tea with a cranberry scone.

Organic Supply offers almost everything for a healthy diet.

A little further down the soi opposite Nak Niwat Soi 7 is Organic Supply. Part cafe, part health food store, it offers a wide selection of healthy drinks made with organic fruits, vegetables and so-called super-foods such as quinoa and flaxseed as well as coffee brewed from organic pure Arabica beans. Many of home-made pastries have no sugar added, are gluten-free, and low in fat. The favourites include lemon curd poppy seed cheesecake, vegan charcoal scone, flourless cacao cookies, and multigrain cranberry whole wheat bread.

“Though the four of us are not committed vegetarians, we hope that our store will encourage people to take a look at their lives and eat more healthily. We also want to support local artisanal produce grown organically with no chemicals,” says one of the four owners, Apichai Tragoolpadetgrai, the singer-songwriter better known as Lek Greasy Cafe.
Organic Supply is decked out in minimalist style with furniture and shelves made out of old wood and pallets. It stocks just about everything you need for a healthy diet including organic rice, vegan breads, honey, coconut flower sugar, body lotion, soap, shampoo and even bio goodies for pets.

“Everyone yearns for good health and healthy food, but most of us simply don’t have the time or energy to prepare nutritional foods for every meal. Availability, accessibility and affordability are among the factors that keep urbanites away from gourmet healthy foods. To me, two healthy meals a week are acceptable and our store tries to supply all sorts of natural-made goods easily accessible for neighbourhoods,” he adds.

 Hip Incy Farmville is a learning centre of urban farm and cafe with farm-to-table concept. 

Another singer Thamasak Luepuwa- pitakkul, aka Oh p2warship, hit the headlines late last year when he converted his family’s money-making football pitch on Nak Niwat Soi 30 into a thriving urban farm called Hip Incy Farmville.
An acre of his land today produces organic vegetables, herbs and fruits and eggs from free-range chickens. He also grows Italian basil and coriander and makes pesto out of them. His organic pesto sauce, cashew nut butter and sesame salad dressing are among the home-made products for sale.

“I am an artist by training and interior designer by trade,” says Thamasak. “I had no agricultural background or experience so I decided to look more deeply into His Majesty the late King’s projects and philosophy on sustainable living.”
He plants banana, pumpkin, lime, lemon, lemongrass, mango, papaya, chilli and different kinds of herbs and much of the produce grown in his soil is used in his farm-to-table Hip Incy Cafe. It can accommodate about 30 diners but right now only offers a limited menu of pasta and salads. 

“The menu is based on the day’s harvest. This place is also an actual field for kids and city people to learn about urban farming. I also occasionally hold workshops on arts, singing, and photography,” says Thamasak, who is developing a 12-rai property in Bangkok’s suburb of Nong Chok district that will serve as a rice field and garden for plenty of different herbs.

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Down in the ’hood
>>> Food Art & Craft on Nak Niwat Soi 38 is open daily (except Monday), from noon to 2pm, and 6 to 10pm. Call (098) 656 5149 or keep updated on the workshops at its page on Facebook.
>>> Fabric Living on Nak Niwat Soi 38 is open daily (except Wednesday), from 9am to 7pm. Call (081) 310 2266.
>>> Organic Supply, opposite Nak Niwat Soi 7, is open daily from 10am to 8pm. Call (02) 101 6410 or “OrganicSupplyBkk” on Facebook.
>> Hip Incy Farmville on Nak Niwat Soi 30 is open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 6pm. Call (080) 586 0822 and follow the farm activities on its fan page on Facebook.