Just like mother used to make
The new Eathai Cafe serves more than 30 Thai favourites
ONE OF Bangkok’s most popular food halls and markets, Eathai at Central Embassy is expanding on its street food by adding an old-fashioned teahouse called Eathai Cafe.
Located on the lower ground floor of the upscale shopping mall, this new 80-seat cafe and bistro is designed in an elegant vintage style and offers a selection of authentic dishes and refreshments that are popular with Thai families.
The reception area boasts a giant brass teapot while the interior is furnished with marble-topped tables and green-upholstered chairs. The counter is typically 1970s with stacks of condensed milk cans, Thai-style coffee glasses, enamelled tiffins and plates on display.
The kitchen is under the control of executive chef Uemporn Yuayaipong, who had worked with five-star hotels in Maldives, the US, Macao, China and Canada as well as in Thailand.
“We want to offer simple meals of the type that Thai families cook at home. Our bosses have shared their family recipes and I’ve created a few new dishes wiht a twist. The flavour is authentic but the presentation is modern,” says Uemporn.
“Thai food is cooked to match the seasons. For example, Kaeng Liang is made with Thai herbs known from their cooling qualities.”
Uemporn’s ingredients include organic vegetables, river prawns and grain-feed beef from Kasetsart University. The 30-plus dishes are categorised into breakfast, main, salad, soup, curry, noodle, rice and desserts.
We start our lunch with the Garden Fresh Salad (Bt150), a generous assortment of green vegetables and sunflower seeds, which comes with tamarind, fish sauce, toasted sesame and black pepper dressing.
We also taste a Pomelo and Prawn Salad (Bt240) sprinkled with sweet toasted chilli paste, coconut flakes and peanuts, and follow up with Prawn Stuffed Chicken Wing (Bt190) with chilli sauce.
The main dishes include Tamarind Fried River Prawn (Bt480) with tamarind sauce, pineapple and crisp mixed herbs. For the meat-eaters, there’s Tender Rib Finger Red Curry (Bt240), with fresh chilli, kaffir lime leaves and sweet basil and served with fried fish and salted egg yolk.
“I use Khao Paen pomelo from Nakhon Pathom because it is sweet and has a crispy texture, making it perfect for salad,” Uemporn says. “I simmer the beef for three hours to make it tender and make the curry sauce with fresh coconut milk.
The must-try dessert is Pandon Sticky Rice with Mango served with coconut milk for Bt180. There are several drinks from which to choose including Hot Milk Coffee (Bt75), Utaithip Orange Soda (Bt120) and a Summer Samui cocktail (Bt280) made from Beefeater gin, passion fruit pulp, monin-orgeat almond syrup, angostura bitter, lime juice and mint leaf.
TASTY TREATS
Eathai Cafe is on the lower ground floor of Central Embassy. It’s open daily from 10 to 10.
