And we ate. And discovered new restaurants. And enjoyed each other's company.
Here we go - pics!
Lunch when we arrived on Tuesday was had at the hotel itself. The restaurant is called SoCal and for some reason BIKSS always thought that stood for Southern California. Turns out "SoCal is a vibrant street-side café and dining destination where the rustic flavours of Italy meet the vibrant spices of the Levant." Who woulda guessed!
Buffalo Mozzarella & Roated Tomato
Chicken Taouk
There was a lovely plate of sweets on the table in the room...
... which was conveniently located right at the lift lobby. I know some would prefer a room farther away so as to eliminate foot traffic noises, but it was so well carpeted that we honestly couldn't hear anything at all from inside the room.
BIKSS went off to work, while I spent the day ironing and, later on, walking to a couple of restaurants in the next building to get our reservations sorted for the next two days' lunches. After that I met BIKSS at the BIG C mega supermart for spot (ok, that's not really a spot LOL) of snack shopping. Maybe we overdid it a little.. but that's what Bangkok is all about, after all.
They had some strange flavours... and seeing as how I'm a lover of all things potato chips, I absolutely HAD to try. Haven't had a chance to burst into the salmon can yet, but the Fish & Chips one wasn't bad. Some pieces had more flavour than others, but the ones that did were indeed very reminiscent of English F&C. I wouldn't exactly run back to the shop to buy more, but it was an interesting flavour.
Then we found these konjac snacks. They're savoury konjac bits that can be eaten on their own, or paired with rice or porridge or noodles. Ripped one open when I arrived home - I like it! Plus it's zero calories, zero fats, and zero sugars!
Dinner was had at a sushi restaurant in BIKSS' office building. We had the salmon roll with avocado and asparagus, a seaweed and avocado salad with broccoli and peppers, and a tom yum fried maki with fried prawns. The portions were generous, and that tom yum maki was definitely interesting. Again, a once in a lifetime "must-try" but I doubt I'd want to order it again. The restaurant gave us some complimentary cantaloupe slices for dessert.
Baker Bricks was one of the places on my scones hit list. Sadly when I got there on the evening of the first day, they had already sold out. So I asked if I could make a reservation and they said I could just place my order and collect my treats the next day. Which is what I ended up doing. Turns out they have a rotating menu which changes from week to week, and this apparently drives their Insta fans wild with FOMO. I suppose it's a good strategy. Will I want to go back there to buy more the next time I'm in BKK? Definitely. And for the same reason - they'll have different flavours and I want to eat them all!
It's not a traditional scone texture-wise, more like what I would consider an American biscuit, which I know is supposed to be what the English call a scone, but somehow I always think of biscuits as a little more crumbly. And these were definitely more crumbly.
It's not a traditional scone texture-wise, more like what I would consider an American biscuit, which I know is supposed to be what the English call a scone, but somehow I always think of biscuits as a little more crumbly. And these were definitely more crumbly.
Top - Hojicha Tiramisu scone with mascarpone for supper,
Bottom - Chocolate Banana scone with apple and tangerine for breakfast the next morning.
Me with my Baker Bricks boxes sitting at a table in the Pancake Cafe while I waited for my souffle pancakes to be ready. (Also, that grey clutch is my new favourite bag! Thrifted it for $7.50!)
They were a bit deflated by the time we got to them, but since BIKSS didn't have a lot of time for waiting about at a cafe (20 mins prep time), I ordered a takeaway box before lunch so that we could share it as a dessert in our room after lunch.
They're served stacked one on top of the other in-store but since I didn't trust it to stay up (especially under the weight of ice cream, fruit, sauce and cream) we decided to just have one each. BIKSS surrendered after 2/3 of his, and I ate the rest of it!
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Lunch was had at the Mandarin Oriental tea shop. I was a little bit disappointed with their scones. We had too much for lunch, so BIKSS took the ham and cheese baguette back to work for some of the guys. I couldn't have my scones at the restaurant for being overstuffed, so I bought a mango scone and had it to go. It was dry, heavy, and didn't taste of anything. We each took a bite, proclaimed it unfit for human consumption and promptly chucked the rest of it out. The fish and dill pie was good, and look at those adorable fishies! And the grilled salmon and salad was a much larger serving than we expected. A warm pot of lemongrass tea was the perfect antidote to having overeaten! And those chocolates are so exorbitantly priced, I don't know who would buy them!
The day's wanderings found me picking up a pair of slides, to replace the ones I brought with me, which by now had begun to lose their treads and weren't any good to me on rainy days. I left those behind when I packed to come home.
The small-business scent shop I support (from ChiangMai) now has a little corner in one of the shops on the topmost floor of where the BIG C supermart is, so I picked up a few items. They didn't have a lot of variety, so that's all I managed. A perfume, pillow mist, and hand sanitiser.
Anyway, on to dinner! Which was at Victoria in Centralworld. We had the chilli garlic prawns, beef cheek bourguignon, and nicoise salad with seared tuna. All in all a very good meal. They gave us a serving of bruschetta on the house.
And because there was a fly showing some interest in our food they placed a little fan on the table (a comfortable distance away from the food) in order to keep the bugger away.
Brunch the next day was had at 1823 tearoom, where I had the tea set for one, and BIKSS had the set lunch, with chicken roulade, a salad, and some Thai milk tea ice cream. I had the ice cream as he wasn't a fan of it.
After that he went back to work and I stayed on sipping my tea by our window table. I did very little the rest of the afternoon, by which I mean I went back to the room and took a nap.
Then it was off to Big C to pick up some sauces and teas, and then it was off to Mozza at Central Chidlom for dinner. The caesar salad was generously topped with cheese and bacon, the lambshank was a little gamey but fine when eaten together with the risotto, and the eggplant parmigiana was simply marvelous. The tiramisu was awesome, cos it was more cream than sponge, altho BIKSS thought there wasn't ENOUGH sponge. Pfft. It's all about the cream, imo.
Our spoils! Mine is a little handcarry (ok, 'little' is relative!) and BIKSS ended up filling his duffel. And yes, we had more in our luggage!
Lunch at the airport was a simple burger.... but I thought it was cute that they stamped the name of the restaurant on their buns!
And today I cooked up a batch of rice vermicelli with the packet of boat noodle gravy mix I got there. I've been to BKK multiple times but had never tried boat noodles. So I got ONE packet to try. And I've decided I quite like the flavour. It's a little bit spicy, savoury, and sweet. I guess I'll be adding it to my shopping list for the next time I'm there. Definitely worth buying!
And that's the end of it. I hope you've enjoyed the photo dump!
