Popagandhi

1. FoodLoft
7th Floor, Central Chidlom (nearest BTS station: Chitlom)

I’ve swooned about this place time and again, and for good reasons - this is what we should have back home, or in any city in the world. I’ve described it many times as a cross between Marche and Mezza9: where the only resemblance to Marche comes from sharing the same market-like concept aided by cards for ordering. FoodLoft is definitely where the Bangkok upper middle class dine, with prices to match. While it may not be the “genuine Bangkok experience” (and who’s to say what is genuine and what isn’t?), for those of you on your 124242th visit to the City of Angels, and tired of the usual dining prospects, FoodLoft is an excellent option. There is a range of food on offer here: Thai, Chinese, Singapore/Malaysian/Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Vietnamnese. Prices at around 70-100 baht and upwards (S$3-4) per main course, which is rather extravagant by Thai standards. Take special note of the desserts here - they had us returning every day, for dessert alone. All the sorbets and pies and cakes are to-die-for.

FoodLoft website

2. Playground
818 Sukhumvit soi 55, Thonglor

Sometime in April, a new concept store was launched in Sukhumvit soi 55 (Thonglor). It’s difficult to describe this place, because it really does take your breath away. The black-clad building’s other primary colours are hot pink and white, managing to be as bold as it is uber-cool. Stepping into Playground, it’s hard to put a name to it - is it a department store? Is it a club? Is their CD section really music retail, or does it have gasp iPod photos built into the wall, with indie music in every single one of them? (The iPods seemed to contain more Belle and Sebastian albums than I own.)

A cafe on the ground floor, Vanilla Industries, seemed to have a good selection of food and pastries, but we headed for KUPPA@playground on the third floor - cafe/ restaurant/ cooking school. The decor was clean and minimalist, with comfortable sofas - the menu had an extensive range of pastas and pizzas - all of which, I guarantee, were extraordinary. And you pay the corresponding price for that. A cooking class was in session, with the celebrity chef Dan from the famous Bed Supperclub conducting a class for a small group. The clientele appeared to be well-heeled, well-dressed, middle-aged Thais (and expats). And in the corner, on a sofa somewhere, two girls were happily indulging themselves in brunch, spending about S$50 in the process. My parents told me Bangkok was going to be cheap. Not for me.

In the retail sections, an entire corner is devoted to photography, art, and design books (in English); clothes and shoes, accessories, make up the rest of the store. Designer furniture. An art exhibition was ongoing. DJ decks feature prominently between the escalators, a giant pink dinosaur skeleton occupies the central spot.

Walking through Playground, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that this place was definitely designed by gay men - it has to be.

3. Le Cafe Siam
4, Soi Sri Aksorn, Chua Ploeng, Sathorn 10120
(See this for a map, and printable instructions in Thai for taxi drivers - you’ll need it!)

I know what you’re thinking - French and Thai food? - ewwww. But first, Le Cafe Siam has been described by some to be one of the most romantic places to dine in Bangkok, and rightly so. It’s a colonial bungalow lovingly restored and furnished with antiques and artwork - all of which you can buy, even the brass ashtray on every table, the chair you’re sitting on, the “street lamp” in the garden. Regardless of whether you choose to sit inside or al fresco, it’s bound to be “intimate”. I noted that the restaurant was one of very few who get their table arrangements “just right” - with a suitable amount of space between each table (inside and outside), and waitstaff positioning themselves a good distance away - the attention to detail was immaculate. Have a after-dinner drink in the cozy bar upstairs.

To walk into the restaurant, first you must pass a short footpath through a lovely garden, the same garden in which you can dine al fresco. Being such connoisseurs of that activity embodied by the banner on the top of this page (i.e. something involving sucking and dragging), al fresco it had to be. The waiter, on seeing we had chosen to sit in the garden with the geckos, immediately pulled out wooden stools so we didn’t have to lay our bags on the ground, and helpfully offered mosquito repellent. Nobody dines al fresco in a garden in Thailand except smokers.

Having had Thai food for several days, we opted for the French menu and didn’t have a chance to sample the Thai food. Apparently the French chef had served in several Michelin-starred restaurants in Europe prior to his tenure here, so the food was of a correspondingly high standard. The herb-crusted ahi tuna (460 baht) and duck breast with poached granny smith apples (430 baht) were excellent.

The waitstaff here were great - great service, and animated. Asking for a dessert menu, one promptly ran to the kitchen to fetch us a tray of every dessert they had on offer that night, and ran us through them one by one. Talk about interactive menus! As we prepared to leave, he then asked if we needed him to “call a taxi” - and we agreed, thinking he meant he would make arrangements over the telephone. Five seconds later, we heard a high pitched voice from the road screaming “TAXII!! Sukhumvit soi si!! Taxi!” (He returned, flustered, and announced he had already “called us a taxi”, and it was waiting.)

Le Cafe Siam website

4. Dasa Book Cafe
Between Sukhumvit soi 26 and 28, on the main road. Nearest BTS station: Phrom Phong
(click for map)

Funky little used books store and cafe in a quiet area of Sukhumvit, run by an American expat. Fairly good selection of books, and good drinks at the cafe. A good place to unwind after a hectic day in downtown Bangkok.

Dasa Book Cafe website

5. Sunset Street
an alley in Khao San Road

Khao San Road, that famed budget travellers’ mecca, is for the most part loud and crass. Topless young white men. Topless young white men, drunk in mid-day. Hippies, children of hippies, young people behaving strangely with the aid of substances. I’ve commented more than once that KSR “perhaps has more white people than the whole of Sydney put together”.

Yet KSR is also lovely for several reasons: banana pancakes, and pad thai. And Sunset Street. To find it, just ask for directions to Starbucks (or Starfucks, as I will have it). There is a courtyard, a restored mansion that is now Kraichitti Gallery - the first time we were there, they had a photography exhibition by the Royal Siam Photographic Society; the second time, a photojournalist was having a hard-hitting exhibition on the subject of the Thai war on drugs. There are bars here where you may recover from the madness of KSR - and of course, Starfucks. And when you are done, you can walk towards Phra Athit Road to the pier (N13), and catch a boat - passing sights such as the Temple of Dawn (Wat Arun), radiant in dusk.

Credits and Disclaimers
No thanks to Dave for his helpful suggestions on how to part with as much baht as it was possible to!

I understand the above spots are indicative of a predilection towards what you may call yuppie sensibilities, but a short consultation with my mother will turn up alternative suggestions from her encyclopedic knowledge of Bangkok, if anyone is so inclined.

It will do every visitor to Bangkok much good to grab a copy of a Nancy Chandler map of Bangkok: it is The Map to have.

“When a man is tired of Bangkok, he is tired of life; for there is in Bangkok all that life can afford (drink and women, tomyum and tamsom).” - Adrianna Tan