Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin - Fine, Modern Thai food in Central Bangkok

Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin - Fine, Modern Thai food in Central Bangkok

Located inside the Kempinski Siam hotel (next to Siam Paragon mall) this restaurant is easy to reach and food and atmosphere amazing. I know they were previously on Asia's 50 best restaurants although for some reason it is no longer on the 2015 guide. That aside, a friend who visited both this and Nahm highly recommend this over Nahm and I took their advice. 

Lunch here is rather affordable, at roughly THB 1350 for 3 courses, theres only 2 choices however, and no substitutions are allowed if you don't eat meat or seafood.  There's also an a la carte menu if you want other options or their signature dish the frozen curry with lobster. 

Their lunch set sounded enticing enough for us and we both went with the same - wagyu beef salad, fish in coconut broth and pandan ice cream. The other option as I recall was scallops, pork belly and banana cake with salted caramel ice cream. 

appetizers - home made squid ink prawn cracker, peanut meringue cookie, lotus root chips. I didn't like the latter two as they were just too sweet, it seemed it they should be served after the meal. 

Frozen Curry - Red, with Lobster.

 The picture above is when they were just about to pour liquid nitrogen into the mouth of the bowl for that smoke effect. I was too focused on capturing a great video I forgot the quality of the photo - sorry! Photos aside this dish was pretty damn perfect. A small scoop of the frozen red curry sauce is hidden - very coconut-ty and generous on the spice to make you need the rambutans, almonds, herbs and perfectly juicy sweet poached lobster for balance. My friend declared this her favourite dish before she even tried ones to come. 

Wagyu beef salad

I thought they could've been more generous with the beef - I think there was only 1 ounce max! I really liked the shaved cucumbers with the sweet and sour lime and fish sauce dressing, I just wish there was more meat! The beef itself was actually not a lot like Wagyu - much leaner, although still tender.

Butter fish in coconut broth and sauteed mushrooms 

This dish definitely redeemed the earlier one - perfectly cooked fish and the crispiest skin ever sitting on top. Our server poured the broth from a teapot and there was this fragrance of lemongrass and thai basil (in oil form). The fish also known as sable fish is very fatty, and held heat very well so the dish stayed super hot throughout. Served with jasmine rice - this is totally comfort!

Pandan Ice cream

On the menu the name makes the dish seem rather simple, however when we were served the dessert we were both pleasantly surprised. Being a fan of pandan, this dish had pandan jellies, pandan-coconut jellies, pistachio sponge (covered) coconut milk "ice", crispy slivered almonds, and a scoop of smooth, pure and not too sweet pandan ice cream. Cold, creamy, soft, chewy, crunchy and never too sweet - this was a perfect ending to our lunch. Very satisfying indeed!

A shame their menu doesn't vary too much, I would love to return and try dinner. After this meal we headed to the lobby and had a car take our full bellies to the airport. 

Food: ♥♥ ♥ ♥

Service: ♥♥♥ 1/2 

Price: I paid THB 2000 / HKD 460 for this lunch. 

Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin, 

Siam Kempinski Hotel, 

991/9 Rama I Road, Bangkok 10330 

Thailand 

Reservations made by email.