Soul Food Mahanakorn, Bangkok - Many expats, but definitely an excellent place for modern Thai eating

Soul Food Mahanakorn, Bangkok - Many expats, but definitely an excellent place for modern Thai eating  

Apologies for such a long hiatus! Blogging definitely requires a lot of effort and I admire those who hold a 10+ hour job and can still make time to post their foodie excursions. 

I'm currently on a long holiday break and hence have found some time to post my travels of this year. I definitely regret not posting anything whilst away in London, Madrid, Berlin, Paris, Singapore and Philippines in 2014 as I've maintained this blog as a way to remind myself what I've eaten in the past and share with the public pictures of my meals and thoughts for reference. Going forward I'm going to do my best to post blogs on my meals during my travels, and for photos of my meals in HK you may visit gastronomerr.tumblr.com! 

On to the good stuff, earlier in May my first stop was Bangkok. I was there mainly for spa and relaxation however did manage to book two restaurants I had read about and wanted to try - desperately! I picked one casual and one fine dining place to see what Bangkok had to offer. Both turned out great, and below is my experience at Soul Food Mahanakorn, which I had read to serve excellent Thai food with small twists to the traditional ingredients/methods. 

"Yam Makrua Yao" aka smoked eggplant salad with soft cooked ducks eggs

Firstly - that yolk!!!! The eggplant was super smokey, there was mint and coriander to balance the saltiness from the dressing (fish sauce based) and there was also house-smoked bacon 'bits' which was unfortunately too hard as it wasn't too chopped finely enough. This dish was delicious and the eggplant very tasty - I wouldn't mind eating eggplant more often if it always tasted like this. 

Smoked Duck Larb 

The meat was very tender despite it being rather lean. Much better than the chicken larb usually made of breast. I must say I'm not a huge fan of larb to begin with, so this dish was just OK, not memorable and I wouldn't order it again. 

Pork Cheek Curry 

There was actually a smoked duck and rambutan curry which was a special for the day however as my friend really wanted the larb we decided to go with a different protein. The waitress recommended the pork belly and pork cheek curries - we chose the latter as the cut of meat is more rarely seen. The meat was mega tender and the taste of curry very balanced - not very spicy but was perfect with the sticky rice we ordered to go with it (below). 

Fish in a leaf

This was a fillet of sea bass, stuffed with lemongrass and dill, and paired with a lime and dill chili sauce. The sauce was excellent, however the fish was steamed and it was quite 'wet'. Perhaps a firmer fish would've been a better choice for steaming but nonetheless tasty. 

sticky red and white jasmine rice

Thai cabbage sprouts

Left - Coconut ice cream, mango sticky rice

Whilst these two desserts look very simple, I highly recommend you save stomach room and order it! The ice cream and crunchy pieces of slivered almonds and the ice cream itself was quite 'light'. I had it together with the mango and sticky rice in place of the usual coconut milk and it was delish! 

The front and back pages of the menu for the curious ;-)...

Overall we loved the atmosphere and food SFM had to offer, and would definitely return if we want a good option for a variety of well-executed Thai food. I read that their Tamarind Pork Spareribs are excellent too! 

I will try to post all of my recent trips (Tokyo) and upcoming trips (London, Barcelona) here soon. 

Food: ♥♥♥ 1/2 

Service: ♥♥♥ - given the limited English, they were unable to explain anything so what you see on the menu is what you get! 

Price: About THB 1900 for everything above after tax, without drinks, approximately HK$220 per person 

Soul Food Mahanakorn 

Address: 56/10 Sukhumvit Soi 55 (Thong Lor), 

Bangkok 10110,

Thailand

(bookings can be made through email)