Benjarong, TTK Road, Chennai

During my stay in Chennai, my friend Sandhya took me to this Thai joint one evening post work. I was skeptical about trying Thai food at Chennai, and therefore kept my expectations under check. However, I was proved completely wrong as here is where I landed up having the best 'Indian' Thai food. Well, I have yet to visit Thailand, to taste the authentic Thai food, as I believe that the taste is customized to the countries local taste, but amongst the Indian joints, this one is one of the best I have had. A simple and extremely classy place, with wood that decor renders a very warm and cozy feeling. For the crowd mostly you’ll see a lot of corporates and few families as I doubt if Chennai folks have still awakened to this amazing place.

The main attraction I found in this place is the complementary starter called Mein Khum, hopefully have got the name right. They serve you a leaf, which I am not so sure what it is, but its shaped like a beetle leaf, on that need to put little honey, a small garlic cube, Thai chillies,dry coconut,peanuts and squeeze lemon on top, roll the leaf and bite the entire thing. With every chew you’ll get a different taste, the chilly adds a sudden blast of spice, which is instantly calmed by the honey rendering a tint of sweetness, the crunch coming from the peanuts and the lemon,coconut and garlic giving you the right flavors. The idea is to warm up and activate all your taste buds to relish the food that will follow.

For the main course, I have thoroughly relished the Thai curries and I actually ventured in trying out all 3 of them at different occasions and loved them. So my usual menu at Benjarong is Thai curry with steam rice with a dish of steamed vegetable. Now for the non-vegetarians, I will like to mention that once when I was visiting this place with a group of friends who picked up some chicken and prawn dishes, well, they weren’t too impressed with it. So will surely like to hear from some non-vegetarians what they felt about this place. The desert menu is slightly week, but the presence of French Loaf right outside provisions for a good work around.

Munchkins Thai Ban Bandra

We spent the last Sunday evening at this cozy little restaurant right behind Cafe Basilico at Bandra.We were a group of 5 veggies,who were hungry and also wanted to spend a leisurely evening.Since my friends were already in, so we didn’t need to wait, but I noticed that this place seemed to have the least waiting. The place is actually nice,decor cozy & the food even if not super, but surely very good. So my guess is takers for Thai food gets narrowed down when you sit between one of the best Italian joints in town and another very good Chinese restaurant down the same street.

However for a Sunday evening I welcomed the fact that the place was not over crowded,when usually each table’s conversations,culminates into too much noise with a dash of rhythm added by the cutlery clicks. Anyways, so here is what we ordered; for soups with began with a spicy Tom Yum Soup, a strong recommendation only for people who love spicy food. It has a beautifully blended flavor of Thai chillies with vegetables garnishing it.The other soup ordered was the good old sweet corn soup, which was just like the good old soup,nothing exquisite nor disappointing.

Our plates saw Vegetables with Salt and Pepper and Nam Prik Praw Je for starters,where the latter being a recommendation from the staff. The Vegetables with salt and pepper was a complete let down, where it only contained vegetables that deep fried and served. Personally, I am slightly averse to deep fried food (except french fries) but friends who usually relish fried stuff also didn't enjoy it too much. However Nam Prik Praw Je was delightfully yum, it was vegetables stir fired in a mild spicy sauce.Simple and yet very tasty worth giving it a try.

So a little about the tastes of the group that I was with, a couple of us including me weren't too fond of very spicy food, mild spicy worked for us, some thrived on really spicy food and some didn’t enjoy excess of coconut .Why I mentioned this is because our ordering for the main course was super, as it catered to all the above likes and dislikes. We ordered, Phad Thai Noodles,Gaeng Kiew Warn (spicy green curry), Gaeng Phed (mildly spicy red curry) and 2 portions of steam rice.All our ordering bang on right, delicious and enjoyable. Phad Thai Noodles, was mildly spicy with a dash of sweetness spread across, it didn’t have coconut flavor, but a lovely peanut garnishing, that added refreshing crunchy feel to it.The green and the red curries where the typical Thai curries and nicely done. The Green one was strong and spicy while the red mild and nicely flavored. So as a complete picture each of us got to have what we liked and a little bit of everything.

All this came with a bill of Rs.1700 that included 15% Citi Bank food discount.So we didn't have any deserts as that we had plans reserved for that.But a quick mention that their desert menu was strictly alright with only few choices.

Will I go back? Well yes, on a lazy weekday when I am tired and hungry and don't want to experiment on the food and yet have something nice to eat, I will pick Thai Ban.

Will I recommend? Its not a must try, yet a nice place that will do the opposite person no harm in trying, so yes.