Wednesday Walk: Having lunch at Emquartier Mall in Bangkok, ไปตามหาสาขาร้านอาหารโปรด

This is my entry for #wednesdaywalk hosted by @tattoodjay. Recently I have discovered a very nice Chinese restaurant which happened to get a Michelin Star. I had to go searching for the location of the original restaurant twice to be successful. The first time I had my fried noodle with sea bass in a small food stall, I knew straight away that this was cooked by no ordinary chef. My hunch was vindicated when I found the original restaurant and talked to the owner. This is my previous post on Sanyod restaurant.

Christmas in front of Emquartier Mall, just opposite Skytrain station: Promphong, on Sukhumvit road.

So, when I heard that there’s another branch at the Emquartier Mall, I had to make time to try this out. I took the skytrain to Promphong, and walked towards the right building with big Christmas tree.

Walking inside the mall to be greeted by colourful Christmas decorations but the food hall is supposed to be on the basement. So I shouldn’t spend too much time taking photos here.

The escalators leading to the basement.

The food hall looks very clean and impressive as most restaurants here are quite famous and up market so prices are above my normal range of street food. I had to walk around the place twice and asked some staff at a coffee shop if they ever heard of this chain of Chinese restaurant. One person could point me in the right direction. I was quite surprised that this branch of Sanyod restaurant has very small kitchen and limited space for customers. The space in this mall is worth as much as gold! So, the designer had tried to make certain that each square inch would be efficiently utilized.

By the time I found the small branch of Sanyod restaurant, I was very hungry so I ordered my usual fried rice noodle with sea bass. But I was told that they only had prawn, pork and chicken. So, I settled for prawn in my noodle dish. The seating area was rather like fast food restaurants whereas in the other branch I used to frequent we had separate tables with comfortable seats. To my surprised, they used paper bowls and plates for serving their food. I did ask the chef afterwards, he told me that it’s the problem of space. They didn’t have enough room to stock all the cutlery. The small kitchen meant that they installed a smaller fridge; their menu has been trimmed down a lot comparing with other branches.

My verdict of my rice noodle with prawn; the taste was as I had expected. The chef had the traditional technique of how to fry the rice noodle by making it crispy on the outside with a scent of fainting burnt frying wok! Most Thai restaurants don’t possess this technique of how to stir fry rice noodles so their noodles become soft and too tender. The prawns were if good size and fresh; one good thing is that they don’t use MSG in this restaurant. So, the chef has to be very well trained and highly skilled in the art of cooking.
I still would go back to my little Sanyod in Rama3 branch for excellent noodle and comfortable ambience!

เราเคยเล่าแล้วว่า เราติดใจร้านอาหารจีนที่มีสาขาที่ห้างที่พระราม3 เราชิมก๋วยเตี๋ยวราดหน้าปลากระทงแล้ว รู้เลยว่าพ่อครัวร้านนี้ไม่ธรรมดา เราจึงไปเดินหาร้านเก่าแก่ดั้งเดิมที่แถวบางรัก เราต้องไปถึงสองครั้งจึงจะหาร้านนี้เจอ เราก็เลยได้รู้ว่าร้านนี้ได้รางวัลจากมิชิลินด้วย และเขามีสาขาหลายแห่ง เราก็เลยตามไปชิมอาการของสาขาที่ห้างเอ็มควอเทียที่พรัอมพงศ์ พอไปถึงที่สถานีเดินออกมา ก็เลี้ยวไปทางขวาจะเห็นตึกที่มีต้นไม้ตกอต่งสำหรับเทศกาลคริสต์มาส ก็เดินตรงเข้าไปเพื่อลงบันไดเลื่อนไปชั้นใต้ดิน สวนอาหารอยู่ชั้นใต้ดิน แต่เราก็เดินเล่นดูของตกแต่งห้างสีสรรสดใสก่อน