Shinjuku: Blue Lotus

Shinjuku: Blue Lotus
Tokyo, Japan
A review by Tiffy

I just got back from Tokyo a couple of weeks ago and jumped right into trying to enroll for classes at UP Diliman. For those of you who study there, you'd understand the horror. Going to the different buildings in the awful heat! Ack.

I was invited to the final interviews for Uniqlo in Tokyo, Japan a couple of weeks ago. It was 9-days of learning about Uniqlo, being an intern, and just being awesome.

And even though I didn't get the job offer, I was pretty happy about being able to go there (for free!) and meet all the awesome people from Ateneo (I was the only one from UP during that batch), Singapore, and Hong Kong.

We always get free food, too!

We had lunch during the 3rd day at the Shinjuku Takashimaya store at a Thai restaurant, Blue Lotus.

Yam Woonsen ヤム・ウンセン (Php 535, US$ 12.25)

It was spicy and I loved it.

Photo Credit: Lloyd Besin 

Fit for a King

There are only few instances, as reality goes, where one returns to a single place consecutively in order for him to dine; especially if he has very varied options for different places to choose from. There are also only a few instances wherein one remembers the taste, the aroma, the ambiance and the overall experience whenever one sees images of what he ate, long after the said experience. Such an instance would be when I had a couple of meals at The Blue Elephant Cooking School and Restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand.

Surasak BTS is strategically located between the Sala Daeng and Saphan Taksin BTS stations. Sala Daeng provides access to the famed Silom Road, whereas Saphan Taksin would be where the Central Pier is – the pier where visitors to Bangkok board express ferries to visit the country’s crown jewels such as Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, Wat Arun and the Grand Palace.

Located right when you step out from Exit 2 of the Surasak BTS (Skytrain) station, the structure housing The Blue Elephant is immediately seen boasting its century-old architecture, looking somewhat French, yet distinctly Thai.

Once you show up at the door, you are welcomed wholeheartedly by the establishment’s staff, gently doing a wai (known in India as Namaste) and greeting sawasdeeka and sawasdeekrub. One is then led to appreciate the beauty of the building’s interior, embellished with cultural icons such as intricate paintings and sculptures. From the anteroom, an old but bold staircase gallery can be seen towards the left, while the dining area can be sighted straight ahead. Upon entering the dining area, one is led to a selection of tables. Once picked, one is sat on the table to his liking and is offered the drinks menu.



Upon opening the drinks menu, one can see a luscious image of Blue Mai Thai, Blue Elephant’s rendition of the classic cocktail comprised of vodka, blue Curacao and exotic fresh fruits. House specialty selections also include Pattaya (fresh orange, pineapple, mango and guava juice), Blue Elephant Ice Tea (heavy gin, rum, vodka, triple sec and lemon juice), and the Blue Elephant Piña Colada (rum, Malibu, pineapple juice and coconut cream served in fresh coconut). Champagne, wine, classic cocktails, Grand Royal Thai cocktails, long shots, mocktails, soft drinks, beers, aperitifs, home-styled vodka, spirits, Thai whisky, whiskies, eaux de vie, calvados, Armagnac, cognac, portwine and sherry, liqueurs, mineral water, fruit juices and freezes were also available. Wanting to sample purer, fresher and cleaner drinks, I opted for the herbal drinks selection. The selection included drinks such as lemongrass and roselle, and drinks I’ve never heard of such as Matoom and An Chun. I believe roselle is the same as, or very similar to, Malaysia’s sirap drink.

Intrigued by the server’s recommendation, I ordered An Chun which is made from butterfly pea. It promised a smooth and refreshing flavor, as well as a cool natural body to it. First sip and it delivered – I was hooked!


Since I visited the restaurant on a Friday during lunch time, they had a business lunch set meal. The meal menu, delicately placed on the table in a clothed hardbound folder, read the following:

As an introduction to Thai Cuisine, we recommend you our well balanced and worthy set menu. This will allow you to sample a little of several different dishes. Starters Khang Khao Phuek A golden deep-fried Taro pastry, served with sweet spices Som Tam Kai Yang The popular hand shredded spicy raw papaya salad with grilled chicken Soup Special Tom Seb Salmon A traditional north eastern style spicy soup with salmon and fresh herb Tom Yam Koong The Thai’s famous spicy prawn soup prepared in a shrimp bouillon. Refined and powerful! Main Courses Massaman Lamb Typical dish from South Thailand of slowly braised New Zealand lamb in medium spicy rich gentle sauce Ped Saowaros Slices of grilled duck breast, served “medium rare” topped with Royal Project exotic passion fruit sauce Seafood Soufflé All the flavour of seafood with fresh coconut milk and curry paste Morning Glory Quick stir-fried morning glory with crushed chilli and oyster sauce Steamed Jasmine Rice & Wild Rice Dessert Two Scoops of Ice-cream on Your Choice Star gooseberry, Santol, Black seasame, Wild mulberry, Custard apple, and Chocolate

Impressed, I ordered.

While waiting for the food, I was given a mouthful of fruit cocktail served on a shot glass. To put things into perspective, it’s more of a rich fruit punch than the fruit cocktail that we know as canned by Del Monte.

The starters together with the soup arrived and here’s how it looked like:



I immediately dove into the Special Tom Seb Salmon soup. My eyes widened as I had the first spoon. It tasted somewhat like sinigang but much richer, more flavourful and with more body. The pieces of salmon in the soup were carefully selected belly parts wherein the mixture of meat and the layer of fat is just right, melting in your mouth. The Som Tam Kai Yang was very good as well, providing that tangy taste, increasing one’s appetite.

I finished off the starters with Khang Khao Phuek. It was crisp on the outside, amazingly soft on the inside, full of taro fragrance.

As I was waiting for the main courses to arrive, to my delight, I was served some complimentary snacks. The medley consisted of a mouthful pumpkin soup, a spoon of prawn salad, and their twist of an open fried wanton. I was getting excited!



Upon the arrival of the main course, each dish was introduced and the server, carrying a basket of rice, asked which rice I’d prefer – Jasmine Rice or Wild Rice (brown rice). I chose to sample both. The Jasmine Rice was just awesome – its fragrance, softness and stickiness were right on the spot. The Wild Rice not only looked nutritious, it also tasted nutritious!



Both rice can be eaten by themselves without the need for dishes or sauces.

When each of the covers of the main courses were opened, I was surprised with the amount of food in front of me! It was like I was having a feast! It was like, I was really a king!

I took a bit of sauce from the Massaman Lamb and had it with the Jasmine Rice. Needless to say, I was instantly transported to another world! The creamy and rich taste of the sauce reflected the goodness of the lamb it was meant for. The lamb meat itself was so soft and flavourful that it showed how much effort was put into preparing the dish.



The Ped Saowaros was amazing as well with hints of passion fruit flavor both very fresh and very grand – organic food at its best. The Seafood Soufflé provided a rush down my spine as the curry used in it exploded upon contact with my taste buds. The quick-stir-fried Morning Glory had a fresh farm aroma to it and provided for my vegetable needs for that meal.

Stuffed and having the feeling of just coming from a banquet hosted by King Chulalongkorn, I had just a bit more space for dessert. Wanting to try something different, I got a scoop each of Wild Mulberry and Custard Apple ice cream. The former tasted like a light and sweet strawberry ice cream while the latter tasted like custard cake. Just perfect!



At this point, I was just in cloud nine.

The bill arrived in a very interesting fashion – it was in a Blue Elephant jar! They had no problem accepting my BDO ATM Debit Card.



The price tag for this meal was 590 THB exclusive of 10% service charge and applicable government taxes. Needless to say, it was worth every cent!

In the next few days, I found myself returning to the same restaurant and welcomed in an even warmer fashion. But, that’s for another blog post. :)

***


Martin Gomez is a guest blogger for Manila Foodistas. He specializes in the culinary flavours of Asia and dreams of becoming a full-time connoisseur.

Jetsetting Foodistas | Joey In Thailand

Joey's Love Affair with (Thai) Food & Shopping
Jetsetting Foodistas: A Travelogue by JoeyBangkok & Pattaya in 5 Days* Apologies in advance for my rather all-over-the-place entry

I have to confess. I was supposed to write a decent narrative/account of my trip to Thailand, complete with bells & whistles and, actually, I did sort of do that. Unfortunately, I wrote it for my personal blog, so it's not exactly ideal for me to just cross-post it here. However, after giving it some thought, I decided to, at least, run through what I did in Thailand and, of course, give you an idea of the food I devoured there. Devoured, because I ate so much and, upon coming home to Manila, I was 4 lbs heavier! That was maybe the most delicious journey to four extra pounds I've ever had, though, so it was very much worth it.

(And, entre nous, I lost the 4 lbs eventually anyway.)

And yet another confession: I've been on the look out for a really good Thai resto here in Manila and I have yet to find one (suggestions, anyone?), so upon arriving in Thailand, you can bet that I ate and tried everything I could. (Diet? What diet?)

My first day in Thailand was spent in Bangkok. We stayed at Baiyoke Sky Hotel, with Indra Square right across from it. Indra Square is easily my favourite place to shop in Thailand. Not only was it cheap, open every day (and had a night street market/bazaar every single night), but it was literally shopping at my doorstep. Travel tip? If you're going to Thailand, pack light and pack extra bags for all the shopping you will be doing. Everything there is sooo cheap, from the clothes to the food. To quote my mum, "You will go mad with the shopping there!"

Another thing I love about Indra Square is Food Street, this little food court on the building's second floor. There's a wide selection of food there and everything is, of course, cheap. My favourite thing to eat there is the Seafood Tom Yam from the stall at the very back (beside the stall that has duck). It's at 40 Baht a bowl (around Php 50 or US$1.25), and it's really good and really filling -- perfect after a day of hardcore shopping and haggling.

Baiyoke Sky's breakfast buffet gave me a resounding and very satisfying "Good morning!" on my second day. Soo much food! My dad told us to eat plenty (he didn't have to tell us twice haha) because we were going on a temple tour and we didn't know if we would be able to come back in time for lunch. I had fruits in yogurt and newly-cooked naan bread. No photos, unfortunately (cameras weren't allowed), but I can assure you that they really know how to do their Breakfast Buffet in Thailand. Or, well, at least they did in the two hotels I stayed in.

We left for our half-day temple tour and visited the Marble Temple and the Standing Buddha Temple. Fortunately, we were able to make it back to the hotel with time for a quick lunch at Food Street before our ride to Pattaya arrived.

This time, I tried glass noodles with seafood (40 Baht) and had some of my mum's lunch, which was some sort of seafood noodles (40 Baht) both really yummy. My dad had this bowl of spicy wanton noodles (40 Baht), which I didn't dare try since my dad loves his food extremely spicy. I also tried what the guy at the stall called sweet combination (25 Baht for two toppings) where you had your pick of halo-halo-like ingredients/toppings in sweet coconut milk and topped with shaved ice -- delicious. I had mine with red jelly-covered guava and and what the guy called melon, but tasted a lot like avocado.

In Pattaya, we stayed in A-One Hotel, a luxury cruise ship-themed hotel. After checking in and stashing our things in our rooms, we went off to walk around Beach Road. This is where I discover farang, this really sweet guava they grow in Thailand. It has this light apple-green coloured exterior and the inside of the guava is white and wonderful. In Pattaya, they sold it at 20 Baht (Php 26 or US$0.60) for one on the street. I found out later that you can also buy this back in Bangkok for only 10 Baht. I suppose they upped the prices since the area we stayed in (which is also where the stall I bought from was located) is really a tourist area. Still very cheap though.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of farang (which, funnily, is also the Thai word for 'foreigner' -- I'd imagine they made all sorts of double-meaning jokes with that word) because I'd usually consume it before I'd remember to take a photo of it. Oops.

After going to mass at St. Nikolaus, we went back to Beach Road to have dinner at Open Shore, which, our waiter told us, just opened and was Filipino-owned. That, of course, made us pretty happy with our choice of restaurant. Not only was the food great, but the service was very good and the man entertaining the diners for the night was great fun and particularly fond of us. I had phad thai with shrimp as my main dish and we ordered spicy seafood salad, thai herb salad, and a grilled seafood platter to share.

We woke up bright and early again the next day, this time because we had to catch our speed boat ride to Coral Island, where we were going to spend our morning. Nice as they were, I'd have to say that the beaches in Pattaya and in Coral Island don't hold a candle to our beaches here. I'm not much for swimming around and sunbathing, so I spent most of my morning napping under an umbrella with someone giving me a massage. I did walk around a bit in search of some farang, but found the only stall selling some with not-so-fresh looking farang that were much more expensive (40 Baht!) had I bought it along Beach Road. By midday, we were back on Beach Road, with a shuttle taking us to where we were to have our lunch.

We had our lunch in this Chinese restaurant near Gems Gallery Pattaya. Our lunch here was part of our travel package, so we didn't really know what to expect. After our guide paid for our meal at the desk and we were seated at our table, we were immediately brought several dishes, most of which I didn't know the name of. We each had pineapple rice (topped with pork floss) and then several dishes to share: a clear soup with dark green leaves, kangkong in some sort of salty sauce, something that looked and tasted like patatim, some sort of fried pork, steamed fish, and slices of pineapple for dessert (which was prolly the original content of the hollowed pineapple "shell" our pineapple rice came in). We were also served pitchers of their house tea (rice tea). It was a surprisingly good, simple (but plentiful) and satisfying lunch.

We were back in our hotel a bit past one -- a good number of hours before our ride to the Alcazar Cabaret (a Las Vegas-style transvestite revue). My mum and I decided to go get massages while the men stayed behind in the hotel since it was so hot outside. I think Thai massage may be the most painful massage I've ever received, haha! It was, however, very satisfying afterwards.

The Alcazar Cabaret was super! They were all sooo sexy and some of them were really, really pretty. I really loved the Dream Girls costumes they had. If you're ever in Pattaya, you can't miss this show! I mean, not only because it's fantastic, but it's a very, very important cultural symbol.

We had dinner along Beach Road again, at this seafood place called Mr. 99 where you can go fishing in the middle of the resto. Our waiter was really nice friendly. He kept teaching us how to say things in Thai while we taught him how to say it in Tagalog. For dinner, I had Phad Thai as my main dish again and my dad got us an assorted seafood plate to share.

The next morning, we traveled back to Bangkok and checked ourselves in again at Baiyoke Sky Hotel. This was the morning of our encounter with Mr. Evil Tuktuk Driver (MR. ETD). He was really nice at first, even offering to take our photos in his tuktuk before we went off to MBK. On our way there, he tried to coerce us to let him take us to visit his sponsor's store (The Gems Gallery again, apparently) before he took us to MBK. We kept refusing him and he told us he'll take us straight to MBK only if we paid him 200 Baht. My dad, of course, said no. A very very angry exchange followed after that, but, luckily, my dad is still way scarier than MR. ETD so he dropped us off a block away from MBK and rode angrily off. Although he was prolly more scared than angry since my mum took down his name and license number and threatened to report him to the police.

We had lunch at this Thai resto in MBK. I had phad thai again while a tall glass of sweetened chamomile tea. We left MBK soon after lunch though, after deciding we could do better shopping in Indra Square. We then took the train to Mochit to go see the Chatuchak weekend market. It was Monday, but we wanted to go scope out the area anyway. Mostly because it gave us a reason to use the train, haha.

After walking around the area for a while (and buying fruits -- this time I just had some papaya; farang relatively has a lot calories), we took the train back to the station nearest to our hotel. We walked some blocks back to Rajprarop Road, where we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at Indra Square and then had dinner at Food Street. I had the seafood tom yam again, since it was my last chance to have it before we left.

We flew back to Manila the next day. My inflight meal consisted of mixed tapas (albacore tuna with radish pickles and melon balls), an appetizer of prawn terrine and Westphalian ham on asparagus mimosa, a seven-grain roll, an entree of roasted chicken ballotine in morel sauce served with sinamak pommes noisette, green tea, and pistachio dacquiose from Bizu.

Thailand was loads of fun! I honestly can't wait till my next visit. This time, I'll be armed with more bags, a bigger budget, and a diet waiting for me for when I come back home to Manila several pounds heavier, haha! Wait for me, Bangkok ♥

See many, many more photos of my trip to Thailand on my flickr.