Morning was spent getting a bit of stuff done, so there's nothing much about our morning today, but then came late morning and my friend wanted to have a lunch of dim sum in Ambassador Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 11, a 5 minute walk away from Nana BTS Station, so we packed up and went up onto the BTS from Ploenchit to Nana.
What's interesting is that I had actually walked past this hotel on my way to dinner the first night I'd arrived in Bangkok, and I had in fact noticed it, but at that time didn't have a chance to visit.
I don't know much about the hotel, but the website says it's a 4-star, it is located right in the heart of the action, and has a fair bit of amenities, including restaurants.
This afternoon we were heading to Hong Teh, a well known restaurant of at least 40 years recognized for its high quality of Chinese cuisine, its exquisite dishes, and its original Cantonese taste. I think it was on the 2nd floor, or maybe the 4th.
Hong Teh is one of those places where you can see, and feel, the tradition right from the moment you enter the restaurant's foyer.
I haven't seen such chairs in such a space for a very long time.
To some these chairs might seem intimidating, stern, formal, proper, formidable even, but at the same time one can understand just what these chairs represent, and why they are there.
Everything here in the foyer and the reception is significant.
Doesn't matter if it be the furniture, the vases of bright fuchsia flowers, or the figurines big and small, everything that sits here tells of a migration, a heritage, and a culture the Thai-Chinese have successfully managed to keep.
If one were curious just how much of their culture, their heritage and their beliefs they had held, all you needed was to look at their food.
There was nothing poor about their quality.
There was nothing small about their portions.
And there was nothing that wasn't good to have.
Our dim sum dishes this afternoon combined our favorites from the fried and the steamed.
Amongst the steamed there were two types of siew mais, there were char siew baos, then there were xiao long baos and one lor mai kai.
I don't know the difference between the two siew mais that we ordered- one probably had a bit of spinach, whilst the other was the regular. The char siew baos were steamed warm and fluffy and sweet on the filling. The xiao long baos were good too. I had thought the skin might be of the thick kind, but surprisingly no, the skin was of the right texture- not too thick, not too thin- and had that rich, flavorful soup that burst one when I took a small bite of it.
My friend liked the lor mai kai. Either it was the portion that was suitable for a light afternoon bite, or it were the texture of the rice that let you feel the stickiness whilst not making you feel zai.
The fried ones were prepared just the way most diners would like it.
Wantons, spring rolls, radish cakes, and yam puffs were our order for today.
My friend thought the wantons were in a most unusual sort of triangular shape.
Me, I was focused on the crunchiness of the spring rolls. I liked hearing the way the crisp skin sounded when I bit into it.
I was also focused on the radish cake.
Radish cake has always been one of my favorites when it comes to dim sum. I don't just like it for the crispy edges. I like it for the smooth insides, the crisp ends and edges, and the warmth the soft, mushy mushy radish cake itself brings.
Of course the yam puffs were just as good.
Not just the snowy exterior pastry that showered down bits when I bit into it, but also the filling, which I think they had it prepared with a bit more of gravy than what I was familiar with.
But it wasn't just the dim sum that we had.
This afternoon we also ordered some of the restaurant's signature dishes.
Like a huge bowl of sharks' fin.
And a selection of their roasted meats.
The sharks' fin was richer, thicker and darker than I imagined it to be. Maybe I've been too used to the whitish type of broths when served sharks' fin, so much so that I don't realize that a broth with other ingredients can make a darker soup make. It was tasty too, to the degree that I didn't need to add vinegar (even though at elsewhere I might).
Same it was too for the char siew.
I mean I thought I knew my char siew.
I've grown up eating char siew rice and siew yok rice and siew arp rice after all.
But still, I didn't know just how char siew could actually have such a thick layer of fat that didn't seem present in any of the other char siew I'd eaten elsewhere.
I didn't mind it however.
Not when they'd drenched the meat in such a pleasant sweet sauce that you didn't actually get to taste the fat of the char siew.
Perhaps it's just me but all of their meats seemed to have excellent marination that went through the meat inside and out, so much so, that even after being grilled and roasted you could still taste the marination through the skin and the meat itself.
We ended our lunch with dessert.
This afternoon I opted for a sweet soup of gingko nuts and lotus root seeds, and to my surprise, despite how clean and healthy and plain it appeared to be, I liked the smooth sweetness of it.
I particularly liked the gingko nuts.
They're a rare dessert to have without costing the sky, and I was glad I managed to try.
Later in the evening we headed back to Central World's SF Cinema where we watched Deadpool VS Wolverine- on the regular chairs this time. It would've been lovely had I had enough space for soft drinks and popcorn, but I was really quite full, so we decided to skip on the snacks and keep to our own water bottles of iced green tea.
But after we'd gone back to Ploenchit came the latter part of the evening and we got somewhat hungry, so we Grabbed in a pork porridge, and ate it sitting at one of the tables in the lobby.