Our breakfast this morning was one of organic eggs fried in a pan over the stove, and two slices of 19-Grain Toast bought from the Lemon Farm Organic Store just down the road.
For some reason I didn't get to take pictures of the food we had this morning.
Maybe my mind was occupied.
Maybe I was thinking about something else.
In any case we did some work in the morning here in the room, then walked down Lang Suan Road towards Central Embassy for lunch.
It's a short walk, and interestingly, we pass by the road that leads into Nai Lert Park and Central Chidlom's TOPS supermarket, which always has a special place in my heart for being the very first TOPS supermarket I visited all those months ago.
Lunch at OKONOMI on the upper floor, and this afternoon we had our usual favorites.
I ordered a Salmon and Cheese Mazemen. My friend ordered Spicy Salmon Rice, and we shared a bowl of Pumpkin Soup.
I don't have a picture of the Spicy Salmon Poke- usually we're quite hungry by the time the food comes to the table so we just eat.
But the sauce is nice- an tasteful mix of layu oil, sweet soy, negi and shiso- there's cured salmon- all cut into little cubes- and then there's carrot tsukemono sitting on top a bed of multi-grain rice.
My friend loves the rice.
I, on the other, love the noodles of the Mazemen.
It's so fascinating that I never seem to get tired of this dish no matter how many times I have it.
Maybe it's the combination of sweet soy, shiso, and lemon zest in the noodles.
Maybe it's the cured salmon also all cut into tiny little cubes that make this a wholesome, pleasant dish to eat.
I like mixing up the noodles with the camembert cheese and the carefully concocted sauce. It makes the noodles creamier, it heightens the flavor of the noodles and it adds a chew to the noodle that wasn't that obvious before.
We took our time with the Pumpkin Soup whilst getting some work done.
Afterwards we crossed over to Moon Massage at Siam Square for one of my favorite massages to be had in BKK- the 4+1 massage that combines a foot massage with a bit of hand, shoulder, neck and head.
The most charming thing about this treatment is that I don't have to change my clothes (I'm lazy), my hair doesn't get oily (even though I love a good head spa) and the skillful therapists are able to get the toxins out just by doing a good massage over the right nerves, the right veins, and the right lymph nodes.
I always tend to fall asleep whenever I do a 4+1.
If I'm not too tense, that is.
When we finished, we headed across the road to a restaurant on the 24th floor of Centara Grand.
My friend had heard about the Japanese buffet at NAMA Restaurant and wanted to try.
Guess what, it was one of the best Japanese buffets I'd ever had thus far.
Would you believe me if I said it blew my mind?
Up till now I had never known just how expansive a Japanese-themed buffet could be.
On one side there was a salad and seafood bar.
Adjacent to it was a drinks bar.
Then right at the back, round where the coffee machine was, the dessert counter.
One however doesn't begin the meal with dessert.
So I headed back to the salad bar, where, with everything there was there, I took a couple of cherry tomatoes, some carrots, a bit of corn mayo, and some crab salad. There was tamago, so I helped myself to a couple slices of that too.
When it came to the seafood there were fresh oysters, so I took three.
But then this evening was also Fresh Seafood evening, and so my friend ordered an even larger bowl.
The highlight of this evening was the dish we call Special Box.
A wooden box in the zen-est shade of brown, it was a sashimi lover's dream.
Not only were the slices all aesthetically arranged, the colors- in the shades of orange, pink, red and white- were appetizing, and beautiful.
They didn't stinge with the sashimi, I tell you.
Laid over a bed of ice were slices of squid, ikura, tuna, fatty tuna, salmon, fatty salmon, abalone, scallops, even sea urchin.
I quite liked the ikura, the fatty salmon, the fatty tuna, the salmon and the tuna.
The squid's chew, however, took some getting used to (I'm lazy- don't like to chew too long), as well as the abalone, which was in fact very clean tasting but texture felt somewhat grainy, which surprised me.
The sea urchin, I didn't mind- I ate a bit of it the same way I ate a bit of everything- but my friend liked it better, so most of my sea urchin went over to his side.
Perhaps it was the presence of lots other food which I wanted to try.
It's hard for me to ignore when on the menu there's Wagyu Sushi and Fried Cheese.
Then there were Grilled Scallops with Mentaiko sauce, there were Grilled Salmon Belly, Salmon Aburi and Grilled Prawns.
We had a bit of grilled meat which came served on brown leaves and you just laid the whole leaf over the portable charcoal grill.
Then another highlight of the meal was the Crab Soup.
Which, one would have thought would be enough to come served in a bowl, but no, there was the aesthetic part of it, and instead of it being in a regular, ordinary bowl, it came served in the shell of a crab.
Shall I say that the soup was more of a rich textured broth than a regular seafood soup?
That it felt more like it had been simmering in the pot for hours and hours before being served.
It helped that we heated the soup over the portable stove and that stirred up so many of the little bits in broth you felt like you were having lots of little crab bits itself.
I'm not sure if we had other foods after that, but there was dessert, for sure, and this evening we chose some interesting ones off the menu.
There was a bouncy-looking Konnyaku jelly served with a sweet sauce of brown sugar. The shape reminded me of a big round crystal.... or an LED light.
We had macarons (don't ask me what flavor it was), a serve of lava cake (overflowing with melted chocolate inside), and, for my friend, slices of chilled Japanese melons (cantaloupes?) that he said were fantastic and amazing and familiar and perfect all at the same time.
Tis' a pity that we didn't get to try more.
Displayed in the chiller counter display there was a matcha cheesecake that I thought looked really lovely, and they had a selection of ice creams that included strawberry cheesecake.
But I was full, and didn't want to stuff myself more.
So, off we went, armed with a very satisfied palate, a very full stomach, and a thermos of iced genmaicha that I sneaked out of the restaurant.