COCONUTS HOT SPOTS — “How incredible it is that this green restaurant is in the middle of Bangkok!” was my first thought when I stepped into the shade of tropical almond and tamarind trees at “Ahh Kard D” restaurant. The names translates to “Nice Weather” in English.
Located in Soi Pradipat 10 in the Saphan Kwai area, the restaurant was built under the concept of a family space. Besides contemporary Thai cuisine, the restaurant also has a coffee shop on the first floor of the two-storey white wooden house.
“We spent so long thinking of the name. Many names were in English, but they didn’t sound right for us,” said Pacharapan “Nok” Kittikorn, the chef and co-owner of the restaurant.
Every dish at Ahh Kard D is delicately and meticulously prepared. I felt it in the first bite and every bite afterwards.
“Our ingredients, such as roasted garlic, nuts, and pork crackling are freshly prepared day by day. It takes tremendous time and effort to work in this kitchen. Experienced cooks agree that we have the strictest code and most fastidious details. We want the customers to feel the difference. The standard menu items, like fried garlic rice or spicy salad, taste more special here because our fresh ingredients are of top quality. We don’t use any chemical additives or MSG,” said Pacharapan.
Pacharapan wants to rethink Thai dishes in an original, fun way that customers will want to try. She believes that Ahh Kard D should feel like home, where the guests can taste the hosts’ cooking wonder.
“It’s not exactly fusion food. I think fusion lacks retrospective, but here, we also recapture our roots. Like our Miang Kham (leaf wrap appetizer), it tastes the way it should traditionally. So I’d rather call our cuisine contemporary Thai food. We reimagine it with a more modern touch.”
Yum Miang (spicy leaf wrap salad)
Pacharapan added that her cooking principle follows the word of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. She avoids non-seasonal ingredients and sticks to local raw materials. Shrimp paste spaghetti with bitter beans is an example, the beans are only available in summer. The current menu is guaranteed to be made of what grows and tastes best in this season.
Pacharapan presented to us her signature Yum Miang (spicy leaf wrap salad — THB225). Instead of the traditional dipping sauce, she opted for a lighter sweet-and-sour sauce but kept the rest of side dishes, such as shallots, nuts, fresh gingers, limes, and Thai chillies, the same. She warned that this dish could leave your mouth on fire if you chewed the cooked shrimp, bird chilli and diced ginger at the same time.
Seasoned pork with a runny egg
Seasoned pork with a runny egg (THB185) is a favorite for those who are not fond of spicy food. Thinly-sliced pork belly is marinated in five types of sauces before it’s stir-fried with sun-dried chillies and onions. The dish is served with jasmine rice and topped with an overeasy egg. Mix them all together and spoon up the runny yolk, salty sweet pork and soft jasmine rice in one bite.
fried minced pork and salted fish topped with salted yolk
Thai sausage spaghetti with fried chillies
Another two recommendations are fried minced pork and salted fish topped with salted yolk (THB245), which is crispy fried fish mixed with ground pork and textured with salted egg yolk for a colorful sight and complex taste, and Thai sausage spaghetti with fried chillies (THB285) — a spicy spaghetti dish cooked with Northern sausage from Lampang, topped with dill for extra scent.
FIND IT:
Pradipat Soi 10
11:30am – 10pm
Saphan Kwai, Ari BTS
This story was originally published on Coconuts Krungthep.
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