As more entrepreneurs and chefs get in on Thailand’s green rush, a vegetarian restaurant is among the latest to add cannabis to its recipes.
With branches in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Goodsouls Kitchen yesterday teased six new food and drinks on the menu including a smoothie bowl, pesto pasta, vegetarian burger, vegan steak and Burmese tea leaf salad – all infused with marijuana leaves.
“Because we are a 100% plant-based restaurant and, with the public’s overwhelming interest in marijuana right now, we want to be a part of the first restaurants that pioneer the use of cannabis leaves in food,” said the restaurant owner Varee Kanokkhun.
It’s the latest business to hop on the CBD bandwagon since the non-psychoactive components of marijuana were decriminalized to promote its production as a new cash crop feeding a variety of industries from food and textiles to cosmetics and wellness.
According to Varee, the restaurant’s cannabis supplier is Maejo University in Chiang Mai. Under revised laws, only those approved by the government can cultivate marijuana plants and sell derivative products containing the cannabinoid extract, aka CBD – but not THC.
No date was given for when Goodsouls’s new dishes would go on sale as the joint’s awaiting official approval from the Food and Drug Administration. As soon as it gets it, it will be among 40 restaurants working with Maejo University to serve cannabis-infused food for customers.
The Bangkok branch is located on Soi Thanpuying Puangrat-prapai off Soi Sukhumvit 26. It’s open 9am to 9pm every day.
Its other two branches are in Chiang Mai city – one on Chang Moi Road and another on Singharat Road. It partnered last year with plant-lifestyle evangelist couple Root The Future to host the nation’s first plant-based food awards in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket.
Since Dec. 9, most bits of the marijuana plant – though not the THC-rich flowers – were decriminalized for commercial use by people or organizations licensed by the health ministry to stimulate the nascent hemp industry.
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