COCONUTS HOT SPOT — Sometimes when I have too many leftovers at home, I mix eclectic items in a bowl, heat them up, and enjoy my very own personal creations (that I don’t even dare to share). Usually, they turn out quite edible. Other times, they’re only good for cleaning out the fridge.
Baan takes this concept one step further and proves that if you do this just right, mixing two completely different foods in a new bowl won’t be just edible, they’ll be quite sellable too.
Chances are we Thais have certain taste prototypes in our mind when it comes to familiar dishes, and it’s nearly impossible to convince us to like what deviates so far from what we’re used to. Homey dishes will only feel homey if and only if it’s done the way we have it at home.
Here is where Baan gives its story a plot twist: the chef marries tom zap (spicy pork bone soup) and khai palo (egg stew with Chinese five spices), two dishes that most Thais have grown up eating, to make Baan’s kai palo tom zap (sour and spicy five-spice egg soup—THB280).
As a Thai, I must say this mix-and-match style of turning family recipes into fresh new dishes totally works. Baan’s soup is easily one of the most ingenious things you can do to give Thai home cuisine a facelift. It is so perfectly blended that you can’t quite tell which is the main star.
On one hand, I can describe it as a solid bowl of khai palo with a distinct tangy flavor of tom zap, while on the other hand, I can also say, the bowl is a sassy-tasting tom zap with a fat portion of very well-seasoned khai palo toppings. Simply genius. I’m totally buying into this method and can’t wait to try it with my own leftovers at home.
Baan pays attention not only to modifying and jazzing up home-recipe dishes. Its pride also rests on the fact that most of its ingredients come from the bestsources and are of the best quality possible. Chef Ton – Baan’s head chef who is also the head chef and owner of the fancy Le Du in Sathorn – is very much in touch with some of the best suppliers of food ingredients in town. Its dry-aged beef is sourced from the famous Company B, its premium pork from Sloane’s, and its eggs from a free-range farm in Thailand’s upcountry.
Baan pays so much attention to this area that it feels the need to announce it to all customers. Three full pages of its menu books are dedicated to explaining these behind-the-kitchen stories. More or less, this works to justify the premium price charged for the dishes.
I must say other dishes have less of a “wow” factor in terms of innovativeness. Of course, with khai palo tom zap being the standard, it’s pretty hard to shine through. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the moo kluk foon (stir-fried pork with shrimp paste—THB250) and kapao nuea (spicy stir-fried dry-aged beef with basil—THB350), which were both decent in terms of taste, but excellent in terms of ingredient quality.
I’ve never eaten kapao nuea with this premium grade of beef. It certainly doesn’t feel like an everyday dish I can afford, but it does feel like (if I were rich enough) something I would love to have in my lunchbox every day.
The simple names in your home kitchen get turned into fancy items at Baan. Even the drink list has a modern twist. The lemon tea, Thai milk tea, Thai black coffee, and lemon soda all get pimped with a small dose of alcohol. They are named accordingly to its base drink— cha manao (THB200), cha yen (THB220), oliang (THB200), manao soda (THB200), but please be reminded that they are all real hearty cocktails with shots of booze inside.
A good snack to accompany the familiar-flavor cocktails is Baan’s munchy moo dad diew (sun-dried pork fried with sesame—THB200), which tastes like street food yet of premium quality at the same time.
We all come back to the familiar tastes. Foods we eat growing up always win the game. Baan is the place where I can find a unique version of my grandmother’s home cooking.
Baan may not be affordable for everyday eating, but their food is certainly something we deserve to taste every day.
FIND IT:
Hours: 11:30am – 2:30pm, 5:30pm – 10:30pm
Wireless road
MRT Lumpini
