Escape the summer with traditional Thai fare
As summer arrives, and the heat slowly gets to you, your parched throats cry out for food and drinks. Thailand, thankfully, has its own traditional summer thirst quencher in khao chae, which is available at Ma Maison restaurant.
Situated in the same compound as the Nai Lert Park Heritage Home, this is one wonderful place to enjoy khao chae. A set meal here costs Bt390 this month in April. At Ma Maison, the banquet offers chilled rice in jasmine water with shrimp-paste balls, sweet dried fish, shredded pork, stuffed shallots and stir-fried sweet, pickled Chinese turnips, as well as those stuffed sweet peppers encased in egg.
The side dishes – like deep-fried shrimp-paste balls, bell peppers stuffed with minced shrimp or pork, and sweet and crispy shredded beef or pork – shouldn’t be mixed into the rice, as is the custom when, say, eating rice soup. They tend to cloud the water and foul the aroma and taste. Instead, you should have a little bit of each in turn, followed by a spoonful of the chilled rice.
The restaurant’s name might be decidedly French, but its chefs excel at Thai dishes, using the actual recipes of Nai Lert’s wife, Khunying Sinn. Nai Lert (1872-1945) is remembered as a developer but also as the man who ran the ferry and bus services (as well as a shipyard, a department store, a hotel and a taxi company that used imported cars. He also had an ice factory. The restaurant is in Bangkok’s Soi Somkid, adjacent to Central Chidlom. Visit “Nai Lert Park Heritage Home” page on Facebook for details.
