Thai Lao Yeh: Delicious Thai Fare in A Gorgeous Setting on Sukhumvit 45, Bangkok

PUBLISHED July 4th, 2017 10:00 am | UPDATED March 26th, 2019 01:08 pm

Decked out with French doors, old-school windows, and vintage furnishings, it’s hard to believe that The Cabochon Hotel was built in 2012. Designed by Taiwanese interior designer Eugene Yeh, the polished gem of a hotel is inspired by the sophistication of 1920s Shanghai and the architecture of colonial Indochina. While we didn’t get the chance to stay at the property, we had lunch at their fashionable Thai Lao Yeh Restaurant, whose extensive menu spans classic Thai cuisine to Isan (northeast Thailand) and Laotian dishes.

Surrounded by wooden wall panels crafted from century-old timbre, the first of our dishes were served on pretty blue and white Thai ceramics that add to the throwback atmosphere. The well-seasoned Deep-fried Chicken Skin (B160) makes a fantastic bar snack or an appetizer to get your appetites going. Crispy on the outside with the right amount of fat, and not at all gelatinous. Comparing the Larb Salad in Laotian style with Minced Beef (B160) to Thai-style larb, it’s more savoury, less tart, and less spicy, perhaps due to the use of shrimp paste on top of fish sauce.

I’m no fan of sausages but their rendition of the popular street snack, Grilled Chiangmai Pork Sausage (B180), was well perfumed with herbs like galangal and lemongrass so you can actually eat more of it without feeling like you’re eating too much meat. We were rather let down by the Thai Omelet-pizza with Oyster (B240), though we supposed the world pizza should have clued us in. The issue we had, though, were with the oysters, which didn’t have that juicy burst of flavour to contrast with the crispy egg.

We would have loved to try their Tom Yum Kung (it’s a great barometer for Thai restaurants for authenticity and freshness of their seafood) but our server recommended the Spicy Ox Tail Soup Phuket Style (B240 per bowl, B680 per pot), and no regrets here. Packing a beefy punch, the robust broth was enhanced by the generous handful of fried shallots and a good-sized portion of tender oxtail.

That said, we did get our seafood in the form of the Holy Basil & Chili with Mixed Seafood (B200). Unlike the drier versions you get by the roadside, food courts, and even in Singapore, Thai Lao Yeh’s recipe called for a more watery sauce. We don’t mean that in the bad way because when we were done with the seafood, the delicious spicy sauce was a joy to soak up and savour with sticky rice as a vessel.

Our last savoury dish was meant to be curried crab but we were informed that the crabs weren’t all that fresh so we went with the Deep-fried Sea Bass served with Green Mango Sauce (B420) instead. Sliced and fried, the fish was put back together artfully on the plate, the sauce was more like a relish with julienned green mango, chili padi, and shallots. Though the fish was fried well and we didn’t leave it long enough for it to get oily, the green mango made for a good palate cleanser between slices of fish or dishes.

We eat a lot – all the food we had was for two and the portions are quite healthy here – but we always try to save space for dessert. As tempting as it was to go for the mango sticky rice, we tried the Thai Iced Tea Shaved Ice with Tapioca (B120), which is basically ice made of Thai milk tea that’s been shaved and topped with drizzle of condensed milk and tapioca pearls. Surprisngly, it wasn’t too sweet, and you could even opt for grass jelly instead of pearls if you’d like; but we enjoyed the contrast in texture and flavour in this case.

With such a large menu, we would love to head back to Thai Lao Yeh to try some of their other dishes that we missed out on, like the curried crab and the Thai hot pot for two. If you’re in Bangkok and in the mood for affordable Thai cuisine in a unstuffy restaurant setting, Thai Lao Yeh is a great choice.

Thai Lao Yeh is located at The Cabochon Hotel, 14/29 Soi Sukhumvit 45, Sukhumvit Road, Klongton Nua, Bangkok 10110, Thailand, p. +66 2 259 2871. Open Mon-Fri 11.30am-2.30pm, 6pm-11pm, Sat-Sun 11.30am-3pm, 6pm-11pm.