For a city of 6.5 million people Hanoi is still quite provincial. After a few months here the bright lights and bustling modernity of Bangkok was mesmerising, air conditioned public transport, shops with clothes that fit, food from all around the world and other such wonders. It was in cosmopolitan Bangkok that I decided to splurge on fancy western meal for the first time in months. Combining art and well-reviewed food, the choice was obvious: Eat Me restaurant.

With its walls painted a dark grey, art on the walls and alluring dimmed lighting Eat Me is sleek and stylishly designed, refreshingly there isn’t a Thai curlicue in sight. The menu is split intelligently into vegetables and grains, fish & shellfish and meat & poultry and is littered with Australian produce. It is little wonder that it is owned by an Australian, and the executive chef is his sister who splits her time between Bangkok, Sydney and the Barossa. This western influence is reflected in the abundance of well trained staff, and little touches of home, like iced water and great complimentary grilled bread served with spicy olive oil and dukkah and elevates Eat Me a step above.

Black chicken, red papaya, toasted coconut, chilli and lime salad with betel leaf

The menu hops continents resulting in an interesting multi-ethnic feast that I hesitate to label fusion, rather it is Modern Australian with a Thai bent. France is represented by the sweet onion tarte tatin with unexciting pastry saved by a rich red wine glaze and a generous splodge of melty brie. Our other entree hit Thailand, gussied up. A deliciously spicy Thai style salad with intriguing black chicken (Silkie, if you’re wondering) is lifted with fresh herbs and hides thin slivers of sweet ripe red papaya.

Fig & blue cheese ravioli with walnuts, rosemary and brown butter

Fig and blue cheese ravioli with rosemary brown butter and walnuts is a great idea in theory, but the dish was let down by fat, undercooked pasta. Despite this, the nutty brown butter and crisp roasted walnuts were made interesting by sprigs of fresh rosemary which added an earthy greenness without overpowering. My confit duck with honeyed brussels sprouts on the other hand was divine. A perfectly executed simple dish. By this point with two glasses of wine down I am full to bursting, so we opt for house made icecream for dessert. My first choice of Chestnut and Rosemary was sold out, but the English Breakfast Tea Ice Cream was a fine substitute, still the dark chocolate and chilli flavour was my favourite, deeply chocolately with a satisfying chilli hit at the end. Both were smooth, creamy and richly flavoured and most importantly, simple.

Crispy skinned duck confit with honeyed brussels sprouts and prosciutto

The simpler, well executed dishes and wonderful ambience made up those small disappointments, and the attention to detail here was so refreshing. Eat Me definitely exceeded my expectations, this is one of the best western meals I have eaten in Asia. After a lovely chat with the chef we emerged into the sticky heat and wandered back to the station, our spirits lifted by good wine, great food and a little reminder of home.

Eat Me interior with artwork by Sutee Kanuvichayanont

Eat Me
Soi Pipat 2 off Soi Convent
Silom, Bangkok

Google Maps

Som Tam, delicious in a sado masochistic kind of a way. In Vietnam you almost always add chilli at the table, spicing things up to your own taste, not so in Thailand. Tiny spice bombs are pounded into papaya salad, making the experience of eating this dish excruciatingly painful for the uninitiated or for those who fail to ask for ‘foreigner spicy’. After a few lip-tingling, mouth-burning, nose-running papaya salads I became mostly acclimatised, luckily just in time for our visit to Hai – Som Tam Convent, the home of a Som Tam that is more than just head-explodingly spicy.

This laminate table eatery is buzzing at lunchtime with office workers grabbing a quick feed, the staff are friendly, the vibe is inviting and some people even linger under the fluorescent lights. Serving food from the northeast Isan region of Thailand meaning that the sticky rice is plentiful and (those blasted) chillies feature heavily.

We order a side of juicy chicken grilled to perfection with plentiful sticky crisp skin, sticky rice and som tam accompanied by a plate of herbs, raw beans and a wedge of cabbage. The menu features a whole list of different additions available to be pounded with your papaya salad, but fermented crabs didn’t appeal for some reason, so I chose ‘Som Tam with Peanuts’.

The chicken is delicious here, but the Som Tam is the best I’ve eaten in Bangkok. The chilli is levelled out by sweet sour tomato and the fish sauce light dressing, while fishy dried shrimp add crunch and flavour. The peanuts are crisp and smoky from being blackened on the grill in an attack of attention to detail not often seen. Sop the juices up with some sticky rice, beware the odd un-smosched chilli and savour balanced flavour and riot of textures.

A variety of larb is also available as well as other grilled meats, but my advice would be som tam all the way. If you aren’t into the pleasure is pain hotness level, then try giving ‘mai phet’ (not spicy) or ‘phet nit nawy’ (a little bit spicy) a go. Or just acclimatise, for som tam this good a little pain is worth it.

Hai – Somtam Convent
2/4-5 Convent Rd. Silom Rd
02 631 0216
Sun – Fri 10:00am – 8:30pm, Sat 10:00am – 5:00pm

L-R Taro, pumpkin and almond, mafi, mangosteen sorbet and paradise tea

I dislike the appleisation of names as a rule but not iberry. I find the name of this Thai ice creamery as charming as its quirkily designed spaces and novel flavours. There are iberry outlets dotted around Bangkok from counters in food courts to cafes, but unfortunately the area I stayed in was devoid of delicious ice cream treats or else I would have visited daily.

What is so good about iberry homemade? A huge and ever changing selection of well made sorbets and ice creams in creative, unusual and stunningly bright flavours. My first taste was two small scoops, a marbled creamy green tea and red bean mix earthy and dense, as well as a scoop of coconut with mixed fruits. The coconut was tamed by the delicious salty sweet crunch of corn kernels and what appeared to be pandan noodles. These little tastes are texturally interesting, not too sweet and sing with wonderful asian flavours. But some varieties simply don’t mesh with my western palate, for example salted plum or spicy green mango which is the asian snack of slivered green mango dipped in a mixture of salt, sugar and chilli powder translated into a sorbet. Salty, spicy and a just plain strange tasting dessert.

But there is one very unusual flavour that was surprisingly moreish was Mafi sorbet. Does anyone know what this is? My questions were answered with giggles and “its a Thai food”, well thanks for straightening that out. It was sweet, salty, with some citrus notes and an underlying peanuttyness, refreshing and engaging. We order it as a part of our little tastes but could easily enjoy a full scoop of this savoury sweet.

A wonderfully dense taro is the best I’ve ever tasted and the paradise tea flavour manages to be strong without overpowering its spiced subtlety. The pumpkin and almond enhances the sweetness of the vegetable and turns it into something more than the usual cinnamon accented ‘pumpkin pie’. My vote for delicious green tea is overruled as we already have a tea flavour, this version is better than passionflower’s by a mile. The unadorned fruit sorbets are fresh, light and bright and on all my visits I never encountered the quotidian choices of chocolate, vanilla or pistachio. Different outlets stock diverse and every changing varieties. This is the kind of ice cream shop I wished for when I worked in an ice cream shop, and it was what I wished Passionflower was every time I visited. A smart, quirky shop making delicious, interesting and unique flavour combinations, I just want to know when they’re going to open in Hanoi.

iberry homemade,
locations around Bangkok.

I visited them on the ground floor of Siam Paragon, and on soi 2 Siam Square (every chance I got).