A new upscale Thai restaurant tries to defy conventional wisdom



Kinnaree features an outdoor bar surrounded by a garden and a cozy glassed-in dining area. In August, the restaurant is offering a seafood promotion that matches Thai dishes with wines from Monsoon Valley.

FOOD: Myth breaking

By Nicholas Grossman

27 July 2006

It’s hard not to be skeptical of upscale Thai restaurants. The reason is simple and obvious: why pay 300 baht for a large bowl of tom yam goong when you can pay less than 100 baht on the street, especially when there is little guarantee that the more expensive dish will be any better.

Big Thai kitchens often don’t compete well with the craftsmanship of street chefs and, more often than not, the upscale tom yam is also compromised in terms of taste by the misplaced belief that tourists can’t take punchy or spicy food. Or else staple ingredients are inexplicably substituted in the name of fusion. You’ve wasted 200 baht.

Thus the upscale Thai restaurant, especially if it is playing it safe, serving the classic Thai menu without much innovation, is destined to rely on ambience and other factors (tour buses?) to draw its clientele. Unfortunately that ambience might in itself be cheesy, and again, it’s hard to compete with plastic chairs and the ambience of the street. Cheap and down-to-earth is part of Thailand’s, and Thai food’s, unending flavor and appeal.

So does that mean you should save your money and give every Thai restaurant with upscale pretensions a pass? I would normally have said yes, but my latest experience at a new restaurant, Kinnaree, gave me pause. I enjoyed the food and the atmosphere, and aided by a few glasses of wine, I thought I might return one day.

This restaurant and bar, which is tucked off Sukhumvit Soi 8, looks pleasant. An outdoor bar is surrounded by a small garden and fairy lights. Inside, Kinnaree is comfortable and warm. I like the layout. The front area is glassed in and cozy while the back area is more chic. A small bar in between features shelves of wine. Upstairs, the owners are planning a full-fledged wine bar.

The restaurant invited the press Monday night to sample its seafood promotion, which pairs authentic Thai dishes with three wines from Monsoon Valley, the label of Siam Winery, which is famous for its Spy wine coolers but also has some decent table wines to its name.

This promotion is yet another event pushing the idea that wine does go well with Thai cuisine, countering another popular perception that most wines are overpowered by the dishes’ strong flavors. My experience with Thai wines as with upscale Thai restaurants had been pretty poor, but the Monsoon Valley wines held their own at this meal, and they didn’t seem mismatched with the variety of shrimp and salmon dishes prepared by Kinnaree’s kitchen.

The “Seafood Sensation” promotion costs 1,100 baht a person (before tax) and allows you to select four courses from a set menu. The appetizers on offer are ping talay, sweetheart crab and herbal shrimp. For the promotion, you choose one of these three. The ping talay featured grilled Spanish mackerel, squid and shrimp on a skewer. The fish in particular was very fresh. The herbal shrimp had a nice balance, while the sweetheart crab, which consists of deep fried mashed crab and pork, was the least exciting of the trio. It was a bit bland and dry.

The accompanying wine for the starter is a white wine, the Monsoon Vallley Columbard. It was, in my opinion, the best wine of the night and went well with the seafood. In general, whites seem to be better than reds when it comes to Thai wines and they normally are better suited for seafood dishes.

The second course offers you a choice of soups/curries – kai toun talay, tom kha goong and tom yam goong – matched with a satisfying Monsoon Valley ros?. The kai toun talay was close to being superb but a bit too much black pepper somewhat overpowered the otherwise nice flavor of the dish. The tom kha goong was a bit disappointing. There were no mushrooms, which is normally a staple of this dish, and overall it lacked the deep flavor one associates with tom kha goong. Also, shrimp just doesn’t go as well with tom kha as chicken, but, of course, it’s a seafood promotion. I’d drop this one from the menu.

The tom yam goong began to solidify my faith in Kinnaree. The clear broth was well balanced between the zesty sour of the lime and the punch of the chillies. In spite of an accidentally large serving of onions and a lack of mushrooms, this tom yam was an excellent, authentic version of the classic.

Before the main course was a surprise highlight of the night, a lime sorbet refresher. I’m not a fan of these mid-meal desserts but this sorbet had a great, almost milky, texture and delicious flavor.

At this point, most of us were full already but there was still the main course to go and, unfortunately, it featured more shrimp (!) – we were starting to feel like Forrest Gump on the bayou, finding out how many ways shrimp could be put to use in the kitchen.

Thus a weakness of the seafood promotion was exposed – why not more diversity on the set menu? There are so many other seafoods available in Thailand, from mussels to fresh white fishes, that would add more choice. Also, the lack of a vegetable dish meant that your complete meal lacks some essential vitamins. A side of phak bung would have been welcome.

But shrimp overload aside, the main dish, gang guri goong, had a smooth and tasty curry base, which made it a winner. The homok salmon yang, like the sweetheart crab, seems to have lost its flavor in the cooking. It was just too dry. The chu chi pla salmon was decent. The dishes were matched with a Pokdum from Monsoon Valley.

For dessert, the coconut cake and pomegranate tea were largely forgettable. The desserts could definitely use some work.

I took a glance at the regular menu of Kinnaree to see what the price range is. The dishes aren’t cheap, nor outrageously expensive, generally costing between 180 baht and 340 baht.

For now, I’d recommend this seafood promotion, which at 1,100 baht isn’t a bad deal at all. With the wine and pleasant food and atmosphere, you’ll certainly leave this restaurant happy.

Kinnaree Gourmet Thai

The “Seafood Sensation” promotion runs from August 1 to August 31

43 Sukhumvit Soi 8. Call 02-256-0328

Thai Day