Hu’u is up for lunch. Literally. This cocktail lounge/gallery has now opened its doors for lunch, with your choice of a 2-course (199++ baht) or 3-course (230++ baht) lunch set. Middle J and I took up the opportunity to check out their lunch menus and of course, we chose the 3-course set. If there were 4-course sets, I’m sure we both would’ve opted for that one.

In a setting of black leather-patterned tables and pandanus-green chairs, ours was the only table for lunch (until much later into our main course did another table show up). That should’ve been a sign, but I was being optimistic and thinking perhaps people haven’t been informed of its lunch set yet.

For starters, I chose the Asparagus Cappucino while middle J settled for Istanbul Delight, which turned out to be a clear vegetable soup with lentils and cous cous that brought a wonderful aroma but not that much taste. The Asparagus Cappucino, on the other hand, was a light cream soup that had a very faint hint of asparagus. It didn’t taste too bad with the addition of a little salt but the flavor of the cream overpowered the asparagus so I felt like I was having salted cream soup instead.

Our main course arrived next and we were astonished to see the portions on our plates. “How am I ever going to survive the rest of the day with this rat-sized portion?” raced through our heads as we stared at our plates (which were humongous, by the way), then looked across the table at how big (or rather, small) the other’s portion was.

“Two pieces of tuna!” I said disbelievingly of my Lightly Seared Sesame Tuna Salad. It wasn’t even really that – it was in fact, one piece of white and black sesame crusted tuna cut diagonally in half and placed on either side of a bed of salad leaves tossed in a variety of oils and perhaps, two drops of balsamic vinegar. Taking my first bite, I was not impressed. The top side of the plate was decorated with quail egg and oven-baked cherry tomato halves and dollops of mayonnaise and cocktail sauce. The presentation may have been creatively designed but the dish itself screamed BLAND even after the addition of the S & P. Maybe it’s my Thai Tongue acting up again…

But then again, maybe not, as middle J was also dissatisfied with her main dish, which was Wild Pink Mushroom Ravioli. Once again, the plate was bigger than 2 of our faces put together but amidst all of that space was a “dimple” no bigger than my palm where probably 3-4 pieces of ravioli swam in an orange pumpkin sauce. The taste? Middle J said the ravioli alone or the sauce alone tasted fine but when eaten together, the flavors just clashed too much with one another to have one distinct taste. Sounds to me like the chef needs more practice with his band members!

Finally, the moment probably all of you have been waiting for – dessert! I found the Hu’u Three Spoon Brulee intriguing so I had that while middle J picked the Fresh Mango & Vanilla Bean Pudding, which turned out to be a better choice. As you may have guessed, my brulee came in three spoons, with mint, tiny slices of mango, and pink peppercorns garnished on top. The mint one tasted weird. First of all, the brulee was too sweet, and mix that with mint and you get…yuck! I thought the mango one would be the best among the three but surprisingly, the pink peppercorns managed to snatch that prize (the Best “Least Yucky Brulee” Award). The brulee for this one was also a bit salty so together with the pink peppercorns, it almost didn’t taste like dessert. (Or maybe well-seasoned steak brulee, but it wasn’t even that good. Okay, you get my point.)

Middle J, lucky for her, didn’t have as much difficulty swallowing her dessert. The light, fluffy white pudding was good despite being “too stingy with the mango”. Other than that, her dessert was gobbled up in due time.

If photography is your hobby, then please do go to Hu’u for lunch. If you want to learn a thing or two about food art, please visit them for lunch. But if you’re looking for a nice satisfying meal, you’re better off somewhere else. Then again, lunch was only 230++ baht…

Hu’u
The Ascott, Levels 1 & 2
187 South Sathorn Road, Yannawa
Bangkok, Thailand 10120
Tel: 02-676-6677
Open: daily 11:30am-2:30pm (lunch)

Categories: Restaurant Review
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Lately I’ve been noticing that I don’t feel the same joyous sensation I used to each time I sample Western food. I used to love savoring all kinds of Western food but now I just feel like they all taste quite bland. It just feels like there’s something missing – that special ingredient that’ll give the food a kick and make it not boring after 10 mouthfuls of it. What’s happening to me?? Could it be…am I losing my taste buds?!? But…but…I’m not even 88 years old yet!

No, I think it’s more like I’ve been diagnosed with having Thai tongue, a symptom you develop when you’ve been living in Thailand for a long time and have become accustomed to the spicy, flavor-bursting food so when you eat other food, they taste bland.

I’ve been stuffing my face with so much Thai food that when I eat spaghetti or have a piece of steak, I need to add extra seasonings to spice it up – not a good option when you’re dining at a top restaurant that considers its food “the best” in town. Now I sort of understand why Thais like to squirt ketchup and chili powder all over their pizzas (no, I haven’t gotten to this stage yet), or why fusion food is so popular in Thailand.

I never really liked pla kem, sardines marinated in salt and then sun-dried before frying. I hated the smell and I couldn’t stand the taste…until recently, when I had spaghetti pla kem. Now I can’t stop craving these things! I suppose it’s the same for some people with durian…hate the smell until you’ve tasted it and you cross over that thin line between love and hate after you’ve experienced the first luscious creamy texture of this King of Fruits. (I may be a bit of a hypocrite here since I only eat about 2 tiny pieces of durian per year…and by pieces, I don’t mean the whole fruit but just a chunk of it.)

Another addiction I’ve picked up is the Turkey and Cranberry Chutney Sandwich from Au Bon Pain (The menu differs all over the world so other countries might not have this). Sad to say, it’s a seasonal menu so it’ll only be offered during this period. Why am I so addicted to this sandwich? The answer was in that first bite I took. I had been expecting a normal turkey sandwich but what I got instead was a pleasant surprise comprising of a zing of wasabi (or horseradish) in addition to the turkey and cranberry chutney that had me wolfing down the whole sandwich in seconds! (Okay, not literally…if you know me, you’d know I take forever just to finish a meal.)

Here are some dishes I would recommend for someone with Thai tongue:

• Spaghetti Pla Kem (Spaghetti stir-fried with pla kem)
• Nua Yaang Jim Jaew (Charcoal-grilled beef with spicy Thai dipping sauce)
• Moo Manao (Pork in a spicy and sour garlic, lemon, chili sauce)
• Kai Saab (KFC’s fried wings seasoned with tom yam flavored power)

Categories: Miscellaneous
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Note: This has nothing to do with food. I was actually going to put this in the Updates section but it got too long so I decided to make it a post instead.

I am stressed in every way imaginable. Today, while I was uploading the Thai page of my blog, I tried to put the English version’s theme into the Thai page but I decided to save the theme onto my desktop first. What I stupidly did instead was upload the theme on my desktop onto the server, thus overwriting practically everything I did since the end of October. Thank goodness the posts and pictures were all there or I think I might just breakdown and quit blogging for good!

This is the second time something like this has happened to me…the first time was when I upgraded my Blogger to Google accounts and it messed up everything on my Thai page because Google accounts didn’t support Thai fonts yet. That was when I decided to “go solo” (aka purchase my own domain) and come up with a new, “cleaner” image for my blog.

This time, after seeing that the October theme wasn’t really anything close to what I had before overwriting the theme, I almost quit blogging altogether. I was so discouraged (and still am, a little) and can you believe this…food didn’t even make me feel better. In fact, I pretty much lost my appetite as soon as I found out I had to redo everything – all that time spent on my blog and my work all gone, just because of ONE WRONG CLICK!!! I think I was in shock, like that oh-no!-second you get when you just found out you were the cause of a million-dollar mistake. Many thanks to Damon (always the savior), who encouraged me to fix my blog and who offered help, but not before laughing at me in an I-told-you-so way for not backing up my files often, like he repeatedly told me to. I have now learned my lesson and I am going to backup, backup, backup! I’m also going to start keeping a log of my daily updates to the blog so that if I ever need to refer back to any of the changes I made, I will know exactly what I did. I’m not taking any more chances!

Okay, enough blabbering…I need to get back to restoring my blog!!

Categories: Miscellaneous
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