Lavana Spa, Bangkok

I decided to try Lavana Spa after reading about it on DreamersLoft. It is a pretty large spa place and I liked the place immediately because it looked very clean and smelled great.

The Husband and I opted for a 90 mins oil massage and they had a promotion of a free 60 mins facial. It was a first for The Husband - he found the facial experience pretty interesting. I think "all these hot and cold things" were his comments.

In any case, I found the entire massage experience at Lavana Spa pretty good. Maybe it was because we went in the morning when they weren't as busy, so the place was fairly quiet and I really enjoyed the 90 mins of massage.

We were also served a free simple American breakfast of toast, scrambled eggs and ham after our massage. I think the spa offers free breakfast for all massages before 1pm to encourage more people to book a morning slot

I especially liked the chocolate mousse thing that we were served at the reception area after our treatments.

Lavana Bangkok Spa

No.4 Soi Sukhumvit 12 Sukhumvit Road
Klongtoey, Klongtoey, Bangkok 10110
Tel : +66 (0) 2 2294510-12
Opening Hours : 09:00 am - 02:00 am
http://www.lavanabangkok.com/index.html

Greyhound Cafe, Bangkok

We arranged to meet up with P, an ex-colleague from Thailand when we were in Bangkok.

P suggested we meet at the Greyhound Cafe in Central Chidlom.

I though the Greyhound Cafe felt very similar to the PS Cafe chain in Singapore, except with a more interesting menu.

The food was pretty good.. My favourite of what we tried was a dish called "Complicated Noodles" - which was really a stack of fresh lettuce with some flat pieces of flat rice noodles, minced pork and coriander. You wrap everything with the lettuce before eating. A bit messy but it was quite fun to eat.

We also had the fresh lasagna salad and mini chicken wings, both of which was okay but nothing too special.

I especially liked the drinks we had. The Husband had a Thai milk tea granita which was delicious but you had to be patient with it as you need it to melt a little before drinking. I had a green concoction of green grapes, green apple and mint sauce. It was a really refreshing drink!

The desserts were pretty decent as well. The Mixed Berry Layer Cake had very soft, fluffy fresh cream and I thought the Nutella Banana Tart was very well made - a nice crunchy crust with yummy chocolate and fresh bananas.

It's a cafe I would definitely visit again, especially after an afternoon of shopping!

Greyhound Cafe

Central Chidlom, 4th floor
Bangkok

Coconut Custard from Mont Nom Sod

Just before we left Bangkok, we went to MBK Shopping Centre (also called Mahboonkrong) to buy some "kaya" for my parents.

My parents visited Bangkok a couple of weeks back and raved about the "kaya" from a shop on the second level. 

They couldn't tell me which shop it was though so after combing the entire second floor, we came to the conclusion that the "kaya" they wanted had to be from Mont Nom Sod (Milk and Bread Shop).

Kaya is coconut jam that is made from coconut milk, eggs and sugar. I've always considered it to be a specialty from Singapore, so it is really strange to be looking for "kaya" to buy home from Bangkok.

Mont Nom Sod is a small shop that specialises in selling bread with all kinds of spread and milk in all kinds of drinks..

The "kaya", or coconut custard, as it is called at Mont Nom Sod is freshly made and last only 3 days.. so I only brought home 2 little bottles.

I had it for breakfast today and it was really quite delicious - sweet, but not too sweet.. with a tinge of pandan and coconut... a very nice, wobbly texture.

It went very well with a slice of fluffy white toast.

Yum!

Baan Khanitha & Gallery

Baan Khanitha is a restaurant just a stone's throw away from Somerset Park Suanplu. The Husband read somewhere that it is a pretty good restaurant so we decided to have our first lunch in Bangkok there.

The restaurant was quiet (only 3 tables during lunch) and looked both expensive and pretentious. I braced myself for disappointment as I sat down.

Happily, it turned out that I was wrong.

The restaurant was indeed quite expensive and food came in small portions.. but everything tasted very good!

For starters, we were served a platter of bits and pieces with wild betel leaves - bits of lime, bits of dried squid and dried prawns, bits of chopped lime, onions and chilli. The waiter said we were to put a bit of everything on a leaf and then top it with the sweet sauce in the centre and wrap it up.

"Be careful the chilli padi," he said. 

And so we avoided the chilli. The strange mixture was pretty good and tasted really refreshing! I liked the bits of chopped lime that came with the skin and all.

Then the food we ordered started coming.

The tomyum soup was delicious - it came with 2 fat river prawns (also called "big headed prawns" in Hong Kong). These are the right type of prawns to use in tom yum.. as all the fat from the prawns would seep out into the soup, giving it a richer seafood taste.

The grilled duck and lychee with curry sauce was also very good. The sauce was quite sweet and more peanut-like than curry-like, but I thought it went very well with the juicy duck meat and plain rice. I didn't think the lychees added anything to the dish though.

I also liked the crispy prawn cakes - especially the plum sauce and pickled cucumbers and onions that came with it.

My favourite part of the meal though was the rice. Which is really strange because we only had plain, steamed rice. But it was fluffy, yet every grain was separate and distinct. The Husband and I asked for second helpings of the plain rice..

The fresh mango with sticky rice and coconut ice-cream was also delicious. The sticky rice came with crunchy bits on top.. and the coconut ice-cream had pieces of dried coconut and some jelly, jackfruit-like bits inside. The combination of the cold ice-cream with bits, soft sweet mango and sticky, crunchy glutinous rice was heavenly!

I still liked food from along the streets in Bangkok but this is a restaurant I would definitely be visiting for very refined, quality Thai food.

We never made it into the gallery part of the place but I understand it is an art gallery..

Baan Khanitha & Gallery

69 South Sathorn Rd (intersection of South Sathorn Rd and Suanplu Rd)
Sathorn, Bangkok
Click here for the website

Somerset Park Suanplu

Somerset Park Suanplu is a great service apartment to stay at in Bangkok.

The apartment is very spacious and clean. The staff are all extremely friendly. The  location is pretty central - there are a few really good restaurants and massage places nearby, it's possible to walk to a sky train station, or else just a short taxi ride to major shopping centres.

It's also very quiet and there is a beautiful garden just in front of the apartment to take a short stroll after breakfast.

Breakfast isn't great though and I would rather walk out and have a bowl of noodles by the street than have the breakfast in the hotel. It's not that it's bad... just very typical, boring hotel breakfast fare.

We booked the hotel from an online travel website only to find out that if you book direct from the Somerset Service Apartments website, you'd get a better deal due to their guaranteed best rates offer.

After I expressed my disappointment, the apartment upgraded us to a slightly bigger apartment and had some flowers for us when we arrived!

The best part of my stay was that it was really quite quiet and I was able to get all the uninterrupted rest that I needed over the weekend.

 Our apartment came with a living room

 A small but well equipped kitchen

And a spacious bedroom...

The roses in the room were beautiful

I also really liked the garden just outside the hotel lobby

 Love the pretty lotus flower

Greenery and water just makes me feel relaxed..

Short Getaway to Bangkok

I was really needing a break last Friday.

However, when I got to the airport, I was thinking to myself that maybe it wasn't the best of ideas to be going to a busy city like Bangkok when all I needed was some rest and relax.

It turned out to be a restful and relaxing trip though.

We stayed in a really nice and quiet service apartment, took went for a couple of nice long massages, took long naps everyday and watched a couple of movies I should have caught last year at the theatres.

It also drizzled on and off the whole time we were in Bangkok so the weather was nice and cool.. So cool in fact, I caught a bit of a cold.

And then of course, there was the food! A couple of the best restaurants we visited this time were also just a few minutes walk away from the apartment too.. so we didn't have to really travel a lot.

I didn't regret going for my break in Bangkok at all. In fact, I think that I will probably go for a longer trip next time!

I will be posting more about my trip over the next few days.

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures!

View from the plane. Beautiful padi fields!

 Nearer to Bangkok..

Great food in Bangkok

Tom yum soup - I can never seem to get enough of this soup..

 I loved to snack on these green mangoes - you can eat them with 

a bit of the sticky, fishy, spicy sweet sauce or some flavoured sugar. 

These can be found all over Bangkok - at the supermarkets or along the streets

 Of course, those massage sessions really helped me to relax

And those sweet desserts helped as well!

It was drizzling for most part of the time we were in Bangkok.. 

but when it wasn't raining, a nice stroll 

around the apartment was really nice and relaxing