The Place I am usually all for Thai food when I am in Bangkok and Khao restaurant has been on my to try list. Located in Ekkamai, the One-Michelin Star restaurant spots a semi-formal dining room with beautiful wooden frames where there is nice natural light in the day. ‘Khao’ in Thai means rice, so the idea of the restaurant is really more of communal-style dining as there are more than 90 dishes on its menu. Very overwhelming, I know. 

Affordable is subjective and while other high end Michelin Star restaurants like Sorn charges from 5000-6000 THB per person, you can expect to spend less than 1500THB per person at Khao.

The Food With so many dishes to choose from and when I attempted to ask the staff for recommendations, one of them pointed me to the dishes on the menu which says “recommended”. She is technically not wrong, though I was looking for a more personal kind of recommendation from the staff on the menu. 

Anyways, I started with the Gang Moo Thepho (250THB), Thai pork curry dish with morning glory where bite-sized pork belly is added with pork shoulder, along with coconut milk in seasoned curry and salted fish. Delicious curry to go with rice here, where the pork is quite tender as well. 

One of the signatures on the menu is the Pad Thai (320THB) where a special type of fried rice noodles called “sen chan” is used here with Khao’s secret Pad Thai sauce. This is also a more luxe version as it comes with huge tiger prawns. Overall, a good Pad Thai dish which did not disappoint. 

You can trust the Thais to do a good omelette dish. The Khai Jiew (420THB/prawns) is a prawn omelette I had and I was amazed by how fluffy it looks, just like a pancake! You get an airy looking yet dense omelette, very delicious. 

For a soup dish, I went for the Tom Kha Gai Sai Maprow On (260THB), chicken and galangal in coconut soup. The chicken broth is prepared over two hours and uses chicken thigh, and added with kaffir lime leaves, galangal and young coconut meat.  

I also recommend the Pu Pad Pong Garee (690THB), stir-fried crab meat in curry powder and eggs. It is a nice rendition with an aromatic flavour from the curry and crab meat and eggs just go so well together. 

Rants The service at Khao, while a Michelin star establishment, feels cold. The staff I interacted with lacks passion in introducing the menu. It might be a language barrier, but for a restaurant of this calibre, I expect more of the service standard. 

Will I Return Again? Overall, the dishes I had at Khao were scrumptious and while it is a first world problem, there is a wide variety of dishes to dwell on. My recommendation is to head here in groups of 4-5 people at least in order to try more dishes. 

TheRantingPanda says: 
Taste bud: 4/5 
Hole in the pocket: 3.5/5 
Ambience: 3.5/5
Overall Experience: 4/5 

Khao 
15 Ekkamai 10 Alley, Khwaeng Khlong Tan Nuea, Khlongtun Nua, Bangkok 10110, Thailand 

Opening Hours 
Monday to Friday: 11:30am to 2pm; 6pm to 10pm 
Saturday & Sunday: 11:30am to 2:30pm; 6pm to 10pm 

Ranted by The Ranter