Bo.lan — Restaurant in Khlong Tan Nuea Subdistrict

First of all I left this restaurant really disappointed. I realized that after my experience they were actually featured on Netflix. So I was hesitant on giving them a poor review.

After watching the series out of curiosity I decided that instead of giving them 1/5, I’ll up the star to 2. But still it was unsatisfactory and still disappointing.

Our lunch prefix for my wife and I cost a total of $153 USD. This included their lunch menu, 2 sparkling water, and 1 relish. Value wise this was appalling. We all know that Thailand is not known for expensive food but I wanted to experiment and be open minded to try different food at different price ranges.

Setting and ambience was not to my liking. It was very dark for lunch. The bathrooms were outside and was not air conditioned. Felt really stuffy in the washroom. The furniture was a bit outdated. Plates and silverware was presentable but nothing spectacular.

Taste wise, I really liked the red curry and the rice. I learned later that everything was made from scratch. But some other dishes like the melon and hot/sour soup was way too salty for my taste bud. The Thai whiskey that was served in the beginning was nothing special. I’m a big whiskey collector/drinker so I know my whiskey quite well but I felt the Thai whiskey they made from scratch did not open up my taste bud. Rather it kept me guessing how diluted it was with water (advertised as 40% alcohol). It almost tasted like a blended watered down JW black label scotch. But like every fine dining, the meal should end perfectly with a dessert but their dessert was really appalling and shameful. It was literally shaved ice with fruits and ginger juice. To me, that was uninventive, poor meal planning by the chefs, and lack of understanding in fine dining. Overall, I think the taste was there but they were missing a lot of key factors to be considered fine dining.

Presentation was ok. Nothing to rave about. But their lunch menu was super confusing. It looked extremely outdated.

Service wise was mediocre.I called in advance to ask how long lunch would take and the hostess on the phone told me 1 hour. Boy were we surprised. Our lunch took over 2 hours and 15 minutes (this was after we rushed them). I thought the whole pre drink with wet peanuts was not necessary. We did order drinks but it never came. I thought the quick kitchen tour was a surprise but nothing special. Keep in mind I didn’t know everything was made from scratch or organic. The chef only welcomed us and asked us where we came from. It wasn’t until after I saw the Netflix series, where I learned more about the owners and their efforts to keep everything organic.

Value - 1/5 Ambience - 1/5 Taste - 4/5 Food presentation - 3/5 Service - 2/5

Will I come back? NO

Will I recommend my friends or family? No.

Overall, Bo.lan should not be on peoples list of fine dining. I think they are trying too hard to be a fine dining restaurant when they are clearly just a popular tourist restaurant for tourists to try authentic thai food. Nothing was memorable except when we received the check. For what it’s worth I think the owners need to rethink their pricing strategy and reposition themselves not as a fine dining experience but rather a locally sourced and organic restaurant. I get it, they make everything from scratch and source everything locally but how do you justify $75 usd per head? I mean you’re even more expensive than lunch at Alain Ducasse in HK lol, and that’s with wine pairing. Honesty this restaurant reminded me a time when Whole Foods introduced the $7 asparagus water and all the healthy bloggers started saying how it was healthy to drink blah blah blah. But really guys, I respect the fact that you want to keep the thai food culture and that you want to source everything locally but value wise, I felt ripped off. I felt the food can be found on the streets of Thailand. Sure you don’t use industrialized sugar or locally grown garlic but do you really have to classify yourselves as fine dining and charge an...

（中文評論在下方，這家餐廳叫「擺爛」已經說明一切) We ordered signature menu 3,690 Baht plus 10%fee and 7% tax. In short, totally disappointed, definitely not worthy it. The restaurant is arrogant. Really you do have better choices for Michelin starred restaurant in BKK.

I went with my husband for dinner. While ordering foods we were asked if we prefer low, medium or high spicy and we chose low spicy. At that time the waiter did not mention that the chef will change dishes/sauces from the menu we ordered. We thought we would be served foods exactly from the menus but just low spicy.

The aperitif came with Thai rice liqueur with local sour fruit with spicy flavor and a spray of Panda leaf. The two amuse bouche were ok with different combinations of herbs and even tapioca which was interesting but I won’t call it delicious. The five main courses were served all together as explained by waiter that it’s Thai way. Main dishes were less interesting - the stir fried crab and squid tastes like( or worse than) an unusual stir fried that you get from street food in Thailand or in other Asian countries(無味版的九層塔炒海鮮）; the “southern style curry of line-caught fish” tasted like over sweet Indonesian Satay sauce過甜沙爹醬; the Chonburi-style young watermelon soup with Prawn tastes like a boring seafood soup with basil and coriander(中式海鮮湯). They tasted alright but we couldn’t help ask whether we were served with right foods we ordered from menu in a Thai restaurant. Then the waiter finally told us they changed our menu to make it low-spicy. We were pretty shocked for obvious reason as we would have expected to be served same menu with low spicy version instead of a major change of menu which was not communicated with us. The main dishes to be honest were like boring type of Chinese dishes with a bit more basil and coriander...We shared this feedback to another waiter who seems to be the manager who appeared polite but arrogant and he said we did not ask them whether they would change menu as if it was our own fault. The waiter said the chef would never change their sauces but then why bother ask us to chose level of spicy then serve something else different the menu we ordered? why the waiters and waitress never told us the fact that “ if you chose low- spicy you get boring foods” when we made order or reservations? Despite change of fish curry sauce, soup and a few other dishes, the aperitif and some dish of main dishes still came with medium spicy, then why bother change other dishes? Their logic is strange. The manager never felt the restaurant has any responsibility of explaining change of menu before serving. He didn’t feel any need to apologize for changing menu without communication or informing clients. Arrogant.

This is a restaurant for foreigners who are not familiar with Asian foods so they find it interesting...

《「擺爛」餐廳無誤，只適合當冤大頭、給不懂亞洲菜的人、騙騙第一次來亞洲的觀光客、和沒吃過其他米其林泰菜的人吧》

點菜時我們點了3690套餐，侍者問我要選low spicy, medium spicy, or high spicy, 我和先生都選了low spicy. 後來主菜五道全部一起上，發現味道平淡無奇，比台灣百元熱炒、香港大排檔、泰國路邊攤都差很多，我們找侍者一問，原來他們因為我們選low-spicy就擅自改變菜單，原本應該是south style curry sauce 改成超甜沙爹醬，其他都改動，都沒先跟我們確認、上菜時也完全沒有講一聲，讓我們以為桌上正是我們點的菜；五道主菜讓人吃起來雖不差但就像是一個平淡無奇的亞洲餐廳，我們問類海南雞的一道為什麼咬起來硬硬的，後來貌似主管有英國腔的人硬解釋說，因為故意放一個不好吃且無味的，凸顯其他菜的味道；當我們問到為什麼擅自換菜單不講，他反問我們，我們為什麼不問呢？整個大驚，我們明明點了只有二選一的menu, 你們自己問我們要low, medium or high spicy,...

We enjoyed our dinner and would return. That's the conclusion. The rest of this review is just what to expect.

First off, when asked about spiciness/heat level, most people who are used to Asian (Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian and Sichuan) should just go for High. Medium is mild (relative to the usual spiciness levels mentioned above) so I must assume that Low is for almost chilli intolerant types (who might want to avoid this altogether because you're losing a whole dimension of the experience). We started out asking for medium then after confirm that the starters were at medium, said to the team that we should turn up the heat! Glad that we did. Note that this [obviously] isn't the kind of place with the container of chilli flakes, sugar, fresh chilli and fish sauce on the table for you to adjust the level yourself! (Something which we were itching to do at the Medium level). High is Not the High you would get if ordering Steamed Squid with lime and chilli in most local Thai restaurants!

Next, note that this isn't the "usual fine dining style" of miniscule portions jazzed up merely by adding truffles, uni and/or caviar nor any particularly exotic pedigree of animals. It's instead generous servings (perhaps overly so!) of interpreted traditional Thai dishes. Interpreted to their story. Not interpreted to a fusion with any other cuisine nor technique. Note that the main course is served "family style". We have absolutely no objections to this but it wasn't what was expected (thus highlighting it here).

We didn't go for the wine pairing because I wasn't convinced that the choices shown would actually bring out the flavours of either the wine or the food. The grail, to us, of wine pairing is when the sum of the parts put together all is magically different from each on its own. Not sure that it can be achieved in this format. Would probably need multiple glasses on the table concurrently. The thought of a good Barolo did occur to me at some point as did a rye bourbon...

Finally, I would [strongly] suggest, resist too much rice. Save some space for dessert!

And do try the green tea...