Ruen Mallika Sukhumvit 22 — Restaurant in Khlong Toei Subdistrict

Bangkok never ceases to amaze me in the number and variety of excellent restaurants that are on offer to locals and visitors alike. In over 200 days of visits to the city over the past 10 years, I thought I had tried every style of Thai cuisine in the various neighborhoods surrounding Sukhumvit and the BTS line. But today, a local Thai friend introduced me to what they described as ancient royal Thai cuisine at the Ruen Mallika on Soi Setthi Thawi Sap near its intersection with Sukhumvit Soi 22. It is by far the best overall Thai dining experience that I have ever had.

The restaurant exterior is a bit hidden in an off-street, sheltered location and the modest entrance belies the wonderful atmosphere and excellent dining experience that you will enjoy inside. As you are guided through the restaurant to your table, you feel like you are wandering through an ancient, royal Thai courtyard. Everything is elegant and speaks to Thai tradition and culture. Each menu is a three inch thick album containing a page with a large photo and description for each item on the menu. As you page through the menu everything looks and sounds so yummy that you really have a hard time choosing. My Thai friend properly advised that we needed to over order our dishes so that we could sample and enjoy a variety of the wonderful tastes and flavors on offer. We ended up ordering four separate dishes to share including a crispy rice cake/peanut sauce appetizer, sweet and sour chicken soup, papaya salad, and a crispy pork with curry sauce. Everything was so fresh, flavorful and well prepared. We also ordered rice and a berry tea to accompany the meal.

We were fully stuffed about 3/4 of the way through our meal but got a second wind after a few cups of tea and were somehow able to consume our entire order. An outstanding surprise was that our entire meal in this wonderful place only cost 1790 baht. (Not street food prices but about half the cost of some other fancy Thai restaurants that I have...

First of all i would like to give a compliment to the food and atmosphere of the restaurant

We were here for farewell dinner of 5 people in the table and wishing a good Michelin restaurant experience.

We’re ordered

Mallika Platter Thai Papaya Salad Massaman Chicken Glass noodle Salad Beef Green Curry Beef Salad Tom Yum Prawn Streams rice Kratong thong Spicy soup with grill duck

All turns out very impressive and my friends live the food here

Duration of food : We start ordered food at 7.45pm. the time has passed by to 8.45pm. So 1 hour in total have the has yet to arrived

(Even there were the dishes that take 3 mins to cook e.i. Papaya Salad)

It’s even took them 5-10 min to bring us a bottle of water when we ordered it

Finally my friend lost her patient and walk to the kitchen to asked for the food and the answer was that there’s so many customers, make it very slow for the cooking process, 10 mins later the food still not arrived and my friend started to get upset but we still can convincing her to stay until the food arrive

They served papaya salad first as what we were guessed that’s the easiest dishes to make then Kratong Thong arrived following with the platter and finally we got everything except the rice and Tom Yum Prawn so we wait for awhile to asked for rice finally the rice came we finished all the food as we all starving but the problem is Tom Yam not arrived yet.

For the drink : I only order water, some coconut juice, Thai ice tea and one of us has long island which he said it’s was very good.

Price : Above average as this is a Michelin stars

In a nutshell, it’s like a waiting game, make sure you’re not starving before coming to this place otherwise you will be in the same situation as my friend.

That’s make me deducted 1 star

Last, hopefully you can manage the kitchen system as people come here they’re expected food not...

Ruen Mallika was initially a little bit hard to find, as it is tucked away in a house, but the exterior is beautiful. We came on a weekday morning, and it was not too busy, but also the restaurant is very large and has a good amount of seating. The interior of the restaurant is absolutely beautiful, both inside the house and the outside with the water had a really nice ambiance.

We opted to sit inside because of mosquitos, but outside is a very beautiful pond and extra seating. The menu is extremely large (and detailed), but it added to the grandeur of the experience. We decided to order the appetiser sampler platter with fried flowers, the spicy crab and salted egg dip, as well as the Massaman curry. All three of these were absolutely delicious, and quite generous portions for three people. Something that impressed me the most was the fried frangipani, I did not know that you could eat these flowers, nor how delicious they would be! The presentation of the food is simply next level at Ruen Mallika, and I believe it is worth the price. I definitely would come back for a special occasion as the service was incredible and attentive, and the beautiful atmosphere and delicious food is definitely...