Sanguan Sri — Restaurant in Lumphini Subdistrict

I came here today after seeing recommendations from bloggers of Bangkok's eateries, where the locals would go, not some high class fancy dining where the target customers are middle-class tourists. This place was not that difficult to locate as it was within walking distance from the Ploen Chit station, even the security guards at nearby buildings knew of this place (yes, it's that popular amongst the locals within the vicinity). When I got in, I noticed the table with food bags, like chicken green curry, red curry, duck, rice, noodles and so on, turns out those are for customers wanting to take away. I opted to eat in, and ordered the chicken green curry & rice. Someone else mentioned this was one of THE best Thai Green Curry in the entire of Bangkok which is a big claim to make, rest assured it was very good but I've not tried each & every single eatery service green curry to comment on that statement. I enjoyed the chicken green curry so much, I was curious about how good the red curry would be, so ordered that too despite being full from the green curry, I just felt the need to down more food since I was intending on departing back to London two days after and did not want to regret not trying more. The chicken red curry was also very good, was recommended to have it with duck which cost only 30 baht more, but I wanted to compare the red with green curry. Was satisfied with what I had. Would highly recommend this place. NOTE - this is NOT a fancy fine dining restaurant, it is a casual eatery where the locals working nearby would come, as implied with the simplicity and prices being 70 baht for each of the curries l has, and rice being only 15 baht, these prices are consistent with standard street food vendors throughout the city and beyond, not mention they close at 3pm, presumably because that's when lunch time ends for the local workers, just like the Silom Food Court closing at around 3pm too. I'm giving this the highest score of 5/5 because it succeeds on what it tries to be, without any concessions, the price is right, the atmosphere is correct, there is an on premise toilet, just everything I would expect, even the staff were very polite. I had the equivalent of two meals for less than 200 baht, which exceed the taste/quality/standards/freshness of Thai restaurants in the UK and it's Mitchellin rated, what more can you...

A nice thing about this place is you can order half sizes and try more dishes.

The fried mackerel with fish paste sauce (see photo) was delicious. The sauce was very tangy and flavorful. Not for people who don't like a very flavorful, tangy unique sauce.

The eggs in brown sauce (see photo) is very sweet. It's good but if you want sugar. Has some nice meat and egg in it.

I wasn't impressed with the fried fish paste balls (see photo). They did have an herb inside which made them interesting (couldn't identify which one) and I liked that, but the fish paste balls were sort of bland and not very tasty - they just tasted sort of fried.

I didn't like the lychee juice. It had way too much sugar for me. The longen juice also had sugar but was delicious as well due to its unique flavor. Tasted almost like coffee.

The Beef Green Curry was very tasty, and not overly spicy. The old lady there recommended it on Thursdays.

The Fried Beef with Basil was okay.

The Red Curry with Roast Duck (pictured) was delicious.

The Grilled Pork Spicy Salad (pictured) was a salad with some mostly plain pork on it. It was good if that's what you're looking for. Not particularly delicious or anything.

The tamarind salad thing was not sweet at all, which was a bit surprising.

The chicken green curry is decent. It's spicy and tastes like coconut. Might be a better curry, I'm not sure. But it's good.

The egg sausage soup is delicious and seems mostly healthy. It is herbal tasting. It does take a while to cool off since it's a soup.

The fried shrimp with garlic and pepper tastes great because it contains fried garlic but is somewhat small so requires more food...

Unassuming hole in the wall restaurant, with bustling crowd within, filled with locals on their lunch break (I went on a weekday afternoon). One of the staff is more fluent in English and she helped us with our order. There's different "special of the day" food items for each weekday, but I only ordered from their ala carte menu. All tables came with complimentary cold drink (almost like water, but with a hint of barley tea flavour). I appreciate that the servers came around frequently to top up our glasses. Green curry chicken was excellent, not too rich/thick (almost watery but full flavoured) and all the components inside are delish. Goes fantastic with white rice. Oyster omelette comes with plenty of fresh plump juicy oysters (not overcooked), hidden inside the creamy folds of eggy-goodness. Stir fried beef with basil was a bit too spicy, though I do like the pickled green chilli slices that were in there. Dessert was bananas in milky coconut syrup (wasn't in the menu, I just ask for what the locals at neighbouring table were having!). And they were glad to recommend. Though it's an old establishment, I appreciate that the ventilation is good, bright, clean and aircon was of the right temperature. Service was prompt and friendly, but might take abit of gesturing/time cos of the crowd. This is food cooked from the heart, probably there's a Thai grandma in the kitchen supervising! Thanks to the owner for keeping the prices affordable for the locals despite the Michelin. I will definitely be back again to try the...