Benjarong, TTK Road, Chennai

During my stay in Chennai, my friend Sandhya took me to this Thai joint one evening post work. I was skeptical about trying Thai food at Chennai, and therefore kept my expectations under check. However, I was proved completely wrong as here is where I landed up having the best 'Indian' Thai food. Well, I have yet to visit Thailand, to taste the authentic Thai food, as I believe that the taste is customized to the countries local taste, but amongst the Indian joints, this one is one of the best I have had. A simple and extremely classy place, with wood that decor renders a very warm and cozy feeling. For the crowd mostly you’ll see a lot of corporates and few families as I doubt if Chennai folks have still awakened to this amazing place.

The main attraction I found in this place is the complementary starter called Mein Khum, hopefully have got the name right. They serve you a leaf, which I am not so sure what it is, but its shaped like a beetle leaf, on that need to put little honey, a small garlic cube, Thai chillies,dry coconut,peanuts and squeeze lemon on top, roll the leaf and bite the entire thing. With every chew you’ll get a different taste, the chilly adds a sudden blast of spice, which is instantly calmed by the honey rendering a tint of sweetness, the crunch coming from the peanuts and the lemon,coconut and garlic giving you the right flavors. The idea is to warm up and activate all your taste buds to relish the food that will follow.

For the main course, I have thoroughly relished the Thai curries and I actually ventured in trying out all 3 of them at different occasions and loved them. So my usual menu at Benjarong is Thai curry with steam rice with a dish of steamed vegetable. Now for the non-vegetarians, I will like to mention that once when I was visiting this place with a group of friends who picked up some chicken and prawn dishes, well, they weren’t too impressed with it. So will surely like to hear from some non-vegetarians what they felt about this place. The desert menu is slightly week, but the presence of French Loaf right outside provisions for a good work around.