For those that don’t already know, I’ve traveled to Thailand to stay for a few months and work remotely while it’s rainy and cool in Vancouver. One of my first experiences after being here for a week was a little side trip to Ayutthaya, the ancient capital city of Siam. The last time I visited the area was about 12 years ago.
On the way to numerous temples with a group of 6 people (half of whom were locals), we stopped at Lumnan Restaurant, which means riverside. As the name denotes, the restaurant is located right along a river, and is known for it’s assortment of amazing seafood. We started throwing out random requests to the servers, and then settled in hungrily. I’m a huge seafood fan, and this was my first restaurant of the type I had the chance to dine at, and it was one of those random local hole-in-the-wall places, at that.
And so the onslaught of dishes began.
Famous for their BBQ’d prawns, we ordered a large plateful, and dug in. They’re generally served with a delicious Nam Jim sauce, which is made up of garlic, Thai chilis, fish sauce, lime, and sugar.
We also had Deep Fried Prawn Cakes, or Tod Mun Goong. These are served with a thicker, sweet chili dipping sauce. Crispy, hot, and amazing. The more popular Thai dish that people often sea in restaurants are Deep Fried Fish Cakes, or Tod Mun Pla; however, I prefer them done with prawns instead.
A unique dish I hadn’t tried anywhere before was the Deep Fried Oyster Mushrooms, with a thick and sweet tamarind chili sauce.
The next dish was a spicy Young Coconut and Escargot Curry. It had a definite bite, and I loved the plentiful pieces of coconut throughout.
Gaeng Som Pla is also a type of curry, flavoured with tamarind. There isn’t any coconut milk added to this version though, and it was made with a deep fried fish of some sort that we couldn’t determine for sure.
For dessert, there were a few options. One person had the house made coconut ice cream and the rest of us had one of two other options. The first was a Black Jelly in Syrup, a Chinese derived dessert, thought to cool down the body. This wasn’t too sweet, which was great.
The Palm Sugar in Syrup, on the other hand, was much sweeter, and I found it to be a little much for me.
And the total of this meal? A whole 1139 baht, which is around $37. Even for Thai standards, this was ridiculous for a group of 6 people feasting on a massive amount of fresh and delicious seafood.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you where it’s located and may need to ask area locals to find it again. But if you follow the river near Ayutthaya, I’m sure you’ll come across it at some point.
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