La Belle Époque of Le Dalat

Le Dalat has been a Bangkok Vietnamese dining institution for nearly 30 years and has just found a new home in a beautifully restored 200-year-old building brought all the way from Hanoi.

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Stepping into Le Dalat is like stepping into another time and space and what a wonderfully evocative and beautiful place that is. Big wooden pillars, tiled floors and brickwork reveal what looks like the Paris of the Orient, with blue and white lotus emblem fabrics and glass table tops on hand painted porcelain vases. Imagine a Parisian tearoom in Siam in the glamour of the 1930s.

Black and white photographs of a Vietnamese beauty are a tribute to the owner’s mother, a descendent of the founder of the Cao Dai religion. And if cuisine is a philosophy then it is easy to keep the faith with Le Dalat. The big dining room has a confidence in its open plan design. It was made for people to see and to be seen, reminiscent of lavish, halcyon days with the most beautiful pink lotus lampshades ever made.

The traditional food makes no attempt to pander. Like a starlet who knows her own worth, the privilege is all yours. The appetizers are more than a reasonable couple of hundred baht each. Cha Gio offers crab meat and pork in a crispy wrap which is softer than soft on the inside, wrapped in lettuce, mint, coriander and Vietnamese herbs. It sets the standard, and that standard is high.

Hue Flue are long flutes of crab meat, Bi Chon are fresh spring rolls with shredded pork, eaten with a chili and fish sauce dip. Goi Cuon is meaty, fresh and wonderful. These fresh spring rolls with pork, shrimp and vermicelli are served with an outstanding bean sauce dip. Bo La Lob is brochette of beef wrapped in betel nut leaves and chargrilled. These appetizers are so beautifully created that they transport as much as the surroundings; the epitome of Vietnamese food.

Bun Rieu for 220 thb is 5-star, with a bouillabaisse style soup packed with flavor using a specific Vietnamese crab meat. What looks like a giant omelet is a coconut and powder rice cumin crepe. Inside is pork, shrimps, mushrooms and bean sprouts. The taste is somewhat acquired but this is an interesting and unique dish; an eating experience. The chicken thighs with lemon grass and chili are served with the softest jasmine rice possible and are tender, juicy and tasty.

For dessert, a ceramic-lidded coconut pot arrives. Inside is a hot mix of coconut milk with white mushrooms which look like strange fungi from another land, date-like jujubes, and sweet potato with sea algae. It feels intense, creative and bourgeois with traditional undertones.

Le Dalat is in a class of its own. It has a romantic, glamour and beauty that is anything but faded and is as authentic as its divine and darling dishes. Le Dalat is undoubtedly a Vietnamese Bois de Boulogne in the heart of Bangkok.

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