A Monsoon of Flavours

It’s a Saturday afternoon and you want to go to a café or out for a nice lunch. It’s after work but you don’t want a pub or a fancy restaurant. You have an appointment where you want to be somewhere informal but smart. You want to stop off for a late night drink and a snack in the heart of the city.

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Monsoon is nestled in Sukhumvit soi 8 and has a kind of beach bar, come restaurant, come café feel about it and somehow manages to tick more boxes the longer you are there. The outdoor rattan seating and bar has a holiday feel to it with big orange cushions and palm trees.

Inside there are tile floors, big shades and patio style windows, which can be opened out to the outdoor patio. However, inside offers such a respite from the Bangkok heat that they are probably rarely opened. Inside a tile floor carries on the Mediterranean feel and the wooden tables, central dessert fridge, as well as partly open plan kitchen area all serve well to carry Monsoon from the day to the evening.

Monsoon is an all-day eatery and lunch drifts to dinner with a steady stream of seamless servings. The best thing about the menu is the variety. International style dishes are given equal footing with Thai and more café style fare such as burgers and pizzas so that nobody can fail to find a favourite and groups are easily looked after.

The chicken satay skewers with peanut sauce are big and juicy and good value at 130 THB. The vine ripe tomatoes with Italian mozzarella, basil and aged balsamic vinegar and olive oil is fresh and the cheese is cut into thick, chunky slices making the 230 thb price more than justified. The bruschetta is six big pieces of bread topped generously – perhaps a little too generously - with black olives, mozzarella, tomato and basil. The streaks of pesto on the plate are more for decoration and asking for a spoonful on the side transforms the flavours.

The fajitas comes with a classic sizzling hotplate of chicken which unlike is so often the case, has not dried up. The chicken is moist, tasty and packed with flavour and comes with sweet pepper, onion, sour cream, salsa, cheese and refried beans for 260 THB. Although for Mexican connoisseurs the lack of guacamole and spice might be missed as this is a mild, albeit excellent version.

The lamb shank at 460 THB is where the menu reaches into restaurant level food and it does so with some worthy success. The New Zealand meat is tender and although not quite fall off the bone it is a success. The taro goat cheese mash and mojo tomatoes with smoked chilli jus might work better as potato mash with good, rich gravy poured on top. The homemade tiramisu for 100 THB is a big square bowl of divine creaminess to top off your new, favourite café, come restaurant, come meeting place.

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