Restaurants
1600/-
Pricey
-By Ameeta Agnihotri
Benjarong, Chennai's oldest Thai food restaurant is situated in a refurbished house on the now famous TTK Road. Its heavy wooden furniture is offset by typical Thai accents that showcase the country's famous pewter and porcelain crafts. Benjarong sits beautifully all over this ground floor restaurant where the seating is interestingly arranged in little nooks and has now extended into its newly covered backyard. Guests eating at Benjarong insist on its pre-starter platter. Deep green palak leaves are presented along with diced ginger, onion, lemon juice, red chillies, shredded dry coconut, peanuts and a rich brown jaggery sauce. If you like, you can ask for the dried shrimp to be added to all of the this and eat it like you would a paan. But don't fill your stomach up with this as the food at Benjarong is quite simply awesome. Non vegetarians must have the Gai Hor Baitaey. It is chicken chunks wrapped in pandanus leaves, deep fried and served with a hot chilli sauce: a starter many chicken lovers return to the restaurant for. Those with a sea food penchant try the soft shell crab tossed in roasted chilli paste and Thai sweet basil. In Thai, it's called Pu Nim Tod Namprik Pow. For vegetarians the chef has Khao Pod Tod Namprik Pow or crispy baby corn tossed in roasted chilli paste and served in rice tartlets. The Som Tom, or raw papaya salad is a huge hit as is his Tom Yum soup that comes both in vegetarian and non vegetarian varieties. For your main course, go for the Pokchoy Faidaeng with its quick fried greens and birds eye chilli in a yellow bean sauce. Of course there is the regular jasmine flavoured rice and the green, red and yellow coconut based curries that come in the vegetarian and non vegetarian avatars. No Thai meal is complete without Pad Thai Goong, that is sweet, tangy and with the distinct advantage of prawns. For dessert, simply go with Tub Tim Grob, which roughly translated means water chestnuts served in freshly made, sweetened coconut milk: another favourite with regular Thai gourmets. Soon, new desserts are being added to the menu that includes sago pudding with young coconut and a few other continental desserts in keeping with the constant demand for more variety.
Review posted within last 6 month
I have to land at this Thai Junction.
Favorite Dishes / Drinks: Tom Yam Goong
Review posted within last 6 month
Thai food doesn't get better than this! When i just started to give up on oriental cuisine as an F&B group,I'm proved wrong about the restaurant giants and im reminded why they've been an integral part of food in Chennai along with Shyam group of restaurants.My meal just shows that the experience they have is the reason why they are several notches better than newer groups in the city such as tuscana/kryptos etc..!
11/12/12
I decided to meet a friend for lunch since her office was that side of town and the fact that the Thai festival had been so heavily marketed on the papers for a few days now,sadly when we arrived we had been informed we were 2 days too late!(PROBABLY WONDERING SINCE IT WAS SO HEAVILY MARKETED HOW COME I DIDN'T KNOW!:p)
The food ,ambiance and the rest:
we reached the restaurant a half past 02:00 and the restaurant was filled to capacity. The restaurant is posh,well designed and has a nice Oriental feeling about it.
The first thing they give you is something called Mein Khum(which is a de-constructive traditional starter which consist of a lettuce like leaf,peanuts,diced onions,chopped red chilli,lime,chopped ginger,fried coconut pieces and what i thought was a sweet tamarind sauce and you have to assemble it on the leaf,fold it and eat.)
I felt like having a bit of all the meats so we decided a Thai meal is definitely not complete without sticky rice and Thai curry. I order KAENG KEOW WHAN GOONG (Thai yellow curry)-Prawns and sticky jasmine rice. GAE TOD PRIK TAI On(crispy lamb) and one of Benjarong's signature dishes GAI HOR BAITAEY(Succulent chicken marinated and stuffed in pandanus leaves,deep fried and served with a honey chilli sauce)
The Mein Khum was refreshing starter with the lime and ginger giving a nice punch,peanut and onions a slight crunch,the tamarind like sauce was sweet,the chilli spicy and the coconut to balance all the flavors.
The lamb was probably the least impressive of the entire meal since it wasn't crispy but tasted quite fabulous if you don't compare it to the rest of the meal. The Thai prawn curry was creamy and had huge pieces of prawns and combined really well with the sticky rice. Finally the highlight of the meal,chicken stuffed in the pandanaus was far out. Extremely well cooked meat,served with a nice sweet and spicy sauce.
No place for dessert this time,but looking forward to go back soon and complete my meal with dessert.
For all those who kept telling me Benjarong has lost it's charm,think your mistaken(Next stop Grand Siam):D!!
Thank You Mr Mahadevan-A meal that was top notch!
Favorite Dishes / Drinks: Gai Hor Baitaey
Review posted within last 6 month
Thai food doesn't get better than this! When i just started to give up on oriental cuisine as an F&B group,I'm proved wrong about the restaurant giants and im reminded why they've been an integral part of food in Chennai along with Shyam group of restaurants.My meal just shows that the experience they have is the reason why they are several notches better than newer groups in the city such as tuscana/kryptos etc..!
11/12/12
I decided to meet a friend for lunch since her office was that side of town and the fact that the Thai festival had been so heavily marketed on the papers for a few days now,sadly when we arrived we had been informed we were 2 days too late!(PROBABLY WONDERING SINCE IT WAS SO HEAVILY MARKETED HOW COME I DIDN'T KNOW!:p)
The food ,ambiance and the rest:
we reached the restaurant a half past 02:00 and the restaurant was filled to capacity. The restaurant is posh,well designed and has a nice Oriental feeling about it.
The first thing they give you is something called Mein Khum(which is a de-constructive traditional starter which consist of a lettuce like leaf,peanuts,diced onions,chopped red chilli,lime,chopped ginger,fried coconut pieces and what i thought was a sweet tamarind sauce and you have to assemble it on the leaf,fold it and eat.)
I felt like having a bit of all the meats so we decided a Thai meal is definitely not complete without sticky rice and Thai curry. I order KAENG KEOW WHAN GOONG (Thai yellow curry)-Prawns and sticky jasmine rice. GAE TOD PRIK TAI On(crispy lamb) and one of Benjarong's signature dishes GAI HOR BAITAEY(Succulent chicken marinated and stuffed in pandanus leaves,deep fried and served with a honey chilli sauce)
The Mein Khum was refreshing starter with the lime and ginger giving a nice punch,peanut and onions a slight crunch,the tamarind like sauce was sweet,the chilli spicy and the coconut to balance all the flavors.
The lamb was probably the least impressive of the entire meal since it wasn't crispy but tasted quite fabulous if you don't compare it to the rest of the meal. The Thai prawn curry was creamy and had huge pieces of prawns and combined really well with the sticky rice. Finally the highlight of the meal,chicken stuffed in the pandanaus was far out. Extremely well cooked meat,served with a nice sweet and spicy sauce.
No place for dessert this time,but looking forward to go back soon and complete my meal with dessert.
For all those who kept telling me Benjarong has lost it's charm,think your mistaken(Next stop Grand Siam):D!!
Thank You Mr Mahadevan-A meal that was top notch!
Favorite Dishes / Drinks: Gai Hor Baitaey
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