This restaurant is not for you, dear Bangkokian. We can’t slam the place: the atmosphere is super cute, albeit in a touristy way; the waiters are numerous and fast; the food is edible. But when the chef recommendations include a kao ob saparod (fried rice served in a pineapple ) and when the thing costs B275.75 (plus service charge), you’ve got a real deal-breaker. It’s no surprise that not a single local eats here. It’s packed, though, mostly with French tourists, and, as we said, not entirely without reason. Rough hewn wooden tables sit at the foot of ficus trees and a banyan, surrounded by clapboard homes, and overlooked by a deck where limber visitors can experience the thrill of dining seated on the ground. There’s a sweet irony to this TAT version of the kingdom: napkins elaborately folded into lotus flowers, young men in jong kra ben, piped in classic Thai music and prices that end in .75 or .25 satang. Soon enough, you’ll be feeling on vacation, too, spraying on the imported tropical insect repellent as nearby tables exclaim, “Oh, c’est trop bon!” But the charm quickly wears off when you tuck into the lackluster food. The tao jio lhon (a kind of pork, coconut and fermented beans dip) is served with cucumbers and green beans. We’d have liked veggies with more bite, like small eggplants and slices of ginger, to balance such a sweet, creamy version of the dish.
Likewise, the gaeng paa (with beef) comes out with some heat, but has a general flatness that left us debating what crucial ingredients had been left out. Other dishes get passing grades, like the pad pak kana pla kem (Chinese broccoli with salted fish) or the fried squid with salted eggs, but fall short of superlatives, even French ones. Once Upon a Time definitely falls in the Baan Chiang, 11 Gallery and Jim Thompson category—cute places whose kitchens have bent over backwards to please Western palates. And that’s probably the real irony of such restaurants: the more Thai the setting, the less Thai the food. Corkage B400.