elizbeartravel posted: " Opened in 1969, Somboon Seafood started wowing customers in a humble single-storey shophouse in the Sam Yan area. Bringing the best of Thai and Chinese flavours together, the Original Fried Curry Crab and other seafood dishes attracted gourmets and trave" Bear Travels . Bear Eats . Bear Cooks
Opened in 1969, Somboon Seafood started wowing customers in a humble single-storey shophouse in the Sam Yan area. Bringing the best of Thai and Chinese flavours together, the Original Fried Curry Crab and other seafood dishes attracted gourmets and travellers to the restaurant, making it a must-go restaurant
With 8 branches across Bangkok and awards from Michelin Plates from 2018 - 2020, Somboon is widely advertised and recommended by the Thailand Tourism Board as the restaurant that serves the best version of fried curry crabs in Bangkok
As a fan of the Thai fried curry crab, I have been wanting to visit Somboon for the last 8 years but it is either fully booked or did not fit into my work schedule so on my recent leisure trip, I finally made a reservation at their Central Embassy branch at a non-peak hour and the restaurant was pretty empty
We ordered a few of their signature dishes which are highlighted on their website and the first was the seafood tom yam soup as my friend is a tom yum soup fan. We ordered the red version which in my opinion is quite spicy. There were many prawns given and they were large in size and very fresh and succulent. There were other seafood like squid and fish as well as mushrooms. The soup has a strong spicy and milky flavour but I found the sour and savoury flavours lacking
Another popular dish is the deep-fried seabass with sweet fish sauce which was quite huge in size and the fish was served freshly fried and hot from the kitchen. Deep fried in high heat in oil, the fish was perfectly crisp down to the bones. The flesh was however still soft and tender and not overly dry. The sauce tasted like honey with a tinge of fish sauce for the savoury flavour which was perfect to dip the fish meat
One of the highly recommended dishes is the clay pot vermicelli with river prawns which came last as it took some time to cook this dish in the clay pot. There were 5 large unpeeled prawns with a huge heap of glass noodles fully soaked in the fragrant prawn and soy sauce which turn it gloriously brown in colour. With each bite of the glass noodles, you can taste the umami flavours of the garlic prawn sauce and it is addictive to keep munching on the noodles. This dish is extremely filling and can be a meal on its own
I wanted a non-spicy dish and some vegetables in our meal so I ordered the stir-fry morning glory with garlic and soy sauce. The vegetables were well done with a slight crunch in the stems with a very light and savoury garlic and soy gravy. Nothing too extraordinary but it was a good balance for all the seafood we ordered
Last but not least is the fried curry prawns which is the same curry used in the crab version. As we did not want to dirty our hands from managing the crabs, we opted for the peeled prawns version which was very easy to eat. Before trying this at Somboon, I tried this dish at Nara as well as a local restaurant Laem Charoen Seafood. While the curry-fried seafood dish tasted good at Somboon, I am not sure if it was the best one I had. The Somboon version is skewed towards a sweeter flavour while the one at Laem Charoen has a more turmeric flavour. Both are good versions of the dish and I cannot vote one over the other. I should give it another chance by ordering the proper crab version next time
Overall, all the signature dishes were good and delicious although the pricing is more expensive than some of the other restaurants offering the same dishes. While the dishes are delicious, I feel that the same quality dishes can be found from the more local restaurants at a more affordable rate
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