When we stayed at Anantara Riverside Bangkok, initially we were planning to have dinner at one of the restaurants inside the hotel.
However, we quickly realized that plant-based food options were limited, and nothing really stood out for us.
Luckily there were some restaurants at the mall which was located on the second floor of the sister hotel, Avani+ building.
Bangkok Bold Kitchen was appealing because they had a vegetarian section on their menu.
The dining area was clean and spacious.
I liked that there were a lot of vegetarian options, and many (if not all) seemed vegan.
(I should let you know in advance that we liked the restaurant so much that we went back the next day for lunch. So the pictures you see here were taken from our dinner and lunch.)
This is their Pomelo Salad.
It was not listed on the vegetarian page, so I have a feeling that there may be fish sauce in the dressing.
(I did not notice any “solid” non plant-based food included in this salad.)
It was one of the most positively reviewed dishes, and it was absolutely delicious!
Hands-down the best pomelo salad I’ve ever eaten.
We didn’t think much of these leaves that came with the salad first, but then we realized that there were several leaves, more than what you would place as a garnish.
So we came to the conclusion that we were supposed to eat the salad with these leaves.
Oh my goodness!
I’m glad that we realized that quick enough because the salad tasted even better with these leaves!
This is a MUST-TRY dish at this restaurant.
In fact, the main reason we went back to the next day was we both wanted to eat this salad again.
(My husband even suggested that we should each get one!!)
Another dish I liked was “Caramelized coconut and peanut fresh spring rolls with cucumber relish” from their vegetarian menu.
The filling (coconut and peanut) was packed with umami, and interestingly it had a very nice texture, almost meat-like.
The dipping sauce was pretty sweet; it wasn’t bad, but I would have preferred vinegar-based sauce.
Having said that, I will definitely order this again.
Their flavor is not the only thing that is bold.
Their menu is also bold and offers unique dishes that you don’t see at other Thai restaurants.
This dish was a good example that reflects their boldness.
On the menu it was described as “Rice noodle and fresh vegetables salad with crispy mushrooms” (from the vegetarian menu).
When the server brought this to our table, I was shocked (in a good way).
This was not what I expected.
Yes, there were noodles, and there were crispy mushrooms, but the amount and the variety of vegetables and herbs were insane!
You basically make your own salad from the platter.
The salad came with two small bowls of sauce.
One you see in this picture was spicy, and the other was sweet, and you decide how much you want to use based on your flavor and spice-level preference.
Our server told me that this was only “a little spicy”, but the spicy sauce was “very spicy” for me.
I loved everything about this salad, the freshness of the leaves and herbs, the super crispy mushrooms, and the overall flavor of the sauce.
Except that the sauce was a bit too spicy for me.
It’s such a great dish, and I would happily order it again if they could make the sauce less spicy.
You may think I should just use the other sauce, but the other sauce is basically syrup, so I would still need something to balance the sweetness.
I may have to work hard to improve my Thai speaking skills so that next time I could politely ask them to make the sauce less spicy or get me a different type of sauce.
Anyway, those were the three dishes I really liked.
The following were a few more dishes we tried.
This was listed as “Glass noodle and vegetable spring rolls” (from the vegetarian menu).
I was in the mood for spring rolls, and I quickly decided to order this.
What I didn’t know was that they were deep-fried and not fresh.
In the U.S. “spring rolls” typically mean fresh, and deep-fried ones are called “egg rolls”.
I have seen deep-fried ones sold as “spring rolls” here, so I should have double checked before ordering.
These were not bad, but just not special.
I also tried their “stir fried eggplants with Thai basil”; this was listed on the vegetarian page as well.
I’m an eggplant lover, and I jumped on this one.
Since the menu indicated that this dish was moderately spicy, I asked them not to make it spicy.
The portion was big, but unfortunately it was rather a boring dish, as it lacked flavor.
I wonder if removing the spiciness also took away the flavor somehow…
We had this for dessert on our first visit.
I don’t remember exactly what it was called, but I believe it was described as something like steamed buns with corn coconut custard.
The buns were soft and light, and the custard was creamy and had the right amount of sweetness.
It was very good.
I’m not sure if it was vegan though.
There are two locations, and we found out that the other location was closer to us.
I am looking forward to having the pomelo salad again and trying other vegetarian dishes, maybe curry next time.
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