- Hey everyone, I hope you're having an amazing day.
It's Mark Wiens, I'm in Bangkok, Thailand,
and today for lunch we're going to
a restaurant called Sorn.
Which specializes in fine southern Thai food.
And so the reason that I'm so excited to eat here
is because southern Thai food is my favorite
regional genre of Thai food.
It's a mix of spices and herbs used in the cooking.
It just always excites the taste buds.
And the owners and chefs of Sorn,
they're very good friends of mine,
and I know for sure that they have gone
to some of the farthest regions of southern Thailand
to source very very unique, very rare-to-find ingredients.
We are on our way to try some amazing southern Thai food.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Alright, we just arrived.
It's really close to Pronghom,
which is a big shopping district,
but you just get back into the neighborhood.
So it's really quiet back here.
It's like a house compound,
but you see sky-rise buildings around,
and everyone should be here soon for lunch.
(speaking in foreign language)
Thank you.
(speaking in foreign language)
- It's almost like a museum in here.
There are ingredients as well as some artifacts.
Man, that's the coconut grater.
A really really old one.
Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
- [Mark] Congratulations on opening this place.
- Thank you.
Our wood, it's big plies from the old house wall.
- Met up with Chef Yod.
(speaking in foreign language)
- He is the head chef here,
and we're just walking around,
and looking at the different rooms.
And one of the interesting things of all the beautiful
things is the floor. (light instrumental music)
(people chattering)
(speaking in foreign language)
- How was the dinner last night?
- [Mark] Really good.
- Were the guys taking care of you well?
- [Mark] Yes, very very good. - Awesome, awesome.
- [Mark] No, thank you man.
It was so good. - [Man] You're welcome.
- It's really old Thai style.
Oh and it remains so cold,
the metal remains so cold on your fingers.
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Mark] So really all of the ingredients are Thai.
- All ingredients from south, 100%.
- [Mark] And they're all from Surat Thani.
- [Chef] From Surat, yeah.
- Now I'm gonna go back into the kitchen,
and especially see them as they're making
a very very old Thai style of rice,
that it's hard to find now.
They have all of the charcoal grills going.
But immediately you step out here,
you can smell coconut, you can smell their rice.
(speaking foreign language)
- [Mark] You can smell the shrimp paste.
And so they cook in these clay pots.
And oh, it's so fragrant.
But it's really really hard to find this type of rice
because this type, cooked this way,
because you have to continually monitor it.
It's so time consuming.
You have to just sit here and monitor it,
taking out some of the water.
And I know Ying said she tried to make it one time,
and it turned into rice soup.
So you have to just monitor the water.
But it wakes a lot of skill,
but they're doing it all the traditional way,
which is gonna be the full flavor.
Let me just quickly introduce you to P Pup.
- Hi.
- He's one of the ultimate food lovers,
and just an amazing guy.
You gotta check out his Instagram and his profile
because he eats some incredible food,
but we're gonna be eating together.
And we're just starting the meal now.
We're gonna start with small, small bites,
and then proceed onto more dishes.
But P Ice was telling me
there's gonna be 22 different dishes
that we're gonna try.
First bite, it's just a tiny little,
like a slice of a cucumber,
but it's stuffed with shrimp paste,
and then to balance that out is a cashew,
a roasted cashew on top. (upbeat music)
Mm.
It is almost like peanut buttery,
but with that extraordinary depth of flavor
from the shrimp paste.
Okay, next course is here.
Our sand mole crabs.
These are just like little tiny thumb sized crabs.
A little dip into that seaweed powder.
I've never had sand mole crabs before.
Yeah.
It almost kind of has that fried soft shell crab
type of feel, but it just fully crunches all the way though.
How is it, Ying?
- It's very good.
- [Mark] Have you ever had that before?
- No, first time.
- [Mark] How is it, P Pup?
- It's like popcorn.
(all laughing)
Seven color lobster.
- Seven color lobster.
- From Phuket.
- And it's raw.
And then what's on the top, seasoning?
- [Pup] It's like a secret sauce, basically.
- And just that color, that shimmer.
Whoa.
The texture.
It's really sweet.
I mean, naturally.
And then like a little bit gummy,
but muscular at the same time.
And soft.
Texture is unbelievable.
So the next course you gotta eat fast,
because it's sitting on a rice cracker
that's been grilled.
And that is a curry,
which is made from some of the parts of the crab, I think.
Oh that's lobster?
Oh it's lobster, okay. (upbeat music)
Mm.
Oh.
Oh that's a beautiful one.
So citrus-y.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Which is the best part of the crab, I would say.
Coat it in yellow curry.
On top is actually the crab roe.
Which they cook separately,
because the roe and the meat itself
cook at different temperatures,
so they only want the best textures.
Like a bit gooey, runny like egg yolk texture.
- [Mark] It's exploding,
and you can see it's coated in curry sauce.
But then the roe, which is the really bright orange roe,
that comes from the body section of the crab,
but then they've sort of re-coated it onto the nugget.
- [Pup] The part of everything of the crab.
- Yes.
The best part of crab in one bite.
Cheers. (speaking in foreign language)
- That sweetness from the meat.
- Whoa.
- We made it.
- That's just solid crab meat.
Then with the richness of the roe, and that curry,
to make it even more rich and flavorful.
That was mind blowing-ly delicious.
(speaking in foreign language)
- So the next dish is called Neua Gkaw Lae.
It's a form of southern Thai grilled meat.
Usually it's with chicken you'll find in the south,
but this is with beef,
and you can just smell the aroma of the garlic.
It's also usually sweet, coated in a coconut milk
kind of barbecue sauce.
So rich and kinda like fruity from the dates.
Yeah, the flavor really does keep on coming
as you keep on chewing that beef.
(speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music)
- The next dish that we're eating is called Kao Yam,
which is a rice mixture, southern Thai.
But this is the most beautiful version I've ever seen.
Oh man.
Oh that's so good.
It's salty, but then a little bit sweet,
and again, you taste the complexity of flavor.
Especially from that dressing.
The fermented fish end trail sauce
that he sprinkled on there.
But then it's just wrapped up with all of those herbs.
It really is like solid herbs.
(speaking in foreign language)
- The sour southern type curry, my favorite dish.
But with mangosteen, something I've never had before.
- Unripe mangosteen.
- [Mark] Unripe mangosteen.
(speaking in foreign language)
- I kept thinking we were about to start filming
and tasting but then they kept bringing out
more and more dishes.
The table is now just completely filled with food.
She's about to serve me some of the fresh rice.
Right out of the clay pot.
You can just, if you can just smell that.
That aroma, it has a totally different aroma to it.
It's very very fragrant.
You can smell a little bit of the smoke and the charcoal.
It's purely, purely fluffy.
Oh, it's so much herbs in there too, yeah?
It's the Nam Prik, which is the chili dip,
and this one is the one that we saw.
It's the one roasted in the coconut shell.
I'm gonna eat a little bit of this with the rice.
Oh.
The coconut-iness of that.
A little bit spicy.
You taste black pepper in there.
Oh wow, that is superb.
I love kumin khao, it's so earthy tasting.
The soup that he just dished out, so it's hot and fresh,
and this is like a egg sausage.
I'll try that.
Oh it actually floats in your spoon.
Look at that.
You gotta make sure it doesn't
float out of your spoon before you eat it.
Yeah, the egg just melts in your mouth.
Almost like a pudding.
So it's (speaking in foreign language),
or sometimes also called (speaking in foreign language),
which is the sour or yellow southern Thai curry.
It's one of my favorite dishes in all of Thailand.
It's orange from turmeric,
but there's a lot of chilies in there,
a lot of garlic.
(upbeat music)
Mm.
Oh wow.
It's such a depth of flavor.
You get all that mustardy turmeric flavor,
but you can eat the entire mangosteen without the seeds,
and as you keep on tasting it,
you start to feel a little bit of the chili heat.
- You hear that sound?
- [Mark] Yeah, you're in the crunchiness.
- [Pip] Oh, it's really good.
(crunching)
- The whole table can hear you crunching that.
That's what you want.
Oh, but the contrast.
It's so crispy, and then so gooey, creamy, tender,
melt in your mouth.
All at the same time.
Oh whoa.
That's just condensed.
It's like, I mean, a powerful flavor,
but still very well balanced.
- [Pup] Okay, stinky beans.
- [Mark] Stink beans, which are called Sataw,
which is one of my ultimate favorite
single ingredients in the entire world.
Paired with the squid, small squid.
Are they baby squid?
- [Pup] Yeah.
- [Mark] Baby squid.
(upbeat music)
- [Pup] If you look at the stinky bean carefully,
they cut each stinky bean.
- [Mark] Oh yeah.
- So the flavor can penetrate through the stinky bean more.
- [Mark] Okay the next one is the Kaeng tai pla,
which is the fish viscera innards curry.
Another one of my favorite southern Thai dishes.
They've taken it to a very gourmet level.
I mean, still remaining the same,
but adding in lots of ingredients.
Prepare you with such precision,
as they have done with all the dishes.
There's also the (speaking in foreign language),
which are the seeds of jack fruit,
which have been roasted over charcoal,
and then were turned into this curry.
(upbeat music)
The jackfruit seed is almost like potato-y.
Starchy.
And you got the roasted fish,
which is very aromatic.
And again, the citrus-iness, or the zesty- ness,
of those (speaking in foreign language)
come in so nice. (upbeat music)
Just superb flavor.
What an incredible meal.
Next level.
(speaking in foreign language)
- If you like it more like a lot of the curry sauce,
or a little bit of the curry sauce.
Oh, that's beautiful.
I like a lot of curry sauce.
This is another beautiful dish,
and three components to it.
The rice, the shrimp curry, and the papaya,
the shredded green papaya.
So you kind get a little bit of everything
onto this bite.
Oh wow.
You've got more of an undertone of dry spice in there.
And then you taste that rich coconut.
It has like a Malay taste to it.
(speaking in foreign language)
It's just unbelievable flavor.
Next up is a palate cleanser,
so after we finish the spicy curries,
and it is made from (speaking in foreign language)
which is the torched ginger flower.
That's so complimenting to the sourness.
Just like a hint of, it's almost like a floral
gingery taste to it.
(speaking in foreign language)
- Okay next dessert is the coconut sugar ice cream,
with roasted coconut, but a part of the coconut.
Special, I'm still not totally sure exactly.
X Men, X Men coconut is what they're telling me.
(laughing)
Mm.
Oh wow.
Pinch on a little bit of salt onto the ice cream.
Alright.
And then take another bite.
Oh the salt brings out the flavor.
And just like magnifies it.
The next dessert, I think the final dessert.
There's some fruits with some ice.
Mash up the ice.
So it's kind of like (speaking in foreign language).
Fruit salad.
Mash up the ice so you get the crunchy ice.
Oh this one is a--
Those are little ice cubes.
I wanna get some of that pomelo.
Oh there's fried shallots in there, too.
(speaking in foreign language)
- You've got that crunchy ice,
which is very cool,
and then all the different fruits.
But it's more complex than that
because you've got the ginger,
you've got the zest of the (speaking in foreign language),
the citrus, and the crispy shallots.
Which kinda give it a totally different twist.
And so you just kinda mash up this ice.
I'll try the (speaking in foreign language) next.
That's just an amazing, refreshing combination.
That ice keeps hitting my tooth, it's so cold.
(laughing)
(upbeat music)
It's about five hours later.
We ended up hanging out and just enjoying
the atmosphere and the food at Sorn.
The food was extraordinary.
That was an incredible meal.
And I love their philosophy of
preserving southern Thai food,
but refining it at the same time.
And all the dishes were--
Oh, one thing I have to mention
that I didn't mention before is that
they don't take any shortcuts.
So even all of the curry pastes are pounded by hand.
No blending, no shortcuts like that.
And that's what really brings out the depth of flavor.
And so you taste all of the ingredients,
all the multitude of ingredients
that they use in their cooking.
I love how almost 100% of the ingredients
are not just local from Thailand,
but local from Southern Thailand,
and P Ice and P Yot are just committed
to preserving the authenticity,
but then refining southern Thai cuisine.
I wanna say a huge thank you to P Ice and P Yot and P Pup.
(speaking in foreign language)
That was just an extraordinary meal.
And I'll have all the information
of the restaurant below in the description box.
But if you have a chance, when you're in Bangkok,
check out Sorn.
They're doing just fantastic things
for southern Thai food,
and it's for sure gonna be a meal that
you will never forget.