Luscious green gardens greet your steps as you walk in to experience the luxurious Thai place. Absolute Thai steals your heart away from Chennai to Bangkok right from the moment you step in with a traditionally dressed lady welcoming you, the warm red-golden lighting, boats-inspired tables and Thai artwork. If you think the place can’t get any more Thai-ish, wait until your food arrives. You will experience authentic Thai cuisine like never before for two reasons, you have either tasted it on a long vacation before and couldn’t find another restaurant that cooks the same here or you have never tasted Thai cuisine in your life, in either of which cases you have landed yourself at the right place!

The restaurant is a product of Foodies Kitchen run by partners Sultan and Ejhas. The duo first ventured into the Sushi business. Their thoughts of doing something beyond a Sushi bar and bringing home the authentic cuisine of Thailand for what it is, is what opened the doors for Absolute Thai. Trusting no one else with the cuisine, they also flew in a chef from Bangkok for the job. “We wanted to give a glimpse of what real Thai cuisine tastes like without any modifications that’s done in most other places.” Says Ejhas. True to the saying, the place offers all things and only things Thai right from the appetizers to the desserts.

Thai Cuisine is a mix of various flavors, some sweet, some hot, but the base of almost all the dishes is Red Chilies or Coconut milk. Peanuts are also another common ingredient that can be spotted in many of the dishes. Thai cuisine works around these flavors and it is amazing how well they taste when incorporated properly into the other dishes. They are so well incorporated that you won’t feel the dominance of the flavors at all but somehow they manage to make the taste a little better. What separates this restaurant is also the fact that they import most of their ingredients and spices and that actually makes a huge difference.

What we had

Welcome drink

We were served with lemongrass and ginger drink which are two other major ingredients in the Thai Cuisine. The purpose of serving this is to refresh your taste buds and prepare you for the experience. We were then given Betel leaves wrapped with jiggery syrup, shredded coconut, red chilies, onions, peanuts, lemon and ginger. You have sweet, spice, ginger and all the different flavors distinctly bursting in your mouth giving you the various aspects of Thai Cuisne. The nutty flavor of peanuts finally settles in to end the show on a good note. It balances out all the other strong flavors.

Soups – Tom Kha Soup and Tom Yum Soup

The Tom Kha (Creamy coconut soup) soup and here the base is red chilies. With vegetables and mushrooms to support the flavors, the soup overall is rich, it is rather spicy than sweet.

Tom Yum (Hot and Spicy Classical Thai soup) Soup on the other hand is spicy and again full of vegetables giving in the additional flavors. Half way through you will find yourself fishing through the soup to get a bite of those crunchy fresh vegetables.

Starters – Tofu Tempura, Khoa Pod Tod Namprikpow and Gai Hor Bai Toey

The Tofu Tempura is worth mentioning because unlike the other tempuras, this one has just the right amount of crust on it and the tofu is not chewy. Team it up with the red chilli sauce for a flaming soft experience.

Khoa Pod Tod Namprikpow(Baby Corn Tartlets) are baby corns tossed in red chili sauce and served as tartlets. The sweet-sour taste you get when you bite into these, is due to the addition of peanuts. They are very appetizing.

Gai Hor Bai Toey (Wrapped Chicken) The chicken is cooked in pandan leaf is a dry delight. The chicken is steamed with other spices and the flavor of warm sweet-nutty pandan leaves itself does enough to get your stuff going.

Salads – Som Tam

The Som Tam Salads is one of the freshest and most refreshing flavorful salads you’ll ever come across. This Raw Papaya salad is a Thai Classic and it has the zesty flavor to it. The Raw Papaya gives off a nice bland but blending freshness to the whole salad.   

Main course

Pad Thai

Pad Thai is noodles rice noodles fried in tangy sweet sauces. Served with crushed peanuts and chili flakes, the noodles taste great.

Lemon Grass tea is served throughout to help refresh the taste buds and level up your experience. It does a good job at appetizing you for the rest of the meal.

Curries and Stir fries

PockChoy Fai Daeng

The garden vegetables cooked in Yellow bean sauce is something you’ll never forget. It is different and again with the base as red chilies, the fry has a spicy-sweet flavor to it.

Thai Red and Green curries

The Green curry is works well with meat as it coats the meat with a creamy texture while the Red curry is great with vegetables. The flavor of the bamboo shoots is rich in the Thai Red Curry while the green curry has more of a spicy flavor to it.

Desserts

Tub Tim Grob

Water chestnuts in coconut milk is such a pleasant and sweet way to end your meal. Although, water chestnuts don’t blend in with coconut milk, their tender texture and varied taste gives you quite a nice feel and the coconut milk, helps in maintaining the sweetness.

Khoa New Dhum

Sticky rice with tender coconut ice cream, tender coconut ice cream can be requested for while ordering the dessert. This is a beautifully crafted dessert that does not have overpowering sweetness.

You will find a touch of Thai within every brick of this restaurant. With friendly staff guiding you through the divine experience, the place is overwhelming in terms food, flavors and ambiance.  The restaurant will also soon take up home deliveries. The place is also set to expand and bring back the Sushi Bar some time in the near future.