Enjoy Japanese Food in Bangkok

When you visit Bangkok, it's hard not to notice the many Japanese restaurants and fast foods in the malls and shopping centers like MBK, Siam Paragon and Esplanade. According to our Filipino friend, Jerry (who works at a UN agency in Bangkok), this is because of the large population of Japanese living and working in the city. Authentic and reasonably priced Japanese restaurants really abound in Bangkok. In my latest visit this January 2009, Ronnie (my boss) and I visited the Esplanade mall near the Thailand Culture Center MRT station. It's a relatively new mall and smaller as compared to the Philippine's SM's the Block. At the mall's food court, there are about 12 restaurants and seven of them are Japanese - the rest are Korean, Chinese, Western and Thai. I haven't seen any of the Japanese restos like Yayoi, Fuji, Gindako, Uomasa, Shibuya, Ootoya, Aoyama, Oishi in Manila. Maybe these restos are just found in Bangkok.

Ronnie and I had dinner at Yayoi - Hot Quick at Esplanade. We tried their set menu - I ordered sauted pork with ginger (99 Baht, about P138 pesos) and Ronnie had the fried pork cutlet (109 Baht, about 150 pesos). The set menu (plastic displays can be seen in the photo) consists of the main dish, rice, miso, salad and kimchi - the price is reasonable and the taste is very similar to the restos in Tokyo and cheaper (A set menu in Tokyo costs about 500 yen or 250 pesos) . There are other dishes in the menu which you can view in the Yayoi website .

In my visit last 2007, I also tried the Fuji and Ootoya restaurants. Again you will notice the quality and affordability of the food.

In Manila, you cannot eat quality Japanese food at fastfoods like Tokyo! Tokyo! or Kitaro. Komoro Soba (found at SM Megamall) used to serve good Japanese set dishes at reasonable price but during the last time we had lunch there, we noticed that the quality has gone one notch down. You really have to go to expensive Japanese restaurants like Tanabe to really experience quality Japanese food.

There are, of course, some Japanese restos in Manila that we like - Yoshinoya (taste of the beef bowl is very close to the original at a cheaper price) and Tokyo Cafe' (not really authentic Japanese but more of a fusion of Japanese and western food and a bit high end).

You don't have to go to Japan to expereince authentic Japanese cuisine. Just visit Bangkok and try the numerous Japanese restos and enjoy Japananese food at a price affordable to your budget.