Seven Bangkok foodie couples share their date nights and savoury delights for St Valentine’s Day.
SAMANTHA PROYRUNGTONG & NICOLAS VIVIN
VIVIN is a go-to place for all things gourmet. Having started out selling foie gras, VIVIN now sells a wide array of items like cheese and caviar. It’s a basically the place where foodies who are very specific can possibly find what they’ve been searching for. It was a no-brainer to us then to include Nicolas and Samantha in our list as they are VIVIN co-founders. Plus, Samantha runs the famous Bangkok Foodies blog and website, so it’s pretty obvious these two are legit foodies.
How did you guys meet? At an Australia Day pool party, the moment of meeting was electric, although Nicolas was on a date at the time and Sam was unattainable. But obviously we found each other irresistible and the rest is history.
Which restaurant(s) do you frequent? We love Japanese, although coming back from Tokyo it was hard to relive that experience in Bangkok. We love to fine dine, but this is mainly through Sam’s occupation as a food writer, but on our casual days, we prefer something cheap and cheerful or comfy and low profile. We would choose Sühring, Paste and Le Du for a treat, Le Boeuf Thonglor, Nobu Thonglor, Klang Soi, Baan Ice for something in our hood, 80/20 or Canvas for something cutting edge, Chu or Phil Coffee for cafe tripping. For a weekend out and about; Conkey’s Bakery picnic or the K Village Farmers’ Market or other great foodie events around the city is where we usually like to explore. For delivery on a lazy night at home, we like to order from Pizza Mania, Daniel Thaiger, Sunrise Taco, Zaab Eli or Al Saray.
What’s a ‘date night’ like in Bangkok? Date night is a toss between a snazzy night out fine dining and hanging out at some cool bars with friends after or cooking a simple steak and veggies at home with some serious snuggling and live movie streaming after (not that kind of movie).
Is there a food that one of you likes but the other despises? I hate carrots, mostly fried carrots, and can’t handle rich dishes, whilst Nico loves cream and chocolate and can eat carrots cooked any way. I’m also sensitive to seeds like sesame, but he is not.
Name a dish that you both fell in love with. Where did you have it? Now comes the shameless self-promotion but we love VIVIN’s Strawberry and rose water foie gras terrine. It still is our favourite limited edition flavour, given that it was created by the both of us and that it tastes so f**king good. This year we are bringing it back for St Valentines Day, we recommend you put it on top of a seared steak Rossini style. We’re drooling just thinking about it. Another dish would be the “Nakhonsawan” curry soup at Baan Ice, it’s nothing amazing in terms of quality but it has a distinct sweet and sour taste and it has stink bean ( sator) in it! Unique indeed.
Any recommendations on what to do or where to go this Valentine’s Day? We typically go to Le Boeuf, we like to go there because it feels a bit like France, bistro style. It’s casual but intimate and that’s better suited to us than an uptight restaurant on this particular occasion. Otherwise, we think Upstairs At Mikkeller and the patio at Elements Okura Prestige are very different but romantic locations.