You might associate chewy fried turnip cakes more with Chinese cuisine than Thai, but borders are porous, and just like Sydney, Bangkok has its own Chinatown where locally-geared hybrid dishes are created. You can eat rice cake seafood ($24.90) at Mangkon RD, which sits in the liminal zone between our Cantonese-dominated Chinatown and the lively flavours of Thai Town. The two-storey indoor-outdoor space opens onto a courtyard lined with restaurants. It has a long open kitchen, street-food style wooden stools, and bright, dragon neon to symbolise the connection to Chinese. Follow the path of the dragon to the upstairs mezzanine and you’ll find thirty-odd guests chattering loudly under colourful streetscapes.
The chefs, Pongsakorn “Ken” Kantha, and Chisanupong “Jumbo” Thaweerojthanakij, are both Long Chim alumni. I taste more of Ken’s time at Soi 25 in the thick red coconut curry sauce laid over grilled wagyu beef dry curry ($28.90). The “dry” in this case refers to the meat not being cooked in the sauce. The topside slices get a bit lost among all the sauce-soaked eggplant, but no matter, there’s plenty of them laid over baked chicken rice ($22.90). This earthenware pot of yellow rice came mildly flavoured with curry powder and dotted with pineapple, cashews, egg and shallots.
The Chinese–Thai collision brings in a sweetness that I usually take great pains to avoid with Thai food. I also try to avoid it with cocktails, so I pretty much hated the Mangkon slushy sunrise ($19.90). It was served with two glasses in a glass carafe that arrived with a single straw, making it hard to pour and even harder to properly combine. My favourite dish here turned out to be a simple plate of lightly grilled squid ($13.90) bright on the palate against green chilli nam jim.
