It is almost time to leave Bangkok and end this oriental tour. This past 4 weeks have been epic – reconnected with friends, met and made some new ones, seen some incredible sights and eaten some of the best food yet! We are having traditional Thai afternoon tea, why? well, why not? Why come all the way to this side of the world and not experience the art of tea drinking and afternoon tea? Bonkers! And before you coffee drinkers decided to @ me, listen, unless the coffee is like the coffee in Café De Lambre? Like if you ain’t serving me coffee in a champagne glass? I don’t want to know 💆♀️.
It has been a mission to find a tea house to be honest. We knew we wanted to try traditional Thai afternoon tea, but, being newbies to this side of the world we didn’t know where to go. Plus holiday mantra of going down the yellow brick road aka the unbridled path, was not going to work because the heat is ON! We googled (as you do) and got a few recommendations and chose one to go check out, err.. #epicfail. Yep, you guessed right, google decided to show themselves and of course we ended up in some next place.. ras! Thankfully, my girl, Toon (went to grad school together and runs her own tour company in Bangkok, #winning), showed us her side of Bangkok and Iconsiam was one of the places. So, we decided to go back to Iconsiam and see what we could find. Quick FYI, we all know Bangkok is hot so you really don’t need to be out in them streets because IT IS BOILING. Even the residents aren’t out in them streets either, they are in doors in the malls. Now if you think you have been to grand shopping malls, think again folks. Bangkok takes shopping malls to a whole new level. Malls everywhere, with floors and more floors of retailers offering everything you can think of, like, everything!
Anyway, we made our way to the gorgeous Iconsiam (a must see at night) to check out yet another google recommendation and again, no success, tsk! tsk!!
Having a nosy around (it is a mall after all), we found another Baan Khanita! The Thai gods must have intervened since my first Thai meal was the Baan Khanita lemon fish soup. We initially considered having a meal instead, but surprise, surprise they offered afternoon tea! Yas!! Interestingly the menu had ‘other’ afternoon tea options and I am going to be presumptuous and say this option was probably the western afternoon tea version aka scones, sandwiches and what not. Let us just say I skipped past that section of the menu and went straight for the traditional Thai team menu because listen, manz did not come all the way here to eat a darn scone🤷♀️
Now, you lot know I am a sucker for details and Baan Khanita came through with it starting with the crockery. Nothing beats good china other than matching china sets with engravings on them lol!
Then came the tea. I chose lotus tea, thinking it would be, you know, lotus loose tea and ting. When I tell you the tea came in a transparent tea pot with the lotus flower in it. Then, the tea pot was kept warm via a candle flame placed beneath, I mean hello!
The items that made the tiered cake stand? I can’t begin to describe what each item was. However, what I do know is this cake stand remains the most colourful stand I have seen. The cake stand in Higashiya was dope as was the tea, but, Baan Khanita win for the title for best display yet. Each tier was filled with colourful morsels of savoury, sweet and everything in between. It was just lush!
I mean one time for the details in the pastry – rose petals, the blue egg looking tingy magig? The yogurt and milk thing? Goodness it was good!
Ahh Baan Khanita, you were the perfect afternoon tea and best way to bring this maiden oriental adventure to an end!
Chiyo
Ndidi
