Taya Starling

With a name like BAD MOTEL you’d expect either something really awful or something really amazing.  Luckily, this BAD MOTEL is the latter.  After hearing so much about it for the past few months I made the quick decision to host my birthday dinner there.  Risky since I had never been before- never eaten there nor stepped inside- but I had assurance and recommendations from too many reliable sources to really dwell on my snap decision.  And let me just tell you, they did not let me down, not one bit.  Antonym-ly named? Yes. Irresistibly delicious with a fresh spin on a few favorites? YES. YES. YES.

 BAD MOTEL was merely an abandoned 3 story building before the owners made some “improvements” and turned it into the odd clash of Thai street food homage it is today.  Some of the cracks and faults of the building were kept and others were added to help the ambiance live up to the name and a nice back patio was put in for outdoor dining, if you can stand the heat or happen to stop by when the weather’s nice.

But dining room options aside, what I’m really interested in is the food and beverage menu which is a wide range of Thai fusion dishes and drinks- many of which sound slightly less than appealing but, to my delight, all of which were decidedly ahhhhmazing.

Since we were a relatively large party we made a point of ordering as many different drinks as we could just to try to get a taste of them all- and trust me even with a decent group of people it was no small feat.  Their drink menu is about 20 pages long.  Hooray! Here are a few of my favorites:

 The Bangkok Mule with bale fruit infused vodka with apple juice, bitters, ginger ale, and lime.

The Never Say Never: pink Hale’s Blue Boy milk mixed with rum and served with dessert condiments like sweet corn, grass jelly and coconut jelly- sort of an awesome spin on a local favorite dessert.

The Lady Killer: all kinds of tart yummy with pineapple and passion fruit juice plus half a fresh passion fruit for extra fruity freshness

The Bad Company… which is much like it sounds but must be ordered at least once so you can try it… almost painlessly.  This drink is homemade ya dong served with honey, ume, and candied fruits.  Definitely like nothing you’ve ever had before… Unless you drink a lot of Thai Chinese herbal medicines… In which case, this drink is perfect for you.

After so much excitement over the drink menu, the food menu was facing pretty high expectations.

Let’s just say after the first bite of each dish I immediately wanted to order two more- one more to enjoy there and one extra to take home for later (I am the FatGirlAtHeart after all).

We tried many many things, some of which never made it in front of the camera but of the few that did, here are some of my faves:

The krapow carbonara pasta… amazingly rich and spicy with that wonderful basil krapow flavor that i love on top of my favorite carbohydrate and then wait… with a runny egg yolk on top!? Okay so that totally threw me for a loop but when you burst that gorgeous gold yolk open and mixed it in with everything else the result was simply spicy creamy decadence – and i don’t even like egg yolk.

The tom yum mussels were a new addition to their menu and we ordered them because my mom loves mussels and i love tom yum.  This was such a beautiful agreement- the tom yum broth was so tasty that I forgot I was even eating mussels (no, I don’t know why I don’t like them even though I like oysters and clams just fine).

The nahm burger- ohhh my.  Where to start on this guy? So you take a regular burger and super fusion it with nahm- a dish from Northern Thailand thats basically something along the lines of pickled pork… which sounds awful and I don’t usually enjoy but in this burger?! I don’t know what they did but I want 2 more.

 Foie gras with kai loek kuey: perfectly pan fried foie gras served with traditional style kai loek kuey or egg that’s boiled then fried whole in tamarind sauce… a very unexpected pairing but it just works oh so darn well!

 And my favorite little snack that I couldn’t stop eating was the papadum with namprik ong- lanna style fried chili paste dip.  SO YUM.

So, you got that? Go to BAD MOTEL, try one of every drink and order 3 of every dish and if you’re still alive after that try to make it by some night when they’ve got a rad art exhibit or party going on.  Tell them I sent you (; Promise you won’t be sorry.

BAD MOTEL is located in Thonglor between J Ave and Soi 17.

Open daily from 5pm- 1am