Thai People Love Their Japanese Food

This blog is not meant to be a foodie blog. The food-related post is meant to clear the general misconceptions that Thailand is about tomyum, pad thai or whatever that you read on a travel guidebook. If you are a frequent traveler here, do try other local favourites. And if you are a foreigner living in the kingdom, I hope the #EatLikeALocal series help you to venture away from farang (foreigner) restaurants, to local neighbourhood food joints.

Most local food blogs are in Thai, so I thought perhaps there is lack of information in English for foreigners.

One thing for sure, cleanliness in these local neighbourhood food joints are not up to standard. Some fare better than the others. It might not give you food poisoning, but eat at your own risk lah.

I dare say that Japanese is the no. 1 international cuisine in Thailand, and is growing in popularity. I read somewhere there are more than 1,000 Japanese restaurants in Bangkok itself, a fact not verified.

When Kabocha Sushi first opened near where we stay in October 2013, we were overjoyed, but we were also worried about traffic congestion.

The restaurant is located near the entrance of a small soi (street). The soi is a two-way streets, but once cars are parked by the roadside, it’ll automatically turn the small soi into one-way street. Yes it did cause some inconvenience, especially during weekend, but it’s still tolerable.

This eatery is frequented by mainly Thai people, but I do see quite a bit of foreigners staying in our neighbourhood. Foreigners shouldn’t shy away from this place. Bi-lingual menu is provided. No English spoken as far as I know, but just point and order should be okay.

I read some negative reviews on Kabocha’s Facebook. Due to language limitation, be patient with local staff. So far, we find that their service is still good. Newbies are not as knowledgable as those that have been there since Day One.

It was a Foodie’s Day for us yesterday. After lunch at KimJu, we had dinner at Kabocha. A splurge that we have not had for a while.

This place is really good, proclaimed as direct from Tsukiji Fish Market in Japan. No idea whether it’s true, but it’s really gooooood ………. The quality is still maintained after 2.5 years. Again, the negative reviews on Kabocha’s Facebook lamented about freshness issue, but we are happy with it. We have not experienced fly nor ant issue in our food. But cleanliness in surrounding area on the restaurant’s ground floor definitely is not up to marks.

Sounds like I am defending them. No, I am not, and this is not a paid post. Just sharing my view points as regular patron. We eat there maybe once every 3-4 months. 

After dining there few times, we have our regular favourites. D with his Salmon, Magura and Hamachi don (350 baht) and me with my aburi sushi, or flamed seared sushi. You can just order the normal sushi in the menu and tell the staff to ‘burn’ the sushi. 

The act of applying fire directly and lightly sear is known to enhance the natural flavors of the fish. I like the aroma that a bit of searing does to the fish. I am a huge aburi fan after first trying it in Tokyo few years back. Some might think that it destroys the freshness of the fish, but I beg to differ. After searing, the fish seamlessly ‘transforms’ from raw texture to cooked which simply melts in your mouth.

Keep a lookout for Kabocha’s ongoing promotions. Perhaps they are stuck with it, having used this tactic during launch period. In my humble view point, the setback of using promotion is definitely the post-promotion dip, as business tend to dip when you don’t have a promotion in place.