Hello 965

It was an Ubon first last night. Ubon is a bistro located in Kuwait city serving up anything from Thai curries, noodles, rice, and desserts. Here’s a walk through our dinner [the quality of the images isn't that great ... I'd use the lighting and camera as an excuse ... but the truth is - I was hungry]

Design Stuff – Ooo .. Pretty!

The experience starts outside actually when you’re met with a sexy wooden door. The logo is backlit and is very warm and welcoming. You can even see the people sitting inside enjoying their food and the atmosphere is very, very pleasant.

The decor inside doesn’t need a photo – one would not do it justice anyway – it’s sexy. What I liked is the logo on the napkins. It captures the simplicity of the restaurant immediately. I think it’s a lotus flower, not entirely sure … I think I like not knowing though …

Lastly – and if you are a restaurant owner please read this out loud – their menu is SIMPLE! It’s so simple that it fits on a tiny slim menu and is separated by category according to my stomach’s mood … even the geeks at Harvard have come to the conclusion that keeping your stuff simple will make your customer sticky!

They make it easy for me by having a simple menu and knowledgable staff that help me make difficult decisions simple. We wanted a “fondant” … “we don’t have fondant but our chocolate cake tastes the same” BOOM!! – we had that because the decision was simple. Thank you Ubon for being simple.

Appetizers

The middle picture shows Chicken wrapped in Banana Leaf. The taste is not what you’d expect. It had a sharp citrus flavour – a real palette cleanser of an appetiser. The dip served with the dish delivered a similar zing. The surprising taste was welcomed.

Finally, we had Thai Papaya Salad – I can’t speak of papaya salad without being bias; it’s a favourite wherever I go and Ubon did not let us down – recommended.

Mains

Shrimp Tom Yum Soup

A really yummy soup. My friends thought it tasted good but was a little bit different than the same dish they had tried at other Thai restaurants. I personally liked it and the closing comment from the person who ate this dish was: “Food in Thailand isn’t this good by the way!” – #omnomnom

Pepper Beef Garlic

The quality of the beef was really good. It was also cooked well – maybe it was the sauce – but the meat really retained its juiciness. The person who ordered it said that “It tastes like mongolian beef, but less chewy [...] over all I liked it.” The dish was complimented by the fragrant jasmine white rice – best short grain white rice I’ve had in Kuwait yet.

Yellow Curry with Shrimp

Very creamy and delicious. It’s spicy and the creaminess of the curry is well suited for the potatoes, peanuts, and veggies in the dish. Recommended with the garlic fried rice.

Green Curry with Chicken

Thai Green Curry is Thai food to me – yes I’m that uncultured. The taste I am used to is creamy with a taste of coconut milk that smacks you in the face, lemon grass, lime leaves, coriander, and chunky aubergine. Ubon’s Thai Green had different flavours: more citrus and less creamy. The taste was delicious – but it wasn’t what I was expecting. The “not expecting” business started becoming a theme.

Green Curry Noodles

… because you can never have enough green curry dishes … the taste was similar, the texture of the noodles was soft. The thing I liked about the dish was the the noodles length were perfect such that I was able to eat with a fork comfortably – no dangly bits nor were they too short to wrangle.

Rice

We had three rice dished that were all brilliant (I’d go back for their Jasmine rice):

• Jasmine Rice: fragrant and delicious
• Veggie Fried Rice (left): simply omnomnom
• Garlic Fried Rice: every bite was a win #yes

Desserts

The end was met with two home runs. The chocolate cake (above) is a two layer harmony of chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. I don’t know what it was in the cake but every time I took a bite, the chocolate had a cooling effect. It was difficult to resist ordering another cake.

We also ordered Ubon’s frozen yoghurt with mango. It was nice – unlike commercial frozen yoghurt it wasn’t thick and sweet – it was sour and sweetened by the mango. Recommended.

Verdict

If you’re still reading this you shouldn’t be. Get up, leave your keyboard, get some Ubon #noms now!

Information

Their social media handles, website, and location are all in the pictures above. I nicked them from instagram (thank you for letting me pirate your stuff). Here are the details:

• Website: Ubonkw.com
• Twitter: @Ubonkw
• Instagram: #UbonKW (use it!)
• Location: Ubon on Google Maps
• 4Square: Check in!