Hues of a hound

The perpetuation of great food prepared by a bunch of friends who love to eat, cook and enjoy life as a whole, Greyhound Cafe began 10 years ago, serving an array of simple Thai and Western dishes adorned with creative tasty twists.

"We all love to travel and collect good things from our trips," explains Pornsiri Rojmeta, Greyhound Cafe's managing director and one of its eight founders. "We wanted to create a total dining experience for our customers. So our restaurant is not only about good food, but also about the total ambience of sight, sound and even words we chose to decorate our place with."

The first Greyhound Cafe is a cosy corner in the Greyhound boutique on the second floor of The Emporium. By combining the restaurant into a well-known boutique, Greyhound established itself as a pioneer of the "lifestyle cafe" scene, reflecting the owners' abilities to put things together creatively.

Greyhound's all-time favourites include the crispy fried chicken wings (Bt95), Hainanese chicken rice (Bt150) originally from Pornsiri's home, rice with Thai-style namprik platu (Bt150) from the house of Greyhound's creative director Bhanu Inkawat, spaghetti with Thai anchovies (Bt190) and fried chicken noodles, as well as their rich and creamy Caesar salad (Bt145).

With these staple dishes and more, Greyhound has expanded with four more branches across Bangkok. And with the new dishes, Greyhound's fans will not be disappointed.

Nothing whetted our appetite better than their crispy sweet corn with crab meat (Bt140) served with sweet sauce. Greyhound's take on this old-style dish with crab meat is a daring act for the fact that good crabmeat is hard to find. It adds a subtle sweet taste to the already wonderful natural flavour of the corn.

Next, the beef paradiso and Thai-style tomato salsa (Bt185), arrived with thin slices of beef temptingly slathered with garlic so aromatic we fought for the first bite of the sticky rice that goes with it.

Open for 10 years, Greyhound has brightened up its atmosphere a bit. Usually understated tones of black and grey, the major change is the colourful montage at the bar, which brightens up this newly renovated branch.

Meanwhile, the food keeps rolling in. As soon as the colourful pile of lasagna salad (Bt150) was put in the middle of our table, a diner next table grabbed the waitress and asked her to bring them one too.

The lasagna is a testimony to Greyhound's creative ideas. The crisp romaine leaves add fresh texture to the soft and aromatic grilled vegetables, fresh lasagna sheets, parmesan slices and tangy tomato sauce. This is the dish I would pick if I come back here by myself and was in the mood for something light and beautiful.

There were many other dishes I got to try that day, too, but it will take me another two days to tell about all of them. Items worth trying include spaghetti with crabmeat in crab cream sauce (Bt220), spaghetti with Italian sausage (Bt180), fried river prawn with rice (Bt450), and yum Thai steak salad (Bt185).

But you have to keep some space for their parfait. For me an order of their Chocolate Lover parfait (Bt125-195) filled me with irresistible guilt. But I couldn't help myself and enjoyed every bite.

Greyhound Cafe

Second Floor, The Emporium

BTS: Phrom Phong

Daily, 11am to 10pm

(02) 664 8663

Sirin P Wongpanit  

The writer can be reached at www.ohsirin.blogspot.com.