Khrok Mai Thai Lao Restaurant
Gaggan Anand, who runs one of the hardest tables in Asia, takes his wife to a wooden-mortar shack in Lat Pla Khao where one page of the menu is insects and another is entirely ant eggs.
Why go
His verdict in Gourmet Traveller leaves no room: "it has to be the place you go for Isaan food. You won't see any tourists here." The kitchen cooks Ubon Ratchathani repertoire, and Time Out's 5/5 review names what that means on the plate: "somtum with strong plara flavors" and "delicacies whipped up with foraged exotic ingredients like bee larvae, mae peng (flying ants), ant roe and kai pum." The room is, in the same review, "a rustic shack" offering "an experience that can't really be duplicated in Bangkok." It sits about 30 minutes by car from the center, which is why the tourists never made it.
Order this / avoid
- Order: work the ant-egg page: khai mod daeng soup, ant eggs seasoned with curry paste, red-ant queens; then som tam with the pla ra left in, and a mok of bee larvae or young wasp steamed in banana leaf.
- Avoid: assuming the wild things are always in. Ant eggs and queens run with the hot season, roughly February to May; ask what was foraged this week. And do not slot it between other stops; the taxi both ways makes it the evening.
What locals & experts say
- Gourmet Traveller (Sep 2022, Gaggan Anand):
My wife and I love eating Isaan food.
Everything is good. It's an amazing place.
1 - Time Out Bangkok (Feb 2018, Phavitch Theeraphong, 5/5):
an experience that can't really be duplicated in Bangkok.
2 - Local rec: Jeff's list carries Gaggan's rec as the reason to go.
Good to know
- Timing: daily, roughly 11am to 11pm (Time Out 2018; directories show a slightly earlier close). Kitchen suits lunch or dinner.
- Booking: walk-in; big shared tables handle groups, and orders run family-style.
- Getting there: 8 Soi Lat Pla Khao 24, Chorakhe Bua; about 30 minutes by taxi from central Bangkok, or the Pink Line monorail to Lat Pla Khao plus a short ride.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: No tourists; gaggan rec. Worth a taxi. Wild ingredients like ant eggs and herbs that you’ve never seen before
Verdict
should-visit — The only restaurant on Jeff's Bangkok list with an entire menu page of ant-egg dishes, endorsed by Gaggan Anand as the place for Isaan food and scored 5/5 by Time Out as an experience Bangkok cannot duplicate. The kitchen keeps the pla ra at full strength and cooks out of a foraged larder. The taxi is the toll; a chef who cares about wild ingredients pays it. Confidence in the food is high; the rung stays one below must-visit only because the case rests on two sources and a 2018 rating.