Chopstix has been titillating the tastebuds of Kochiites with their authentic Thai and Chinese delicacies since 2010. Besides the 40-cover restaurant at Palarivattom, Chopstix gets a new address in Kakkanad too, at Flair Business floors, Near Sunrise Hospital. “When we began five years back Thai was catching up but because of the cuisine’s flavours which uses predominantly fresh herbs and spices, it became an instant hit. We wanted a bigger restaurant than our first outlet. Since Kakkanad is an IT hub and there are no hotels specialising in Thai and Chinese cuisine, we decided to start our latest one here,” says Santhosh Das, one of the partners along with Sony Kurian and Siraj Nalagath.
The 60-cover restaurant done in pastel and dark wood walls, decorated with modest artifacts, collected by Santhosh during his travels, welcomes a stressed out IT foodie to a refreshing Thai lime juice rich in flavour of basil. After quenching the initial thirst, to satiate your hunger pangs from the menu, that is categorised into cold appetisers, veg appetisers, non-veg appetisers, soups among many, one must have the ‘Yam met mamuang’ which is a spicy Thai mango salad with peanut and onions. “We have not changed the menu or prices for the new restaurant. And have retained all our regular favourites too,” says Santhosh, who worked as a tea exporter in Moscow and later quit the job and opened two restaurants ‘Five Spices’ and ‘Baan Thai’ there.
One can also go for the ‘Yam koong sod’, a spicy Thai prawn salad with lemon grass & roasted chilly paste.
From the vast appetiser section, one can have Thai spring rolls or fried dim sums or hot saibo squids to name a few. After licking off your starters, whet your appetite with hot ‘Tom yum soup’. “It’s a Thai traditional spicy soup flavoured with lemon grass & galangal,” explains Santhosh. Interestingly all the galangal (Thai ginger) used in the restaurant comes from the farm at Santhosh’s wife’s house in Thrissur.
For the calorie conscious, Chopstix offers a range of steamed dishes like veg/non veg dumplings served with a tangy sauce, ‘Plaa pae sa’ (braised fish fillet in ginger lemon juice) or go for the steamed pepper prawns.
Dig into Chef Alex Aliyap and his team’s delicious fare of maincourse which is divided into seafood, poultry, lamb/beef and Thai curries. From the seafood fare the must haves are ‘Kung krithiam’ (king prawns cooked in garlic) and ‘Singapore snapper’ where the whole fish is cooked in Singaporean sauce, chilli paste and garlic. In the poultry basket one can have ‘Kai phad krapaw’ which is a minced chicken preparation with basil leaves or ‘Kai phad prik naam phaw’ where chicken is roasted with chilly paste.
In the lamb/beef section, Santhosh recommends roasted chilly tenderloin and ‘Phat neua man hawy’, which is a lamb preparation in oyster sauce and mushrooms. Thai red and green curry are the other delectable fares from the main dishes.
All these dishes go well with rice, noodles and chopseuy available in vegetarian, chicken and mixed varieties. One will surely go for a repeat after tasting the ‘Phad Thai’, which is a famous traditional Thai rice noodle served with sugar, peanut and chilli flakes. It can be accompanied with Thai red/green curry.
The dessert cravers can dig into ‘Thab tim krob’, a Thai specialty where jellied water chestnuts are mixed in coconut milk and topped with crused ice cream or any flavour of ice creams from the adjoining Baskin Robbins outlet.
The restaurant is open from 12 noon to 3.30 pm for lunch and 6.30 pm to 11 pm for dinner.