This is not a restaurant for the faint hearted. Owned by Aussie Thaiophile chef David Thompson, it is a fun place to go – loud, brash and unashamedly like a street style cafe. The food is authentic in looks, flavour and spice – it is HOT, you know, Silom Road hot, so if you can’t take spicy food, then maybe this is not the best choice for you.
On the Saturday night that we visited, the crowd of diners were mainly groups of young ladies, meeting up for dinner before a night out at the clubs. There is a lively bar area, and it’s okay to meet up just for drinks if you don’t want to eat here. The waitress was really friendly and explained the menu to us, starters at the top, noodles in the middle, and family style sharing dishes around the edges. There is no real uniform here, so it’s a bit difficult to tell the wait staff from everybody else, but all of the staff are lovely once you work out who’s who.
We chose to go for traditional dishes and selected fish cakes to share for a starter.
They were plentiful, nice small-ish irregular shapes with a lovely dressing of chilli, onion, thai basil, lime and sweet fish sauce dressing. All the elements of sweet, sour, fragrant and hot that you expect from an authentic Thai dish. It did leave a tingle on my tongue though – I am used to hot food, but I couldn’t help thinking that there would be many of my friends who would find it challenging to finish the dish.
One of our mains was thai green curry. Again, very authentic, I remembered the same flavours from a cafe along the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, very tasty, but also very hot again. Even without eating the whole chillies on top, there was a strong spicy warmth in every mouthful.
Jasmine rice was plentiful and slightly sticky – just like you get in Thailand.
We also chose crunchy pork – which was not hot at all. It came with a lovely sweet dipping sauce (no picture), and most pieces were delicious with the soft roast pork and the crunchy crackling. However, I did find some pieces overly fatty and I couldn’t eat the fatty part. It was nice to have this dish as a relief from the spiciness of the rest.
We also chose a glass noodle salad. Lovely slippery thin glass noodles topped with ground pork, squid, prawns, dried shrimp, onions, coriander and herbs, and of course…. a plentiful supply of chilli.
Everything that we ate at Long Chim was authentic, delicious, and fragrant – definitely the place to come if you are hankering after that real Bangkok flavour with the real Bangkok spice. I loved it, but some will find it challenging and may need to ask for the chillies to be toned down a bit. It wasn’t cheap at approx $130 with just two soft drinks, but it was delightful. I loved the atmosphere, and will be making a return visit.
Visit Date – June 2017
Truly Scrumptious 
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