Restaurant Review: Bangkok Garden, Toronto

On Thursday, I went to my very first Winterlicious event with my good friend Jena.  Winterlicious is a two-week event sponsored by the City of Toronto, where many restaurants offer a prix-fixe menu in order to intice people to visit and try new restaurants.  The restaurants each offer different price points (anywhere from $15 - $25 for lunch, and $25 - $45 for dinner) for a three course meal. 

Jena and I chose Bangkok Garden, a Thai restaurant in the heart of downtown Toronto, that neither of us had been to before.  It's a restaurant that's tucked away on one of my favourite streets in the city - Elm St - near Yonge & Dundas Square.  For such prime realty, you'd expect the restaurant to be rather small, but in fact, after you pass the main entrance, it opens up into a two storey restaurant, tastefully decorated with ambient lighting.  Jena and I were taken to a table on the second floor, tucked away into a quiet corner, and we dined by candlelight.  It would have been super romantic for a first date (or any date, really!)


Firstly - my apologies for the yellow-ish pictures.  They were taken on my iphone, and it was quite dim inside the restaurant.

For my first course, I chose the Chicken Satay.  It was served with a really delicious peanut sauce, and a tiny "tangy cucumber salad" (that little section on the left is the salad).  It was super yummy, my only complaint is that the cucumber salad was practically non-existant.  The vinaigrette was so delicious that I ended up dipping my shredded carrots into it, just to taste more (and I hate carrots, so that says a lot!!)




For my main course, I chose the Cashew Shrimp Stir Fry, which was described as "Black tiger shrimp and toasted cashews are tossed with onions, peppers and our homemade Thai sauce."   It was absolutely perfect.  It was served with some jasmine rice, a fantastic compliment for the sauce.  The tails were left on, which made for some messy eats. 





I capped the meal off with the chocolate mango mousse.  The mango added a really unique flavour to the mousse, and I loved that it was served with orange and strawberry. 
It was just the right amount of sweetness, and I was happy to see a dessert at a Thai restaurant that didn't feature bananas (they seem to be common fare at Thai places, and I hate bananas!)
This was chocolatey, with just a hint of my favourite fruits, and it was perfect!

I really enjoyed the whole Winterlicious experience.  It was fun to stray from my two regular Thai places (Bua Thai and Thai Princess), and discover something new.