This week I am

still delighted by Bangkok, the noise and the heat and the jumble of temples and street food and luxury hotels and shopping. Today's lunch was at Sra Bua, at the Kempinski Hotel. I love hotel lobbies in Bangkok, and Kempinski is one of the grander, all high ceilings and contemporary Thai art and flowers and glamour lighting. Sra Bua is related to Kiin Kiin in Copenhagen, where Henrik Yde Andersen has earned a Michelin star for a Thai restaurant. http://www.kempinskibangkok.com/sra-bua-by-kiin-kiinWhat is it about Danes and Thai food? Mogens Bay Esbensen brought Thai food to Australia before David Thompson; and now Henrik Andersen has a great Thai restaurant in Copenhagen, and also in Bangkok. It's a seriously luxurious restaurant, Christofle cutlery and the finest linen napkins, combined with Thai food true-to-flavour and entirely reimagined. Think Thai beef salad as big curls of cucumber, mint leaves, cubes of beef, tiny dried tomatoes, and a mixed-to-order Thai dressing. There was someone using a big stone mortar and pestle to work together garlic, chilli, lime juice, fish sauce and palm sugar that is then spooned on to the salad by a waiter.Lots of the produce comes the areas in the Royal Project, an initiative begun by the King in 1969 to replace opium growing (and attendant problems) with other sustainable and productive crops. There was a lot of work in reforestation and restoring eroded land, creating sustainable agriculture. Much of the produce used in Sra Bua comes from Chang Mai.I love the way Thai food is re-created in restaurants here, whether Bo Lan (he's Australia, she's Thai) http://www.bolan.co.th in a much simpler setting with a focus on authenticity. Or there's the drama of Long Table, on the 25th floor, http://www.longtablebangkok.com with a table as long as a swimming pool.