Bangkok restaurant serves stew that has been brewed for over 45 years
One of the restaurants in Bangkok is now celebrating a significant date. For more than 45 years, they have been brewing stew. No, this is not a different stew that is cooked anew every day - this is the same dish that has survived several generations of owners. Despite its considerable age, the dish is in great demand among visitors and is a signature feature of the Wattana Panich restaurant.
The capital of Thailand has something to treat guests to - in the tourist areas of the city you can try a dish of any cuisine of the world and, of course, please yourself with local culinary delights. But only in the Wattana Panich restaurant, located in the western part of Bangkok, you can enjoy the taste of a 45-year-old stew.
The restaurant is extremely popular with tourists - local soups and stews are considered the best in the city. But, if you are unfamiliar with the peculiarities of Thai national cuisine, you'd better enjoy the food without having to voice the history of its preparation.
The signature dish of the chef of the restaurant, which has such a respectable age for eating, is a thick soup with noodles, stewed beef and offal, richly flavored with various spices. This stew remembers three generations of restaurateurs from the Koenantavon family, who have owned the restaurant since 974.
The dish is prepared according to an old Thai recipe called "hunter's stew" or, if you like, "eternal stew". The principle of cooking food is simple - Thais believe that the longer it boils, the tastier it will be. Everyone who has tried the institution's signature culinary masterpiece confirms this fact, especially since many guests visit Wattana Panich regularly for this dish.
Every evening, before the restaurant closes, the chefs put the leftover stew in the refrigerator. In the morning, the strategic reserve is removed and used for a new bookmark in the vat. Every day, at least 25 kg of beef is added to the stew, which is boiled in a 45-year-old broth.
There is one detail that only Thai visitors can calmly perceive. It turns out that in order to stick to tradition, the Koenantawon family never washed the vat in which the famous dish is brewed. A meticulous guest can see a burgundy coating on the walls of a metal container that has been accumulating there for decades.
Incredibly, the restaurant received one of the most prestigious Thai awards, Shell shuan Shim, and what seems like fantasy, a Michelin star. So, we can say that those who want to taste the stew from the 70s are safe - it's just that not a single institution has received these regalia yet.
The meat stew from Wattana Panich may be the oldest dish in the world, but it certainly isn't the most unusual. Restaurants, in the struggle for a client, create such masterpieces that you want to bow your head before the imagination of their authors.