タケマシュラン
BluePapayaTHAILAND, a Thai restaurant with its main store in Ebisu. I had a great experience when I visited their Azabu-Juban branch before, so when I happened to pass by the Ebisu main store, I decided to stop by. Even though it was 1 pm on a weekday, the place was almost full, and guests kept coming in one after another. Surprisingly, there were many solo diners, mostly women, with a determined look in their eyes as if saying, "Today, I'm going to eat all the Thai food I want!" The secret of its popularity lies in the lunchtime "all-you-can-eat side menu" offer. For 1,100 yen, if you order a main dish, you can enjoy the buffet of side dishes, which naturally boosts your excitement. I'm a food blogger. I ordered the "Pad Thai" as my main dish. Surrounding it was the rumored side menu. The restaurant mainly focuses on dishes from the Isan region in northeastern Thailand, but the flavors are beginner-friendly even for those not used to Thai cuisine. There's a salad-like dish with strong acidity and spiciness that's hard to describe in Japanese taste terms. The vegetable dish was more like a comforting stir-fry dish that lacked acidity and spiciness. The soup was also packed with vegetables and ingredients, with a gentle taste similar to Japanese dashi broth rather than the typical Tom Yum Kung flavor. They even had all-you-can-eat fried chicken. It was a crispy type with a thick coating, reminiscent of KFC's Original Recipe, generously drizzled with Asian sauce(?). It felt like a satisfying alternative to queuing for KFC's all-you-can-eat. Finally, the Pad Thai. The side dishes were so satisfying that I almost forgot I had ordered the main dish, but it was also delicious. For an additional 300 yen, you could get double the portion or triple it for 600 yen, with the person next to me attempting the latter with an impressive display. All of this for 1,100 yen, making it a miraculous cost-effective lunch option in Ebisu. This is really good, incredibly good. Just the other day, I mentioned that BarMarcheKodama in Ebisu Atre might be the best lunch option in the vicinity of Ebisu station, but this place was equally impressive.