Excellent Red House Wine at Shanti Shanti on Koh Lanta

Can I have another glass of Red please!

Yes, I drank a lot of red wine at Shanti Shanti and it was excellent!  I’m usually a white wino but decided to be daring and switched to Red – what a good choice it was!  My friend and I had many things to discuss and decided that the table beside the bar near the entrance offered us the privacy we were seeking that evening.

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Shanti Shanti, one of the top 10 restaurants on Koh Lanta according to Trip Advisor, is an eclectic bistro restaurant on the Klong Nin Beach Road.  It’s old wood, lights, cozy, intimate and totally interesting.  The decor is a bit of this, and a bit of, that with lots of things to explore and think about.  There are tons of pictures, books, old gadgets, collectibles and tiny lights, providing a delightful and relaxing atmosphere.  Even the tables were kooky, all are made from pieces of wood seeming taken from multiple places, all of a different colour.

Shanti Shanti is a place I would be comfortable at dining alone, even though I really don’t like to dine alone.  I could go to Shanti Shanti with my iPad or Kindle as my companion, knowing that there are many curiosities to check out as well as the entertainment from watching the people, bikes, cats, dogs and whatever on the street.  Yes, I would be comfortable dining alone there.

Ben, the owner was so kind, letting me sample the wines and take my time deciding if I would take the red plunge.  He explained the wine selection from Spain and France and even let me sample a few as I made up my wino mind.  Ben also explained the nightly menu, going into detail for each of the dishes, the ingredients and how they were made.  I was debating trying the salad as I’d heard it was very good, but thought that I’d already had enough salad in my life that day.

When Ben he told me that his Grandmother in France had made him the Pesto, that he brought to Lanta in his suitcase, that sealed the deal for the Pesto pasta for me.  My friend was torn between the meat dishes and the pasta, settling for a suggestion from Ben for a dish that was on the menu earlier in the week.  We both were doing a pasta ‘no meat’ thing that night, along with our IMG_2189red wine.

What excellent choices we made.  My pasta was perfect al dente and the pesto was so smooth!  The parma shavings added that hint of balance mitigating any heaviness from the garlic.  The portion size was right on, not too big but enough to satisfy my appetite without expanding my tummy.  And the visual with the square plates was very upscale, and here I was in a roadside restaurant, on a small beach, on a tiny island, two removed from the mainland, in southern Thailand.  Love the contrast!

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My friend’s Olive pasta dish was visually amazing.  The mix of colours, textures and aroma was a perfect blend screaming ‘eat me, you’ll love me’.  And the way he attacked the dish was evidence that he was obeying the call!  Of course it was delicious!  Or maybe I have to say that it’s only on hearsay, as he didn’t offer me a taste, but then I also kept my Pesto dish to myself!

It was nice dining in such a sweet restaurant, with good food, excellent wine and having the privacy to discuss some serious matters in our lives.  We both enjoyed our meals and burst out laughing a few times, even though we were both quite serious.  Good friends, good food, and of course good wine.  A perfect recipe for a good meal!

OMG the dessert was terrific and visually picture-perfect.  Just look at the photo, don’t you want to jump in and try it?  We ordered the special of the night and kindly asked Ben for a sampling of the Shanti Shanti home-made ice creams.  Ben was more than pleased to do this and included 5 small scopes of the most amazing ice cream anywhere!  I don’t know which one was better.  We sampled the chocolate, coconut, pistachio, vanilla bean and a salted caramel ice creams, all to die for.  I think the salted caramel was the best, IMG_2194but my dining friend preferred the chocolate with the tiny chunks of chocolate in it.  There weren’t actually bits of chocolate in it but I like to tease him that there were as he’s definitely a Chocoholic.

As I’m not a chocolate fan I let my friend have the chocolate cake with the cute heart on it, in exchange for the remaining salted caramel scoop.  He oo’ed and aw’ed over every bite as I savoured my winning trade.

And of course we just had to have another glass of red wine to end our evening at Shanti Shanti.

I highly recommend Shanti Shanti for quiet, intimate and/or private dinning.  We weren’t rushed through our meal, but the staff were extremely attentive to our needs.  The food was excellent, fresh and visually enticing.  And Ben was an excellent host always knowing when it was time to step in and when to remain in the background.

It’s all good at Shanti Shanti on Klong Nin, Koh Lanta!

 

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