A significant date is being celebrated in one of the restaurants in Bangkok. They have been cooking stew for more than 45 years. No, this is not a different stew that is cooked anew every day — it is the same dish that has survived several generations of owners. Despite its advanced 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 regale guests with — in the tourist areas of the city you can try a dish of any cuisine in 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 stew, which turned 45 years old.
The restaurant is extremely popular with tourists — the 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 your meal without having to tell the story of its preparation.
The signature dish of the chef of the restaurant, which has such a venerable age for food, is a thick soup with noodles, stewed beef and giblets, abundantly flavored with various spices. This stew is remembered by three generations of restaurateurs from the Koenantavon family, who have owned the restaurant since 974.
The preparation of the dish takes place according to an ancient Thai recipe called “hunting stew” or, if you like, “eternal stew”. The principle of cooking is simple — Thais believe that the longer it boils, the tastier it will be. Everyone who has tasted the restaurant’s signature culinary masterpiece confirms this fact, especially since many guests visit Wattana Panich for this dish regularly.
Every evening, before closing the restaurant, the chefs put the leftover stew in the refrigerator. In the morning, the strategic reserve is extracted and used for a new bookmark in the vat. Every day, at least 25 kg of beef is added to the stew, which is cooked in a broth 45 years old.
There is one detail that only Thai visitors can safely perceive. It turns out that in order to firmly follow the tradition, the Koenantavon family has never washed the vat in which the famous dish is brewed. A meticulous guest can see the burgundy plaque on the walls of the metal container, which has been accumulating there for decades.
Incredibly, the restaurant has received one of the most prestigious Thai Shell shuan Shim awards and, which already seems fantastic, a Michelin star. So, we can say that those who want to taste the stew from the 70s are safe – no institution has ever received these regalia just like that.
Wattana Panich meat stew may be the oldest dish in the world, but it’s certainly not the most unusual. Restaurants, in the struggle for the customer, create such masterpieces that you want to bow your head to the imagination of their authors.
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