Everybody… I am about to surprise you with something today. Now I’ve been going to Thailand quite a bit lately because of Nuffnang just opening up an office there. So I’ve had the chance to eat all sorts of great Thai food… and boy do our partners there really bring us for good Thai food.
After all these meals I have finally decided on what my favourite restaurant in Thailand is. It’s a Steamboat place called MK.
I know I know… you’re thinking “WTF?!?!?”. All the tom yam, all the fish cake, all the pandan chicken and all that and I choose to go to Thailand to eat steamboat?
I’m a big fan of steamboat, and MK is my second favourite steamboat restaurant in the world. My first is one in Penang that I’ve been going to since I was a kid called Golden Gate Steamboat. In KL… well I’ve tried many but I’m yet to find one that I like as much as MK or Golden Gate.
My Thai friend Pruet told me that the story behind MK is that it was started by a lady who used to work in a steamboat restaurant. After a while her boss decided to shut down the restaurant because he didn’t want to do the business anymore so she came out and started her own. Her son who’s an engineer by training runs the business now and MK has grown to an entire chain of restaurants in Thailand. You can see them EVERYWHERE!
MK has some specialties that no other steamboat restaurant I’ve seen have. Like these seaweed pork balls.
Who would think to do something so simple and yet so delicious.
MK is also the most efficiently run steamboat restaurant I’ve ever seen in my life. Everything there is so well thought-through for efficiency. For example.. you know how in steamboat restaurants the waiter has to bring everything over in one trolley. Then they would lay plate by plate of stuff on the table, taking up all the space right?
All the food in MK is brought in little stacked up trays like this.
So one waiter can carry everything over without a trolley and you can stack it all up on your table without taking much space. So the table can be a lot smaller and the restaurant can fit more tables than it normally could.
Cool right?
There’s more. When you walk into the restaurant the waiter doesn’t even have to give you a menu. Right behind each seat is a small shelf where everyone knows to reach for the menu. The waiter then takes the order with a PDA and all these orders are sent back to the kitchen. In less than 5 minutes they’ll bring out the pot and all the food you ordered.
Instead of using a gas stove, MK uses an electric one which saves them so much trouble if you take into account how many restaurants they have all over Thailand.
I’ve seen a lot of electric stoves before and they’re mostly not very good… but the one in MK though, will have the pot boiling by the time you finish tweeting about eating in MK. Among the other stuff I love at MK.
These green noodles.
And their roast duck.
I brought Shorty there for the first time last trip.
Shorty hates all kinds of steamboat. This one however… she sorta liked. And that’s good enough for me.
I love MK for the great food and service… but I admire it… for its efficiency and how they thought the steamboat restaurant business inside out to make it so efficient. It’s an inspiration to me on how the most traditional businesses can still be so innovative.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space