Boon Cafe and Jarern Chai

Stocked with fresh produce and Thai-imported goods, Jarern Chai’s cavernous, light-filled store is the perfect place to pick up healthy, nourishing and medicinal Asian groceries.

Despite serving burgers, sandwiches and pasta, Boon café (inside the store) doesn’t mix elements of Thai and western cuisine – it recreates the whole thing naturally, like they always belonged together.

The morning starts with cold-pressed juices, made on a daily rotation, with a turmeric shot and garnished with pennywort. The breakfast menu offers traditional congee, Thai egg dishes and a selection of toasts. There is crab congee with shiitake mushrooms and kai gatah (pan baked eggs with smoked fish sausage) and fig and walnut toast with mascarpone and jam.

Boon’s sandwiches and rice bowls show the team’s devotion to creating things from scratch. Everything from the cashew butter in the chicken cashew sandwich, to the rustic chilli relish and mayo of the crab-and-prawn-cake burger are all made in house. Sai ouah kamut pasta uses Boon’s homemade, spicy-Thai-herb sausage.

For dinner it’s all about Isaan cuisine from north-eastern Thailand. Curries, soups and warm salads are on offer, including tub gai yaang (chicken liver skewers), dtom leng (a hot and sour soup of braised pork bones), larb gai (spicy minced chicken) and several takes on som dtum (green papaya salad).

A selection of blended fruit drinks, Thai red tea and trad Thai sweet soybean drinks complement Boon’s cuisine perfectly.