Thread: Looks Like Timba Is Back

Woke up to Realtime in the Bangkok Post today. Looks like our member and former resident chef has opened a new place on Thong Lo, below is the review.


It's not an easy task to get a new restaurant off the ground with the abundant dining options in Thong Lor. At the Grass complex, Thong Lor Soi 12, Serenade Restaurant & Wine Bar carries a different culinary tune compared to what's available along the upscale stretch and it aims to offer a higher level of food but at a lower price range.
A cosy ambience for casual dining.

The restaurant's concept moves away from coursed lunches and dinners and turns Western food into smaller and shareable dishes that are put at the centre of the table as in the Thai style of dining.
"We call it 'family-style' dining. In this way, our clientele can order and enjoy more dishes from the menu and share a great dining experience," said general chefanager Timber Suwannakoot.
"When we designed the menu, we wanted people to enjoy two dishes and two drinks for less than 1,000 baht. It's value for money considering the craftsmanship that goes into each dish."
Half Thai, half American, Timber grew up in the US and was in GPS mapping navigation before pursuing a career in cooking. He decided to move to Bangkok to discover his Thai side and ran a steakhouse and was a consultant in the restaurant industry before opening Serenade. His business partners appointed him chefanager because of his culinary and managerial calibre.
The new project had them designing a seasonal menu featuring five categories: Vegetarian, Fill Your Belly - Starches, For the Carnivores, Stuff That Swims, and Les Grands Plats.
"The menu changes according to the availability of ingredients, and the seasonal menu keeps us excited since cooking the same thing every day can be boring," he said.
One signature dish from the Vegetarian menu is grilled longan with feta cheese, rocket salad and 15-year balsamic vinaigrette dressing (145 baht). Longan was the preferred fruit for this Mediterranean-style salad after experimenting with mango and mangosteen.
Grilled cobia fish with smoked paprika buerre blanc.

For carbs, hand-cut potato fries with spicy curry dipping sauce (195 baht) was ordered along with protein-providing grilled cobia fish with smoked paprika buerre blanc (285 baht). They came in small portions due to the restaurant's tapas style of serving, but both were very filling and flavourful.
The cobia dish was created by American chef Aaron Adler, or the "guy that cook food", according to his business card.
Aaron and Timber met each other while working at an Alaskan resort and both with a Cordon Bleu background share a similar mindset of what good food is.
"For instance, the cobia is an oily yet healthy fish with a firm and not chewy texture," said Aaron.
"It's a local fish and to look for good products we even go to the market in Rayong."
They also found a good source of the local gai ban and cooking it at 64 degrees for six hours in a sous vide cooker resulted in tender and mouthwatering meat. The roasted organic baby chicken (330 baht) is highly recommended and a whole bird can also be ordered for 660 baht.
The restaurant, however, uses imported big American scallops for an appetising dish with garlic mash and cider reduction (495 baht), and the 150-day grain-fed Australian striploin (1,200 baht) can be served with spicy jim jaeo demiglace.
Australian striploin can be spiced up with jim jaeo.

"The jim jaeo was a request from Thai customers," Aaron said.
"I'm learning about Thai flavours and applying them to Western food, like doing a larb pate and homemade organic naam [fermented pork] saute."
Organic ingredients play a big role in Serenade's cuisine as Timber has a preference for organic food due to his upbringing on a sustainable farm in Missouri, while Aaron is a health-conscious pescetarian.
The two restaurateurs are keen to make Serenade a healthy and accessible choice, and have created a business lunch set at 240 baht, Happy Hours from 4-7pm featuring a 100-baht cheese plate and wine at 100 baht per glass from a list of New World wine with Robert Parker scores.
"We want to make proper food for everyone," Aaron said.
"If you're not rich, perhaps you may come here once a month; if you're better off, you may come here once a week, and if you really like our food, we would like to welcome you every day."
Big American scallops on garlic mash with cider reduction.

Looks good, will check it out soon.

Originally Posted by aging one

the 150-day grain-fed Australian striploin (1,200 baht)

Damn, well I hope thats a big steak.

Never made it to Timba's sadly, but the TD reviews and his obvious passion for food and good cooking had me drooling. Definitely one to try.

Looks good indeed. Too bad I did not hear of it before my vacation.

Good on ya Timber.

I wish you luck.

WTF is a chefanager?

drove by it again today, but this time got to see the small "soi" where it is located

a lot of interesting bars around in ThongLor

Next time I am in the area I will drop in for sure as Timba's steaks were out of this world.

Hope this time he doesn't spend all his profits offering free drinks and seconds to fat cvnts like Marmite and me (well only to me and Marmite).

Originally Posted by Gerbil

WTF is a chefanager?

Its a term we throw around as a joke, chef/manager, I'm kinda all over the place at the new one.

Down in Rayong for my wedding tomorrow, will be back on Tuesday ready to cook. Thanks for the kind words, looking forward to seeing some of you bunch again

^ Congrats to you and the missus mate.

Hope the day goes off perfectly for the both of you and I will see you next week for one of those great steaks.

Samr here TIMBA, good luck and all the best with yer nuptuils mate

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

Next time I am in the area I will drop in for sure as Timba's steaks were out of this world.

sounds good, best of luck Timba!

Good luck Timber. I look forward to drinking all your profits again!

I Bet the food was good at the conception

Immaculate

Originally Posted by Timber

Down in Rayong for my wedding tomorrow, will be back on Tuesday ready to cook. Thanks for the kind words, looking forward to seeing some of you bunch again

… and a lovely ceremony it was. The outside hilltop seaside garden site chosen at the Rayong Resort was perfect and the weather could not have been any better. The Bride and Groom were surrounded by family members that arrived from throughout the world as well as locally in Thailand (there were no shot guns present), the bride’s self designed wedding gown was beautiful, the words chosen for Timber and Bride to exchange at the ceremony to express their love and devotion for each other were carefully chosen and delivered spoken with love and a caring feeling, the schedule of events (meet and greet, ceremony, cocktails, reception with food/music/Bride and Groom picture slide show/and merriment, after dinner cake cutting and cake stuffing in the face by Bride and Groom, bouquet tossing, and general conversation by guests) was well timed, the food plentiful and tasty, and the event as a whole came off without a hitch from what I could tell. Timber and Gabriela, Mr. and Mrs. SEA Traveler (ST) wish you the best in your new marriage quest. You have a wonderful start. Mr. and Mrs. ST appreciate your thinking enough of us to include us in this important life changing event of yours.
With Timber’s acknowledgement and approval, the picture of the happily married couple is posted below:

Good Luck on your marriage and new restaurant Timba.

A little surprised at the name. People may wrongly think it is owned by AIS.

Tik Tok has a special offer for that place on now.

฿1,000 to spend on mouthwatering international food and drinks for just ฿480

They have cobia? My favorite fish. I'm going.

I think I will go for that coupon. 2 of them. Seems to be a win win situation. Especially that a couple of times in the article it is mentioned the food is small portioned tapas style.

Well, after enjoying several evening meals at Timber's previous restaurant "TIMBA'S", and finding ourselves (that's SEA Traveler and the Mrs) in Bangkok for a few days, we honored our previous commitment and made reservations at Timber's new place on Soi Thonglor 12 called "SERENADE". Myself and Mrs SEA Traveler had Khun Loy Toy, Khun Jizzybloke, Mrs Jizzy join us for a nice evening feast on this past Wednesday.




Flank steak, Cesar's Salad, Fresh Italian bread, Penne noodles with 3 cheese sauce are what the Mrs. and I along with LT had, Mr. and Mrs Jizzybloke had something, I think one of them had some crab cakes, and we all engaged ourselves with some Japanese Draft beers until that was gone when we took up some bottled Heienken.

Here are the Cesar’s Salad, Penne with 3 cheeses sauce, and the flank steak.











Food was so good, the beer so cold, atmosphere so enjoyable and discussion so engaging that we spent the better part of the evening there arriving at 6:15 PM and departing about 11:30 PM. Timber being the great restaurant owner/manager/chef that he is managed to spend a fair about of time in discussion with us and making sure that the food and drinks were to our satisfaction. And the service staff was always attentive, cheerful, and on the spot with the cold beer. Here is server for the evening bring another cold beer.




A very enjoyable evening. We will surely be doing this again on our next trip to BKK.

Yes, the food was magnificent and very affordable.

In fact the Restaurant is very easy to find, has great atmosphere and there is plenty of off street parking.

See you again soon for some more of that delicious Caesar Salad and strip lion steak Timber.