Ping’s Bia Hoi boasts of authentic South East Asian cuisine with a beer garden and a perfect ambience.
Located in Sangolda in a sleepy little lane, Ping’s Bia Hoi is a Vietnamese beer garden meets Southeast Asian street food haunt, which sits perfectly in Chef Rahul (Picu) Gomes Pereira’s mother’s family home.
The idea was to serve food from Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand, which is healthy and yet tasty, and keep people craving for more.
The atmosphere is rustic with music from the 80s and 90s playing in the background, adding a nostalgic touch to the setting and yet is peppy and kitschy at the same time.
Ping’s has an extensive bar menu featuring their signature cocktails with exotic names like Walking Street Pattaya, Sunset at Nusa, Cameron Lavender Gardens, Rau Hung and more. The Sunset at Nusa is a mix of rum, falernum, limejuice, ginger syrup and angostura bitters which is refreshing and smooth at the same time. The Rau Hung is a concoction of cognac, kahlua, fernet, maraschino liqueur and orange bitters, which is dark and strong.
Their food menu has different kinds of soups, salads, noodles, dim sums, baos, and rice dishes. We were served two varieties of dim sums, the Philadelphia Cream Cheese dim sum which is one of their signature dishes, a small dumpling filled with Philadelphia cream cheese, water chestnuts and wild mushrooms and topped with chilli oil and scallions. The Butter Garlic Prawn dim sum had hand pounded spiced prawns with chives and brown garlic with heaps of butter, encased in a dumpling and topped with bird eye chilli. A bite into both these dim sums resulted in an explosion of flavours in the mouth.
The Betel Leaf Wrapped Beef had ground beef with Thai red chilli, garlic and kaffir lime all wrapped in a betel leaf and served with an Asian sauce, this one tickled the palate with its different flavours.
The best amongst the starters was the Pork Char Sui Bao. Bao or Baozi is a type of yeast – leavened filled bun in various Asian cuisines. With crispy pieces of pork, the bao was filled with lettuce, bell pepper, spring onion and pickled cucumber and topped with peanuts. This is an authentic recipe with no variations done to it. Every bite was scrumptious and hit all the right notes on the tongue.
For the mains, we were served the Thai Style Chicken Krapow, which had minced chicken with fresh red chili and thai herbs on skewer, served with sticky rice, prawn wafers and topped with a fried egg. This
was a meal in itself and filling, with all the flavours of an authentic Thai dish in a bowl.
The NasiGoreng, a famous Indonesian specialty, has a Goan twist, with the fired rice containing Goan chorizo sausage and bacon, topped with a fried egg and served with prawn wafers. This fusion dish makes for a filing meal and has just the right amount of spice to satisfy the taste buds.
For dessert, we had the Coffee Caramel Custard, a specialty prepared by one of Chef’s Rahul’s siblings as a way of giving back to their Goan heritage. A soft egg custard flavoured with coffee beans and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream drizzled with caramel. This was a rich and smooth dessert and light enough to be eaten after a heavy meal.
The menu also boasts of a variety of small plates like Wok tossed water spinach, Korean tossed chicken wings, Squid miso butter garlic, amongst other South Asian dishes. The curries include the signature Thai Yellow Curry, Red curry, and Thai Green curry.
The food here is complex as it is simple and will transport one down the streets of South East Asia. If one wants to experience a South East Asian fare, with amazing beers, classy cocktails and bask in a great ambience, then this is your go to place
