1. One of the best Thai restaurants in Thailand, the Blue Elephant in Bangkok, announced at a press conference yesterday the pertinent details for the special menus they will be offering for Christmas and New Year’s dinners. The two different menus contain dishes that were specially developed for these two holiday dinners and are not regularly featured on the Blue Elephant menu. Two of the restaurant’s executive chefs developed the menus. Chef Sombat created the Christmas menu and Chef Vichai created the new Year’s menu. Both menus consist of dishes that make liberal use of western ingredients which are cooked in traditional Thai ways with Thai flavorings. The results are unique and uniformly delicious. A lemongrass soup, for example, that is flavored with truffle oil and contains grilled lobster is one of the more outstanding dishes that was served to the journalists attending the press conference. Other dishes that were impressive included grilled snowfish marinated in Samut Sakorn rock salt, U.S. turkey rolled with foie gras mousse and sprinkled with pomegranate and truffles, a sweet basil gazpacho, a Thai bouillabaisse and a turkey breast with braised prawns and a béarnaise sauce. There are many other dishes and they are all just as unique and creatively designed as the abovementioned ones. If these dishes sound unusual it is because they are – unusually delicious. They are also unique to the country, as there are no other chefs doing anything similar in Thailand. The Blue Elephant Restaurant & Cooking School is open daily from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm for lunch and 6:30 to 10:30 pm for dinner. They can be contacted at 02-673-9358.