Background to Olive
The owner of Olive Bangkok originally had a chance to travel to Greece for the first time back in the year 2000 and instantly fell in love with the country and particularly its food! Back then Greek food was virtually unknown in the Thai market and she happened to have a Greek friend in Thailand who were willing to take on this business challenge with her. And so Olive Bangkok was born in October 2002 as a small “Wrap Sandwich” specialty cafe tucked inside All Seasons Place on Wireless Road.
Note from the Editor : Bangkok Eats is running a series of delivery only reviews to adapt to the challenging time, we review as per the delivered condition.
Throughout the years and so many crisis, Olive Bangkok has expanded, diversified, closed down and restructured many times over including the departure of their Greek business partner in 2015. But they survived and since then they have been operating entirely with a talented Thai team in the kitchen. Currently Olive Bangkok operates one restaurant outlet in Ekamai 12 and Olive Deli Bar, a take home counter inside Central Food Hall @ Central Chidlom.
They were also an early adopter of food delivery service, starting with the pioneering operators like Chefsxp (previously known as Room Service) and Food By Phone (now taken over by Food Panda) and these are the pre-smartphone/pre-apps era !! Now customers can order on Foodpanda, Grab Food, Lineman and Chefsxp, as well as Happy Fresh for our grocery products. Their philosophy is to always promote healthy eating with their products having no MSG or any preservatives.
Best way to order
Foodpanda, Grab Food, Chefsxp, Lineman, Happy Fresh or contact them directly via our Facebook messenger or add our Official Line Account.
Dolmades – Starters
Olive Bangkok provides Dolmades that have a really vibrant taste, most likely due to the use of fresh ingredients. We ate it somewhat warm which really helped to enliven the flavours. Lovely pert vine leaves and a rich rice based centre. You would be wise to add to your order!
The Filos
Filo – Beef : Light and delicate filo pastry surrounding a lovely savoury centre of minced beef, your only challenge here is stopping at one. A whiff of spice, to add a bit of zest, but it certainly will not rate a tingle on the tongue in terms of being too spicy!
Filo – cheese : Ahhh this is for those that enjoy indulgence, its mix of feta with mozzarella cheese. Slightly sour, its really quite delicious if somewhat a tiny bit decadent! You will not regret this one!
Filo – Spinach : So I guess the spinach makes everything healthy right ?? LOL. I need to appease myself somehow. again, it has that slightly decadent taste, with the bite of the spinach. Coming together with the filo pastry, hmmm delicious!
Greek Salad
First thoughts… chunky. Olive Bangkok has presented a big slab of ol’ Greek cheese sitting as the centrepiece! With nice big pieces of tomato to go along. There were generous with the supply of dressing, which you can add according to taste. I threw the whole lot in. The dressing, as you will have no doubt, is essential to fully complete the taste profile of this. It is slightly tangly which is great. The Greek salad is a strange creature, it could be forgiven for looking something slight boring, but its taste makes you immediately forget those thoughts.
Don’t forgot those Kalamata olives, they don’t seem like cheap knock offs, they have that glorious briny taste, that is both lush and overwhelming all at once. Ahh that damn Greek cheese, why must you be so addictive. Again it’s a generous portion, and serves well to counter balance the taste of the salad greens.
Chicken souvlaki with home fries and tomato sauce
Olive Bangkok has provided great sauces which makes for quite a taste sensation. The hummus really benefits from the lemon taking a bath in the middle. The chicken was quite nicely done. We took the pockets of pita bread and stuffed all the ingredients together with a generous dollop of sauce to make our own ‘to go’ version. Lovely!
Falafel
What can be said about the humble FALAFEL? Well for those that are unfamiliar, the falafel is a deep-fried ball, or a flat or doughnut-shaped patty, made from ground chickpeas, fava beans, or both. Often herbs, spices, and onion relatives are commonly added to the process to heighten its flavour, this is course up to the restaurant in terms of their secret approach! . It is a well-known Middle Eastern dish that most likely originated in Egypt.
Olive Bangkok do a nice falafel, lightly spice, but I do find its helps to add sauce and dips to really ensure it delights the palette!
The Homemade Tomato Sauce
A tip, order double the home-made tomato sauce, you’re gonna love it. It coming up with this, Olive Bangkok first thought was to avoid serving store bought ketchup. They were concerned that is full of addictive, colouring, sugar and flour, they decided to make our own homemade ketchup. It is a very complex recipe in order to arrive at the right taste and texture involving more than 15 ingredients.
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