Eat Rice & Noodle is a small 66 sq.m. restaurant located in EmQuartier’s basement food court and specializes in Thai comfort food.
Since street food is an essential part of everyday life in Thailand, Eat has been designed with the intention of capturing its banal experience and make it feel unique. To achieve this, Onion was inspired by awnings that are commonly found on street stalls. Not only do these awnings protect people from the sun and the rain, but they also serve as a way of marking the stall’s boundary. This idea, combined with other elements that can be found around street restaurants such as flat lamps and wooden furniture, are brought together by recreating them with one single material. Using bleached ashwood as a primary element, the grimy, rough-and-tumble feel of a street stall is given a softer but still down to earth ambiance.
Another important feature of the restaurant is the visual interaction that happens between the chef and the customers: By exposing the kitchen area the diners are able to see the chef prepare their food, whether it is frying, tossing, boiling etc. This activity calls to mind the experience of eating at a local street stall, where the cook is preparing food right in front of the customer.
As a finishing touch, the restaurant’s floor and tables are sprinkled with red chili pepper patterns which can also be found on Eat’s logo.
Area : 66 sq.m
Location : EmQuartier
Year of completion : April 2015
Interior Designer: Onion
Photograph by Wison Tungthunya
