If what you want is southern Thai cuisine without the ferocious heat profile, then Sathorn Soi 10’s Plaagut might be for you.

Tucked amid a tasteful complex that also includes a coffee shop (The Running Dog Cafe), this converted residence—all blond wood, white walls and glass—serves tried-and-tested southern classics in an inoffensive if a bit bland setting. Adding to the restaurant’s bourgeois credentials are a few off-street parking spaces, a lawn for your dog to run about, and a decent lemon meringue pie (from the neighboring coffee shop).

But the real focus is on tried-and-tested southern classics, most of which are executed without great fireworks. There’s a khua kling (B190) that foregoes the fiery combination of minced pork and super-dry curry paste in favor of sliced protein moistly flash fried in a gentle but fragrant paste—lacking in earthy substance but amply portioned and tasty.

The goong pad sator (prawns and Thai stink beans, B350) has a tangy undercurrent of shrimp paste, but why not some more stink beans in there? Instead, what should be the focal ingredient competes against chunks of onion and flavorless chili peppers.

More successful is Plaagut’s yellow crabmeat curry with kanomjeen (fermented rice noodles, B350). Thick, creamy, well-portioned and not lacking in meat, it comfortably justifies the price and betters most of the ones we’ve been served in recent years. The fluffy crabmeat omelet (B250) doesn’t skimp on the protein, though we could do without the burned edges of our last visit.

There’s no pretending that the food here matches up to Bangkok’s biggest southern cuisine stars (we’re talking Khua Kling Pak Sod, Baan Ice, Prai Raya, Klang Suan) but they’re all awfully far from this part of town. To that end, we—confirmed Sathorn-dwellers that we are—can well imagine ourselves back in the Plaagut dining room, bottle of prosecco (B1,590) cooling beside the table. Corkage B200

Credit: www.facebook.com/Plaagut