Thursday 23 April 2026

Good morning Bangkok. Happy Thursday.

🌡️ Weather: 34-36°C (93-97°F). Hot to very hot. Another high-pressure system pushing in from China today through Saturday expect clear, intense sunshine with a possible afternoon storm window. TMD has flagged gusty conditions through April 25 for upper Thailand. UV index remains extreme.

🌫️ AQI: 138-159 (Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups- Unhealthy) as of Monday..

The shop, officially called Kham Sanya Kub Moo Tua Nan which translates directly as "The Promise to the Pig" was tucked inside a Bangchak petrol station on Srinakarin Road in Samut Prakan, and its Japanese owner had been running it quietly for eight months before a Thai woman happened across it on Google Maps and shared a review in the Facebook group Ramen Lover Association of Thailand. She wrote that she stumbled on it by chance and was genuinely impressed. The unusual name alone stopped people mid-scroll, and the post collected over 2,500 reactions and nearly 1,000 shares within days. Group members flooded in, left their own reviews, and the verdict was consistent: the ramen was very good. Then the scrutiny that comes with viral fame arrived, and it emerged that the chef had been operating without a valid work permit. He temporarily closed the shop while the paperwork situation is sorted, leaving a now-loyal and slightly bereft customer base waiting by a petrol pump in Samut Prakan.

Bottom Line: This is one of those stories that captures something true about Bangkok's food scene the genuinely great hidden spots that survive entirely on word of mouth until the internet finds them, at which point they either take off or get complicated. The name alone deserves a Michelin recommendation. Hopefully the permit situation resolves cleanly and "The Promise to the Pig" reopens, because any chef who names a ramen shop that way at a petrol station in Samut Prakan has earned the right to keep cooking.

The Senate's Economic, Financial and Fiscal Affairs Committee, chaired by Senator Kamphol Supapaeng, submitted a sweeping tax reform package to the full Senate on April 22, which will then go to Cabinet for consideration. The headline is a proposed VAT increase from 7% to 10%, a rate that was reduced during the Asian financial crisis and has been renewed annually ever since, with every government treating the return to 10% as a problem to defer rather than solve. The broader package also includes a new tax on stock trading, a tax on gold transactions covering both physical and paper gold, removal of the ฿1.8 million annual revenue threshold that exempts small businesses from VAT entirely, raising the retirement age from 60 to 65 by 2030, and increasing child tax deductions to ฿500,000 per child to encourage higher birth rates. The committee's argument is straightforward: Thailand has run a budget deficit averaging 4% of GDP for ten consecutive years, above the 3% fiscal sustainability threshold, and public debt is projected to approach or breach its legal ceiling between 2027 and 2029. The ruling Bhumjaithai Party has already stated clearly that VAT will not increase in the next two to three years, citing the need to support cost-of-living conditions while the economy recovers.

Bottom Line: This is a proposal, not a law and it faces significant political resistance from the party currently in government. But the fact that it is now formally moving through the legislative process matters, because the fiscal math the committee is citing is real and getting harder to ignore. For expats, the gold transaction tax and the removal of small business VAT exemptions are the two items most worth watching beyond the headline number. If you hold physical gold or have a small registered business in Thailand, this package is worth following closely as it moves toward Cabinet

The name means "very well" in Italian, which functions as both aspiration and ongoing verdict at this 2026 new opening hidden on the second floor of Yard49 in Thong Lo. BeneBene plays a Thai-Italian crossover with enough confidence that neither side of the equation feels like a compromise fresh local seafood given the structural treatment of Italian cooking, creating dishes that feel familiar but subtly reworked in a way that makes you pay attention. The kitchen leans into whatever is seasonal and sourced locally, so the menu moves, but the clam of the day is consistently the thing to order: always fresh, always handled cleanly, and prepared in a way that sits somewhere between a Thai coastal evening and a trattoria you once found in a fishing town by accident. Masala Thai flagged it as one of 2026's standout new openings, and the Yard49 location means it shares a building with enough other good options that it makes sense to build a proper Thursday evening around it. With a 4.4 on Google with 105 reviews.

TIP: This is a dinner spot, go with two or three people and order generously. The format rewards sharing.

(Confirm times directly before heading out.)

See you tomorrow morning.

— Devon