Sukhumvit Soi 11 and only about 200 meters, Contrazi occupies a stand-alone house. Contrazi serves Italian and Thai cuisine in a restaurant that's divided into two parts: the contemporary bright and white Italian dining room on the ground floor is wrapped with windows and possesses a modern setting with glass-topped tables, wood-and-metal cocktail bar, and an amateurish wine cellar. The authentic Thai dining room upstairs is more formal with carved wooden panels, teak furniture and staff in Thai dress.

From the Thai menu, we had minced pork and shrimp wrapped in egg net. The egg net was fine like thread and the meat well seasoned. Another appetiser; goong sarong, which featured deep-fried tiger prawn wrapped with egg noodle and served with sweet chilli sauce. I had sang wa goong mae nam phao or spicy shrimp sauce served with grilled river prawn and mixed fresh vegetables and it was delicious. Shifting to Italian cuisine, we tried mixed antipasti which included parma ham and honeydew melon, plus battered, deep-fried calamari and baby octopus, marinated yellowtail with watercress salad and duck liver terrine. The focaccia with mascarpone and truffle oil was a good choice of pizza. The extra thin and crispy pizza bread stuffed with mascarpone cheese was very addictive. For a main course, I had pan-roasted duck breast over raisin spinach, apple salsa and duck jus. The dish had a generous portion of tender duck meat on top of the well prepared spinach. These were accompanied with extremely smooth mashed potato and apple salsa. To end the meal we had bua loy phuak. Made with flour balls, taro cubes and young coconut flesh in warm coconut milk, not too sweet it was great.

NOT A MEMBER OF THE VIP CLUB.