Kapao Thai Restaurant

September 2023
How does Thai cuisine differ from other Asian cuisines?
At Kapao Restaurant you will find out.

Nir Hajbi owner and founder of Kapao Restaurant, fell in love with Thai cuisine. He attended cooking school in Thailand to perfect his skill. Anxious to share his enthusiasm for this cuisine with Israel, he brought the cuisine back home, and opened hs first Kapao restaurant in Bet Shemesh. Seven successful years later he opened this branch in Petach Tikva.


What characterizes Thai food is its contrasts. A single dish will be both sweet and spicy and a single dish will be both hot and cold. Thai food often pairs hot spices with sweet, light citrus flavors like lime and mango. Hot spicy soup is paired with flavoed rice at room temperature. And the unique dessert described at the end of this page pairs warm sweet rice with cold mango sorbet.

My companion and I visited Kapao in Petach Tikva midafternoon, during business lunch hours. Kapao is a corner restaurant on the first floor of the BSR building. We zipped right up to the first floor in the elevator from the underground parking.

The business lunch at Kapao is the best deal in town. For the price of your main course, you get a small starter of your choice. If you prefer sushi, you get two rolls for the price of one. This is an offer that you cannot refuse. My companion chose one of the main courses with a starter of chicken wings and I chose two sushi rolls.

I want the California roll, I said, but with baked fish instead of the raw fish on the menu. Not a problem. Any of the sushi rolls with uncooked sushi, the waitress told us, can be made with cooked salmon instead. I chose the California inside out roll, listed with raw fish, but prepared with baked salmon. Just right. The sushi was exacting, tight, and in perfect bite size pieces.

Now choose a second roll, she said. You get two rolls for the price of one during the business hours. Now that's a deal! I quick chose the tempura roll with baked salmon. How much sushi can one person eat? Not a problem for my companion.

While I worked on the sushi rolls my companion dug into his portion of Pik Gai glazed chicken wings. The small portion was more than enough for a lunch with a full main course.

For his main course my companion chose the Gaeng Kio Waan Gai a soupy stew with chicken and vegetables in a curry sauce with coconut milk and basil.Out came a covered soup tureen with a large mound of jasmine rice on a separate plate. This dish was a Thai version of chicken soup - that my grandmother never envisioned. All the dishes on the menu can be tweaked to your taste. Dishes with chicken can be made with tofu (veggie) or, for another 10 shekels, Entrecote beef.

This dish is marked "spicy" on the menu which turned out to be an understatement. As he ate tears ran down his face. He balanced the spicy dish by spooning some of the rice into the soup mixture, combining the jasmine flavor of the rice with the flavors of the soup. With tears rolling down his cheeks I would have thought that he was suffering but the opposite was the case. He enjoyed every last bite of this dish.

At eLuna we know desserts. With respect, most Asian restaurants buy the desserts from the same third-party supplier and once you have tried one, no need to go back again. Perusing the online menu my eyes fell on the Mango Sticky Rice dessert. That's a dessert? bring it on!

The sweet sticky rice, served warm, is cooked in coconut milk and is sprinkled with crunchy coconut flakes. The scoop of cold mango sorbet is a great contrast. It was so delicious I had to ask how they made it. And don't tell me with milk. This is a special dessert from the Thai culinary tradition and is not to be missed. It is unique and we have not seen this in any other restaurant.

Location: Kapao is a corner restaurant on the first floor above ground. An escalator will take you up one flight or take the glass elevator up from the underground parking. . .

Location: Kapao is a corner restaurant on the first floor above ground in the commercial center of the BSR building. An escalator will take you up one flight or take the glass elevator up from the underground parking

Parking: underground parking in the BSR building. Ask the restaurant to stamp your parking card for 2 hours of free parking.

The Business Lunch and eLuna Discount: From noon till 5pm the restaurant offers 2 sushi rolls for the price of one and a small starter of your choice with your main course. The restaurant will extend the 1 + 1 on sushi rolls from 5pm - 7pm for eLuna members presenting the eLuna coupon (printed or on the phone)

From the Menu
Popiah tod Eggroll starter NIS 27
Pik Gai chicken wings starter NIS 39
Gaeng Kio Waan Gai ( chicken stew and rice) NIS74
spicy avocado sushi Roll lNIS 49
California roll NIS 49
Mango sticky rice dessert NIS 36