Purple Rice: Violet Grains, Bangkok Heat, and a Thai Table in Forbestown
Some restaurants name themselves after the carb that carries the meal. Purple Rice does exactly that — a mound of lavender rice that reads like a dessert but behaves like the anchor for curries, som tum, and chili-forward soups. The room trades under the longer title Bangkok Spice Bar & Kitchen, but everyone finds it by color: purple logo, purple grain, green facade tucked into BGC’s Forbestown strip. This post walks the meal and the blocks around it — marble table spreads, gold flatware on branded napkins, the storefront neon promising OPEN TILL 11PM, and the metal-tree sculptures in the park a short stroll away.
📜 OG ORIGINS: From Sustainable Roots to a Spice Bar
The brand’s own story centers on founders Arthur and Alex, raised with ties to sustainable agriculture and a father who is Thai — a mix they frame as the bridge between Bangkok street-food memory and Filipino hospitality. What began as that fusion of passions became Purple Rice: Thai cooking with a contemporary plate, signature anthocyanin-tinted rice, and a mission statement heavy on sustainability and “Southeast Asian culinary innovation.” The flagship Forbestown room sits alongside outposts in Salcedo Makati, SM North EDSA, SM Bacoor, and SM Pampanga, but BGC is the origin story visitors from the business district quote most often.
Service philosophy on their site leans on warm overlap — Sawasdee meeting salamat — and a dine-in promise that feels less like a chain checklist than a family narrative written large on the wall.
🏛️ OG FRONT: Gable, Glass, and Late Lights
You spot the house before the menu: lowercase purple rice in violet neon, a bowl-and-grain icon, and a gold chofah-style crest lifted from temple rooflines — Thailand in silhouette above green panels and dark louvers. Through the glass, diamond lanterns hang like stained sugar, and a pumpkin-orange neon band reads OPEN TILL 11PM, which matters in a district where kitchens sometimes chase reservations over hunger. Upstairs, another dining tier glows; a board hints at krapow and the everyday Bangkok canon translated for Taguig.
Find it: 152 Forbeswood Heights, 29th Street, Forbestown Road, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig — the Greenway / Burgos orbit where residential towers meet restaurant rows.
🍽️ OG SPREAD: Heat, Sour, and the Violet Anchor
Three grey bowls on white marble tell a full Thai arc in one photograph: tom yum glowing red under oil and herbs, green-papaya som tum tangled with peanut and cilantro under a crown of salted egg, and the namesake plate — purple rice beside a creamy orange curry crowded with seafood and a stalk of lemongrass laid like a compass needle. Color-blocking is part of the cuisine; here it is also the branding argument made edible.
💜 OG GRAIN: Dome, Napkin, Gold
Closer in, the rice becomes topography — a packed hemisphere of violet long grain tucked against sauced squid or cuttlefish in a turmeric-kissed gravy, scallions scattered like confetti. The paper liner spells it out: purple rice and the tagline The Authentic Taste of Thai, flanked by ornate gold spoon and fork that elevate the casual starch into something ceremony-adjacent. A milky glass at the edge hints at Thai milk tea sweetness waiting after the chilies win.
🌳 OG WALK: “The Trees” and the Lane Home
Lunch done, the neighborhood rewards walking: wide asphalt, striped crossings, and Reynato Paz Contreras’s The Trees — twin globes of welded canopy on muscular trunks, part sculpture, part shade fiction on real grass. Residential glass rises behind; cars murmur at the edge. This is the softer side of BGC, where pets cross lawns and the skyline steps back one block from High Street’s retail roar.
🐕 OG LAWN: Dogs, Bikes, Second Lap
From another angle, the twin spheres read like portals made of branches — riders parked at yellow racks, scrubs-and-dog-walker vignettes on the turf, CCTV and polite signage reminding everyone to clean up after pets. It is the anti-mall counterweight: still manicured, still BGC, but slower than the indoor meal you left behind. Circle once and the spice memory fades into leaf shadow.
✨ OG VERDICT
Purple Rice earns its name on the plate: unmistakable rice, Thai cues on the facade and menu, and a founder story that stitches Bangkok appetite to Manila warmth. Pair dinner here with a lap around the metal trees — same postcode, different tempo. If you are navigating by pin, anchor to Forbeswood Heights on 29th Street / Forbestown Road; bring appetite and, if you burn easily on chili, a cold Thai tea waiting at the rim.
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