Long Chim

C says:

At first glance, Long Chim is a bit puzzling. It's located at the posh side of Marina Bay Sands, directly above the casino, so you expect it to be quite fancy, and the decor certainly is. But then you get seriously old school music blasting from the speakers (Backstreet Boys? Ace of Base?!), and it all seems a bit incongruous. Eventually we figured that it's meant to channel the whole street food in Thailand vibe. It's strange but I like it. 

As for the food, we had all been warned that the food was unrelentingly spicy. While I was looking forward to it, the rest of the party wasn't. In the end, I think we ended being steered towards all the non-spicy dishes, so I was a bit let down on the spice front. 

Definitely not disappointed taste-wise though. Everything was very tasty and surprisingly not pretentious. The starters of fish cake and cured pork nuggets both packed a ton of flavour.

The chargrilled squid was really good, with very tender squid and a tasty rempah that was more spice than heat. 

Even the beef noodles with sriracha and the glass noodle salad were oddly not spicy. They were tasty but I can't help but feel like they could have benefited from a bit more heat. 

The only dish that packed some heat was a stir-fried soft shell crab, and even then, it was spicy simply relative to everything else. 

They do really yummy Thai-inspired cocktails, including one that channels all the flavours of mango sticky rice. Pity that the dessert menu is so uninspired though.

Their last orders are at 10.30 so it's a pretty good place for a late-ish meal. Next time I'm definitely going to seek out the spicy dishes. 

A says:

Surprisingly affordable. Great way to have Thai street food without getting diarrhoea. 

Nakhon Kitchen

C says:

Nakhon Kitchen, a no-frills Thai eatery, has opened up along Pasir Panjang Road (just down the road from Manhill), giving E-Sarn a run for their money. Prices are lower and the food is, in my opinion, better, so it's quite a no-brainer that this has quickly become our new go-to place, both for Thai and for a cheap, simple dinner out.

We've tried a variety of dishes and so far most of them have been good. Some highlights are:

Thai-style fried kang kong - this has chilli padi for added kick, and the garlicky gravy is addictive.

Deep fried pork with garlic. We're still hunting for an elusive replacement for Two Fat Men's grilled pork neck, but this fried pork is pretty tasty.

Green curry. This is thick and flavorful and definitely beats the green curry at E-Sarn.

Their basil chicken rice is unapologetically simple but addictively tasty.

Surprisingly, their creamy tom yam soup and stuffed chicken wings, in comparison, missed the mark. Still, we've barely scratched the surface with the menu so I'm sure we'll find our favourites in due course.

A says:

The food is above average. The service is good. The seating is kinda cramped. I wouldn't go at peak period but it's going to be a regular option for late dinners in our hood.

Nakhon Kitchen
87 Pasir Panjang Road
Tel: 6473-3396
Open daily: 11.30 am - 3 pm; 6 - 9 pm

Porn’s Sexy Thai Food

C says:

Porn’s officially has the cutest logo ever. With 3 other outlets at Liang Seah, Junction 10 at Woodlands and SAFRA Mt Faber, the new outlet at Star Vista is probably the most (or only) convenient one for us.

Porn’s is short for Pornsak Prajakwit, owner, restauranteur and apparently a Mediacorp TV host. We stumbled upon the newly opened Star Vista branch when we were exploring the many restaurant options in the mall.

Both the tom yam soup and the pad thai fared well. The tom yam looked anaemic but true to authentic tom yam, this slowly but surely packed quite a punch. I was very impressed with the heat and the pretty bold flavours. They were generous with the fresh seafood inside as well.

The pad thai was a little on the sweet side, but otherwise I thought it was a fairly good version of the dish. I would’ve liked a little more acid and a little less sweetness, but overall quite impressive.

Their appetizers were less successful. The stuffed chicken wings were quite average, with the filling lacking any definitive character. The most disappointing though, was the grilled pork. Perhaps it was inevitable (and unfair) that we compared this to the grilled pork neck from Two Fat Men. This was pretty much the antithesis of Two Fat Men’s stellar version of the dish – no smoky grilled flavour, lean and dry pork, and a dipping sauce that was lacklustre and had absolutely no discernible flavour.

There’s some potential, given that 50% of the dishes we had were pretty good. Unfortunately it’s just left me with a craving for Two Fat Men’s grilled pork.

A says:

Decent food. But not exactly great. I guess the lack of a condiment tray in a thai joint is an indicator of how good the food will be. The thai iced tea rocked though. And I wouldn’t mind a revisit.

Porn’s Sexy Thai Food

1 Vista Exchange Green

#02-09 Star Vista

Tel: 6694-3501

Open daily: 11 am to 10 pm

www.porns.com.sg

Sticky Rice

C says:

The new Clementi Mall is still very much a work-in-progress. Currently only the basement shops, and some limited shops on Level 1, are open for business. Most of the shops that have opened are the eateries, as well as a new Fairprice Finest supermarket, which was our reason for coming here today.

Most of the eateries that are currently open are pretty generic – Subway, Long John Silvers, BK, Toast Box, etc. Which is why Sticky Rice stood out as being one of the few non-chain eateries there. That, and the fact that they’d just opened and had grand opening floral stands outside…

Sticky Rice is a Thai bistro, serving fairly traditional interpretations of popular Thai dishes. A had the pad thai, which took a while to find on the menu because it was descriptively named as Fried Rice Noodles with Seafood or something like that, and I had the tom yam noodle soup.

Service was very good – the manager asked if we needed any help, so we asked if we could change (a) the seafood in the pad thai to chicken, and (b) the noodles in the tom yam from rice vermicelli to glass noodles. He agreed to both without hesitation, which is a big plus point for me. I hate places which are overly rigid where this is concerned, even when I indicate that I’m prepared to pay any top-up (Old Town springs to mind).



A’s pad thai was ok, but somehow the balance of sweet/salty/sour flavours just seemed a bit off. Certain mouthfuls felt too sweet, some felt too tart.

I quite enjoyed my tom yam noodles, which I think were better than the pad thai. Quite generous with the seafood, and not overly sweet.


Unfortunately, we ordered a red ruby for dessert and this was extraordinarily bad. Granted, our benchmark is the one at A-roy Thai, but this was way below average. The rubies were pretty tasteless, there was too much ice, and instead of coconut milk they used evaporated or something. And very little of it. Resulting in a bland, icy, tasteless disaster.

Definitely not a destination place, but until something interesting opens up in Clementi Mall, this is probably the least generic of the lot.

A says:

Great service from the head staff, but the rest were a bit blur. The food’s decent, but some flavours overwhelm others. Also, the red rubies and thai iced tea are disappointing.

Still, this is probably going to be our default choice in Clementi Mall.

Sticky Rice
#B1-08/09, The Clementi Mall

Bangkok Jam

C says:

This is a slightly random post, but we were at Great World City today and decided to try Bangkok Jam for lunch which, as its name suggests, serves Thai food with a modern twist.

We were both drawn to the fried noodles with crab and bacon. This was good – what’s there not to like, with noodles, crab and bacon? A found the noodles a tad too dry though, as they started clumping up and had to be loosened with some soup.

The tom yum kway teow soup was ok, but I found it a little too sweet and without the added chilli padi, it lacked a bit of kick. I must say they were very generous with the ingredients though – full of seafood and mushrooms.

My favourite, unsurprisingly, was the chicken wing starter. First off, they only serve the wing portion, and to make it even easier to eat, they cut that into half. It was served with dried chilli, cashew nuts and some very addictive but potent fried garlic.

We were quite surprised that the place was almost full for a weekday lunch, but after trying the food it was understandable. The food was better than expected and fairly reasonable, and I think we’ll be coming back for more whenever we’re at Great World.

A says:

Surprisingly good. The Thai Iced Tea wasn’t as great as I expected though.

Bangkok Jam
1 Kim Seng Promenade
#02-26 Great World City
Tel: 6732-4523
Weekdays: 11.30 am – 3 pm; 6 pm – 10 pm
Weekends: 11.30 am – 10 pm
www.bangkokjam.com.sg

Thai Central

C says:

Our austerity drive seems to be bringing us to the Upper Bukit Timah area with alarming frequency. Tonight we decided to try Thai Central, which is just across the road from Old Town. Being our first time here, we made a point to only order dishes that said “chef’s recommendation”.


To start with, we shared the Thai stuffed chicken wings. Interestingly, they have a separate Thai chicken wings on the menu, without the “chef’s recommendation”. Maybe next time we’ll try those. The stuffed wings were pretty ok – then again, how wrong can they go? The stuffing had a hint of kaffir lime leaves which was an interesting twist.


Just like instant noodles at cha chan tengs, we tend to test new Thai places with their pad thai and tom yam noodle soup dishes. A had the pad thai, I had a seafood tom yam soup with glass noodles (tung hoon). The pad thai fared better than the tom yam – it was pretty well fried, and the sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours were all very well balanced.


My tom yam soup was quite sour, but refreshingly so. My issue with it was the absolute lack of ingredients. There was a huge clump of tung hoon, but just a handful of ingredients – 2 small prawns, a few measly slices of fish, a couple of tiny pieces of squid and a few straw mushrooms.

Still, prices are fairly decent and the service is excellent. We’ll have to come back and try their curries before coming to a firm conclusion.

A says:

Very good service. Decent quality food. Proof that when you go into a place with low expectations, they’ll generally impress you.

Thai Central
16 Chun Tin Road
Tel: 6469-4862
Daily: 11.30 am to 10.30 pm

Emerald Garden Thai Food

C says:

Emerald Garden is another stall within the Bar Bar Black Sheep establishment along Cherry Avenue. I can’t believe A voluntarily chose Thai food tonight, over Wishbone and the prospect of a chocolate milkshake! Will wonders never cease…


We had the pork pad thai, the stir fried chicken with basil and chilli and a bowl of steamed rice. I quite liked the pad thai – there was a very good balance of flavours, without any one flavour dominating, and it wasn’t too dry either.


In comparison, the stir fried chicken was a tad boring but I actually preferred it to the pad thai. I’m quite a sucker for a simple stir fry eaten with hot plain rice, so this just struck a chord with me. Also explains how I can crave take-out Chinese food when I’m on holiday (Panda Express in Vegas, for example).

This is by no means our default Thai place – that would probably be A-Roy Thai. But if we’re in the Bukit Timah area and somehow don’t feel like eating anything else in the area, this is a pretty decent option. Now we just need to try the Indian stall at the same joint; it was closed when we were there tonight.

A says:

I’d pay the $10 for the Phad Thai, but I don’t think the chicken is worth $13. A bit expensive but worth considering for a quick Thai around Bukit Timah.

Sweet Salty Spicy

C says:

Sweet Salty Spicy has been around for ages, and yet we choose to try it barely a week after our trip to Bangkok… It’s located at Rail Mall, and possibly occupies the 2 units that used to be Rocky’s Pizza. Because it’s part restaurant, part deli/grocery store, I figured it would be quite casual, but while it’s definitely not a dress-up-for place, it was a lot more chic than I expected.

The place is a collaboration of sorts, between Chef Christopher Millar of Poppi restaurant, and Victor Chia, who owns and runs the famous vegetable stall at Tekka Market, and who supplies all the fresh herbs and vegetables to the deli.


We passed on the pad thai for today, and instead ordered plain rice with a couple of dishes. The beef curry was similar to a rendang, but they use Angus beef so it was meltingly tender. It was also labelled one of the spicy dishes but it totally wasn’t spicy at all, not even for A. The only thing I didn't like about this was that the rempah (spice paste) wasn’t ground finely enough, so the gravy still had bits of herbs and spices in it, which made for a slightly unpleasant experience with the bits getting caught between your teeth or grazing your throat as you swallow.


We ordered a grilled squid from the grill section of the menu, and this was excellent. The squid was tender, it had a wonderfully charred and smoky flavour, and went perfectly with the slightly tart dipping sauce. I’m definitely ordering more items from the grill menu if this is any indication of their standard.



There are some local desserts here as well as a wide array of cakes. We were tempted by the giant Double Chocolate cake, but decided to be more traditional, and tried the Coconut Custard tart, and the steamed banana pudding. The banana pudding was a bit odd, and given that it took ages to arrive, I don't think it was worth the wait. I quite liked the tart, which tasted like a high-end version of a Bengawan Solo kueh, but given a choice I’ll probably forego desserts in future, in favour of other items from the main menu.

Service is a tad erratic, though. There are quite a lot of staff running around, but they all seemed to have very specific designated duties, because when we tried to get the attention of one of them, who seemed to be just chilling out talking to another waitress who was in charge of desserts, he simply gesticulated to another waiter then carried right on talking. Also, trying to find parking around Rail Mall is still a bit of a bitch, but this place is worth checking out. I just can’t believe that it’s taken us almost a year to finally try it out.

A says:

The food is pretty good but you don’t get a very large selection and the portions are smaller than I expected for the price.

I was impressed by the service when we arrived but things went downhill after we were served. Other than the woman who first served us and the guy I assume was the head waiter, the rest of the wait staff seemed more like bus boys pressed into service rather than anything. It’s a pity about the service because I like the ambience. I’d describe it as upscale casual without being chi-chi.

Overall, I’d only come back here since it’s the best “thai” place I’ve found in the area. It’s worth checking out if you live nearby but by no means does it warrant a special trip out. If I wanted cheap Thai, I’d head for Thai Express and if I wanted really good Thai, I’d head to A-roy Thai.

Sweet Salty Spicy
392/394 Upper Bukit Timah Road
Rail Mall
Tel: 6877-2544
Mon – Fri: 11 am – 2 pm; 6 pm – 11 pm
Sat, Sun and PH: 11 am – 4 pm; 6 pm – 11 pm

Thai Express

C says:

Will wonders never cease – A actually chose to come here on his own accord! No arm-twisting from me or anything. He came here with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and realised that besides pad thai and pineapple rice, there’s actually other Thai food that he can eat, and the standard here isn’t too bad either.


For a start, we had the stuffed chicken wings, which were decent but not as good as some of the others that I’ve tried. The stuffing was less pork/prawn, and more like fishcake which wasn’t quite as flavourful.


A came here specifically to have the soft shell crab curry, and I must say it was very interesting and pretty tasty. The menu stated that this dish was created to celebrate the wedding of a Thai chef and a Japanese chef. Aww… The curry tasted like a mix of Japanese curry and local chilli crab, and with deep fried soft shell crab with no messy shells to worry about, what’s there not to like?


I was deciding between a number of tung hoon (glass noodles) dishes. I ended up having the tung hoon soup with egg and chicken balls. This was ok but I definitely needed the chilli padi. Next time I’m either trying the tom yam tung hoon, or the stir fried tung hoon with prawns that the other table were having.


We shared a red ruby, which surprisingly came with coconut ice cream rather than coconut milk. The rubies lacked the more intense rose flavour of those at A-Roy Thai, but all in all, the ice cream gave it a nice twist.

One caveat is that while the food was much better than expected for a chain restaurant, don’t come here expecting the same standard as A-Roy Thai. To me, that’s the real deal, whereas Thai Express is still a local version of Thai cuisine. As long as you bear that in mind and keep your expectations in check, you’ll probably be as pleasantly surprised as we were.

A says:

Props to my friend S for suggesting this place. The staff at this branch try hard but can be a bit blur. Food-wise, the standard is not bad but it can be hit or miss. I’d recommend the main dishes but not the starters or desserts.

Thai Express
The Heeren Shops
260 Orchard Road, #05-10
Tel: 6734-0877
Mon – Thurs: 11.30 am to 10.30 pm
Fri – Sun: 11.30 am to 11 pm
http://www.thaiexpress.com.sg/

A-Roy Thai

C says:

We’ve been trying to get more people to come to A-Roy Thai with us, so that we can try more dishes other than the tom yum noodles and pineapple rice that we inevitably order when it’s just the two of us. We hadn’t been successful until Saturday night, when we finally managed to find takers in the form of M, J and baby E.

Some of the new dishes that we ordered were the Pad Thai, A-Roy Thai Fried Rice (rice fried with garlic, carrots and spring onion), Fried Kailan with Roast Pork, Green Curry Chicken and the Claypot Tung-hoon with Prawns.



The fried rice was pretty ordinary. The Pad Thai though, was excellent. Light, not greasy, and savoury, spicy and sour all at the same time, thanks to the generous dose of lime that was added (in addition to the lime wedge that came with the dish). Beansprouts and diced taupok added to the texture. If Pad Thai is the mark of how good a Thai restaurant is, then A-Roy Thai is way up there.


The baby kalian with roast pork was barely Thai – indeed, it looked like a typical vege stirfry from any zi char stall. One bite and you can tell that it’s on a different level from zi char though. The taste of the gravy just blew us away – garlicky, rich and intense, it somehow absorbed the flavours of the roast belly pork. Delicious.


The green curry wasn’t spectacular, but the claypot vermicelli (tung hoon) with prawns was a winner. Huge amounts of ginger, garlic and peppercorns were buried under the pile of tunghoon, infusing the noodles with an amazing medley of flavours. An added bonus – the prawns were shelled! Woohoo!! I’m SO ordering this for myself when we next go.

Besides sharing a couple of bowls of the awesome red ruby, the four of us also shared a small plate of the tapioca with coconut milk. Bearing in mind that A and I are both not fans of this dish, we still ate a considerable amount of it. They do it so well here that it’s really addictive.


Another truly satisfying meal here. I needn’t have worried that they may close down, because the place was packed on Saturday night, with a number of Thais dining there. Another sign that this place is the real thing.

A says:

Very good desserts. While the food is good, I think I’d rather go to Tuk Tuk (a more convenient one, not the Beach Road one).

A-Roy Thai
109 North Bridge Road
#04-06 Funan Centre
Tel: 6338-3880
Open daily: 11.30 am to 3 pm; 6 pm to 10 pm

Thai Noodle House

C says:

We just discovered the stretch of eateries along Coronoation Road, right before Coronation Plaza. I always thought there was just a chicken rice stall there, but to our surprise there were about five different eateries, all selling Asian food. We tried Thai Noodle House today, because there was more choice for A than the rest of the joints. It seems fairly authentic – the owner and waitstaff appear to be Thai, and there are photos of the Thai king on the wall.


I ordered the tom yam noodle, and asked for it to be served with tung hoon. They claim that tung hoon is more expensive than regular noodles, so charged an extra $2. To be fair, A-Roy Thai said the same thing as well, so at least they’re not (I think, anyway) trying to pull a fast one. The tom yam noodle wasn’t bad, and I love tom yam soup with tung hoon, but it still doesn’t beat the tom yam noodle at A-Roy Thai. Still, the seafood was nice and fresh.


With so many interesting dishes on offer, like a rice with minced pork and basil leaf, A chose the single most boring thing on the menu – pineapple rice AGAIN. I had to say “I told you so”, because the one here is quite mediocre – pretty bland and not really tasting of anything in particular.

We also had the red ruby but we ordered it to go, so by the time we had it the ice had melted and it was almost lukewarm. Again, can’t beat the one at A-Roy Thai. All in all, this place isn’t spectacular, and I don’t think the food is worth the rather steep prices – our dishes were $8 each. I’d rather head over to A-Roy Thai any day, but I guess this place is worth considering if we ever get an insatiable Thai food craving while we’re in the Bukit Timah area.

A says:

Food is okay, but I’d rather go to A-Roy Thai (tastes better) or Tuk Tuk Thai (cheaper).

Thai Noodle House
5 Coronation Road
#01-03 Coronation Arcade
Tel: 6467-0104
Open daily: 11.30 am to 9.30 pm; closed Mondays

Diandin Leluk Thai Restaurant

C says:

Will wonders never cease? A actually agreed to have Thai food again today! When he was working in the Beach Road area, he tried this place a couple of times, and decided to bring me here to try it.

The restaurant is actually a branch of the Tuk Tuk Thai family, with other outlets at Suntec and Amoy Street, to name a few. It’s located in Golden Mile Complex, the infamous Thai hangout along Beach Road.

There were loads of things on the menu that I wanted to try, but we ended up having a Tom Yam soup (for me), and a rice with basil chicken (for A). The basil chicken was very good – very fragrant and tasty, and surprisingly packed quite a punch from the bits of chilli padi that were thrown into the mix.


My Tom Yam was really good – the stock was really rich, so the tom yam soup wasn’t just clear orange but slightly murky. It was packed with lemongrass, galangal slices and kaffir lime leaves, adding to the very heady and authentic flavour. The seafood was passable – the squid pieces were a little on the chewy side, but it was still very shiok (note: later in the afternoon I certainly paid the price for slurping up all of the fiery broth).


They do a good iced tea and lemongrass juice here too. Next time we’re here, I want to try the green curry and pineapple rice. Oh, and if you’re into ‘street food’, they operate a stall opposite the restaurant selling all manner of things on sticks – whole catfish, chicken legs, livers and other strange things. Very interesting indeed.


A says:

Considering I don’t like “exotic” food, I could actually eat almost everything here (I still won’t touch anything with Tom Yam in the name though). Prices are also very reasonable considering you get pretty big portions for the more expensive dishes.

Diandin Leluk Thai Restaurant
5001 Beach Road
#01-67/68
Golden Mile Complex
Tel: 6293-5101

A-Roy Thai revisited

C says:

In our trademark boring fashion, when we went to A-Roy Thai again on Friday night, we had the exact same dishes as we did the last time we were here. But now that we’ve just acquired a new camera, we’ve got some photos of the food. This is the tom yam kuay teow soup.



One of the friendly owners spotted me fishing out the slices of lemongrass which, though I like the fragrance to perfume the soup, it’s too hard to actually eat. She said in future, I can ask them to just smash up a stalk of lemongrass so that I get the flavour, but it’s still easily removable.

We did try something new – the red ruby dessert. We shared one but next time we’re totally going to have one bowl each.


It was delicious – really thick coconut milk, and the actual red rubies were nice and sweet and had a distinct rose syrup aroma, unlike more mass produced red rubies where the red stuff is just starchy and flavourless.

I think my tom yam kuay teow cravings have been duly satiated, so next time we come here, I think I’ll try the claypot tung hoon with prawns. Yum…

A says:

I’m really surprised that the place was almost full when we went on the Friday night. With more customers, the service can be slow at times. The older staff are really nice and efficient but the younger ones tend to look confused and overwhelmed.

It appears A-Roy Thai is going to be our place of choice for Thai food now. While I’m still not a fan of Thai food in general, I’m hooked on the iced coffee and red rubies. I wouldn’t recommend it if you can’t take things really sweet or coconutty though.

A-Roy Thai

C says:

This calls for a celebration! For the first time, A and I actually voluntarily had Thai food! Usually when we have Thai, it’s because either friends or family choose the dining venue and A has no choice but to agree. But on Saturday we went to Funan to check out cameras, and somehow ended up in this Thai place for lunch. Of course, he still ordered his usual pineapple rice but this was already no small achievement.

The pineapple rice was very good; I ordered a stuffed chicken wing, and a tom yam kuay teow soup. The chicken wing was lovely and juicy, and the crab and pork stuffing was loaded with garlic. I was surprised with the tom yam – I expected the usual red tom yam soup but this was clear. I was slightly dubious that it wouldn’t be spicy enough so I asked for some chilli padi. I needn’t have worried though, because although it looked innocuous, the soup really packed a punch. Between the spiciness of the soup and the additional chilli padi that I added to the seafood, I was almost knocked out by the end of lunch.

This was a surprising and very pleasant discovery. I just hope it can last in Funan, because I don’t expect many Funan patrons to be all that keen on authentic Thai food. Whenever we’re in the area, we’ll definitely come back again.

A says:

The only reason I agreed was because I wasn’t hungry to begin with. Also cause I saw the Makansutra recommendation on the door and figured the place couldn’t screw up a pineapple rice that badly. That being said, the pineapple rice was damn good. And the Thai Iced Coffee RAWKED! Definitely a must have if we ever go back.

The place isn’t cheap though. It’s a proper restaurant and not some Jerk Thai place. They give you a nice appetiser of small prawn crackers and sweet chilli sauce (really spicy). The service is excellent which may be since the place wasn’t crowded. Some of the staff are Thai though, so it may be hard to understand what they’re saying.

As Thai places go, this is one of the best I’ve been to. I’d still rather do Jap or Italian.