Tuk Tuk Thai Kitchen (East Coast)

Address: 135/137 East Coast Road, Singapore 428820
Date of Visit: 10 July 2009

The name of the place does not exactly inspire great expectations in the quality of the food. It conjures up an impression of a place just newly started up by some young aspiring restaurateur (normally scion of a rich family) who had made a trip to Thailand and made friends with some cooks and thus decided to create his own food empire back home. This incidentally would be how a significant number of our more well known eating places in Singapore are started.

The other common factor for the beginning of a cafeteria/pizzeria/bistro would be the marriage of a local person (normally female) with an expatriate (normally French, Italian, American…)  who will then hit on the idea of bringing their home cuisine (from France, Italy or USA…) into this country. More often then not they will be successful and appear in a family portrait shot on the back page of the Sunday Edition of our newspapers as a feature of the latest eats around town. Sigh…Singapore is indeed predictable.

Back to Tuk Tuk. My mother had suggested it as a place to treat my father and my grandmother. Reviews from hungrygowhere suggested that the place was well received for its food. I was skeptical but well…what the heck…food is food.

We started with the Clear Tom Yam Soup (S$10).  It was spicy and kept warm by the simple solid fuel flame underneath the pot. My grandma, the champion chili eater in the family, commented on the spiciness of the soup – an indication of the potency of the concoction.

An ongoing promotion meant that we had the Pineapple Rice for free when we order at least 3 dishes from the ala carte menu. They were acceptable as all free things go. My query would be on the pineapple bowl – where would the pineapple flesh be going? I did not happen to see any pineapple desserts feature prominently. And the rice itself had a fair amount of pineapple mixed it but not significant. Hmm…food for thought (erm…pun not intended).

The Minced Meat in Basil (S$8) is a popular one among Thai food lovers. The family had commented that the meat was on the salty side. I had no such complaints though.

The Omelette Oyster (S$12) was the crowd favourite. Our little Hokkien family loves egg. The Oysters were also not too bad and were well cooked by the hot pan – this alleviated my mother and my wife’s fear of big raw cockles. And my Grandma loved the bean sprouts that were found cooked underneath the egg.

The most expensive dish of the night was recommended by the waiter. The Crispy Seabass with a side of Mango Salad (S$30). Unfortunately, the only good thing was the Mango Salad and I do not even like Mango. The flesh of the fish was devoid of much taste – akin to eating cardboard… If you want to get fresh fish, go to the Marine Drive market and buy from the stall run by a Teochew woman and her husband (heh ..heh..please note that this is a plug for my relatives).

The speciality of the place was the Baked Crab with Beehoon (S$25). The noodles came soaked in quite a bit of the flavour of the crab.

The Crab itself was fresh. It was not a bad way to end the dinner.

All in, a pretty decent place, with decent prices. Oh…and the restaurant does not impose any 10% service charge. This was communicated to me by the above mentioned waiter …after I had already signed for the bill. A bit late I say.

Magic Wok

Address: 238 Thomson Road, #03-21, Novena Square, Singapore 307683

This Thai-Chinese cuisine eatery is located at the top floor of the Novena Square Shopping Mall. Situated within a rather spacious “alcove”, it is definitely a quiet spot to have a meal. 

The rather inspired use of fences and the lone tree in the background were the culmination of the restaurant owner’s attempt to create some sort of setting. Brings to mind Wisteria Lane, minus the bitchy but rather fetching ladies.

The food served would definitely not be seen in episodes of Desperate Housewives. The Phai Thai (S$4.80) was inexpensive and the portion was sizable. However, it just didn’t have the kick of the Phai Thai cooked by a hawker at a roadside stall in Bangkok. Probably the authenticity, not to mention that the food was a fraction of the price of our local hawker food, contributed to my preference for the latter. 

The Tom Yam Soup (S$8) was of an acceptable quality. Ingredients were added in abundance.

The Fried Vermicelli (S$4.80) was cooked in the same style as the Phai Thai. I hate it when that happens as this means that the variety of the food on hand would be significantly reduced.

Conclusion. Rather affordable place to have ok Thai Food. Portions were acceptable. Dishes were slightly on the oily side. That’s about it….

Siam Kitchen (Suntec)

Address: 3 Temasek Boulevard, Suntec City Mall, #B1-055, Singapore 038983

Another dinner with my now ex-colleagues.

This place had a lunch time ala carte buffet menu (i think it was around S$15 per head…can’t remember). We did not go for that as we did not want to eat too much for lunch.

The Kang Kong was really spicy!! I mean burn your tongue spicy. For people not into torture via chilli, please avoid this dish.

Another vegetable dish. A more benign experience.

The Pandan Chicken was up to standard.

The Fried Fish/Garoupa or something was pretty unique. The flesh of the fish was fried with a batter and served with the head and tail of the fish. The fish was fresh. Thumbs up for me on this creation.

When having Thai food (or pseudo thai), you cannot leave out the bbq squid. The consistency of the squid was a bit rubbery but that didn’t stop us from polishing up the entire contents of the plate.

Sabai

Address: 391B Orchard Road, Takashimaya Shopping Centre, Ngee Ann City, #04-23, Singapore 238872

Touted as one of the more up-market Thai restaurants in Singapore, my girlfriend and I were keen to explore the menu there… though I hesitate to think of the damage it would inflict on my financial health.

The interior of the restaurant was bathed in a red colour theme. Quite unusual for a dining place. The intention was probably to match the gold-gilded sculptures and ornamental pieces that ordoned the walls. Smartly dressed waiters prowled the grounds… ready to pounce the moment any patron shows any intention to make a request.

The waiter was intuitive enough to skip asking if I wanted to order any beverages or alcohol. He proceeded to fill my glass with good old plain and free water. Thank goodness this was not one of those establishments that skoff at demands to stick to water for the beverage of choice.

You may have encountered snooty waiters at some “atas” (Malay slang for high class) restaurant who sneer “do you want mineral or frizzy?” in an attempt to con/embarrass the diner into opting for the exhobitantly priced mineral water there (perrier, evian…). My standard retort would of course be, “I prefer TAP water please.” Seriously, any restaurant manager that refuses to serve free water should be hanged and quartered. Considering that the water supply in Singapore is potable, I do not see how hard it is for any waiter to go to a tap and fill a glass of water for their patrons. Hopefully, the said waiter does not get too creative and infuse the drink with some of his own essence.

Our first dish was synonymous with Thai food, the Tom Yam Gung (S$16.50). The soup came in a silver pot of which the contents were more than sufficient for a party of two. Spicy, hot, tasty, excellent are words that best describe the clear liquid (other establishments may serve a milky soup version where coconut milk is added). Abundant amounts of prawn, button mushrooms and lemon grass filled the pot.

Our second dish was the Gang Bpet (or Roast Duck in Green Curry, S$17.50). The colour green is not normally associated with edible things (vegetables included, with particular reference to my mum’s “healthy, no need to add salt or seasoning”, lightly sauteed greens), nevermind delicacies. But Sabai’s Green Curry is very much edible. The Green Curry was sweetened with the addition of an un-identifiable fruit (I think it was apples) and given bulk with the roast duck meat. The gravy was surprising light, the coconut milk did not overwhelm the dish, and made good accompaniment to the fragrant Thai rice (S$2.50 per person, free flow). A surprise was that they provided a side of fried cured fish. I am unsure if this was an innovation thought of by the chef or it is indeed a traditional Thai way of sampling the dish. The curry made a good dip for the crispy fish.

For our last order, I was intrigued by an item described in the menu as minced meat and prawn wrapped in tofu and supported by quite a lengthy exposition on the virtues of this dish. I thus went for the Tung Thong (S$16.50).

I found to my dismay that the dish was fried wanton/dumplings. in fact, dismay was quite an understatement. The most expensive collection of decidedly non-Thai wantons had just been presented to me. If I had wanted to eat wantons, I would have gone to my neighbourhood food stall and ordered my fried wanton noodles at $3. My agony was compounded by the realisation that the menu description was accurate – it was indeed minced meat and prawns wrapped in tofu skin. Damn you people who write creative anecdotes to trump up the attractiveness of ordinary menu items!!! Call a spade a spade!! Arrgghhhh…

That said, the Tung Thong (or Golden Bag in Thai…I didn’t see the humour when I found out the translation) was acceptable. A sweet and sour dip was provided.

We had no stomach left for dessert but I understand that the restaurant offers a dessert buffet (anyone can confirm this?).

Sabai serves excellent food, though prices at on the steep side. I recommend the place if you have moolah to splurge. Though please do careful reading of the menu prior to exercising your choices.

Last word of caution, besides the mints in the above picture, nothing else is edible. I almost wanted to pop the leaf and flower petal arrangement in my mouth…thank goodness my brighter partner stopped me.

Lerk Thai Restaurant

Address: 6 Raffles Boulevard, Marina Square Shopping Mall #02-202, Singapore 039594

The Queen Bee’s (“QB“) birthday was coming soon, and me, being the dutiful humble bee decided to stop work for half a day to give the usually self-sacrificing QB a treat. Plans were made to meet at 1.15pm Marina Square, but as usual, punctuality on my part was not possible due to an arduous and thankless job. By the time I arrived at 2 pm, the stinging look of annoyance on QB’s face was unmistakable. Ouch.

Anyhow irritation and hunger aside, I was secretly glad that the lunch time crowd has dispersed and we were one of the few strolling around in the Mall. We made a quick assessment of the eateries available and finally decided at Lerk Thai, since there was a good selection of lunch sets available for either 1 to 4 persons and the service staff appeared Thai (an almost sure sign that the food will be authentic).

The décor of the small eatery was simple, with wood carvings hung on the walls and Thai songs playing in the background, and since we were seated by one of the tables besides the full glass windows, we even had an unobstructed view of the traffic along Raffles Boulevard! Yes… the owner certainly took pains to create an authentic Thai dining experience, pity the traffic wasn’t more congested when we were there. As an extra bonus, the service staff was also extremely efficient and polite (qualities which the Thai are usually credited for), addressing and acknowledging us with a “Yes Mum” (they probably meant “Mdm”) every time we requested for assistance.

The prices on both the ala carte menu and the set lunch menus will be a huge relieve to potential treaters since single person set lunches (comprising of a seafood tom yam soup, stir-fried kalian, rice and choice of main course like seafood green curry, grilled fish in special Thai sauce, grilled squid, pineapple fried rice etc) average between S$7.30 to S$9.30, 2-person set lunches average between S$18.90 to S$20, and prices for the ala carte items were also very reasonable. In fact, we were pleasantly surprised to note that items like otar, pandan chicken, chicken wings stuffed with meal fillings can be ordered individually at S$2.50 – S$3.50 each.

(clockwise from top left, chicken fritters, grilled fish and kai lan)

QB went for the chicken green curry set (S$7.30) while I ordered the grilled fish in special Thai sauce set (S$8.30), and 2 pieces of the special Thai chicken fritters (S$2.50 per piece). Notwithstanding the low prices, the food was definitely not substandard. The tom yam soup was a right mixture of spicy and sour, with chunks of squid, prawn, fish and button mushrooms. Generous portions of the kai lan was also served. As for the main courses, the grilled fish was firm and well marinated but it was the chicken green curry that was a clear winner. The curry texture was fragrant and not overly thick or cloyingly sweet, and contained lots of huge chicken chunks. It went so well with the rice that QB and I eventually finished the entire bowl of curry gravy (Fyi, it wasn’t a small bowl!).

At the end of our meal, the look of contentment was evident on both of our faces. We set back, looked out at the vehicles wheeling past us and with the Buddha carvings and paintings on the walls, it seemed like nirvana. (ok, almost…..lets not go into specifics here.)