When my girl came home from her school in the jungle on Friday the previous weekend, I made it a point to take her to this Thai restaurant here for dinner. She and her mum were away in Korea when I went for the food tasting session so she was not able to tag along and we were supposed to go that Saturday before Father’s Day but she fell ill that evening. Well, I made sure that this time around, she got her turn so there we were that night!
Gosh!!! The place was fully booked except for a small table for four in one corner so we quickly grabbed that one – it seemed that many had booked a table for their buka puasa (breaking of fast) or sungkai or iftar, whatever they call it now, and there were so many people at their other eatery next door (same owners) that the diners were spilling over to this side.
Thankfully, despite the crowd, our orders came very quickly. I insisted that they tried my favourites the last time I was here so we had the miang kham…
…but the leaves that day were way too small. I had to put it in my spoon, place the condiments on it, add the sambal…and gulp it all down in one mouthful. I hear that they cannot get them here and have to bring them over from Brunei but I do think that RM15.50 for that is a bit on the high side. The sambal came across to me like rojak sauce – it did seem somewhat different, some rather special dip, that previous time. Still, I enjoyed it very much and my missus too but no, it wasn’t anything to my girl’s liking.
Well, it so happened that a friend of mind in KL had this same thing around that same time at a renowned Thai restaurant over at the other side, one of the KL outlets, and I noticed that his had fewer condiments, not too sure what they left out and though he only paid RM15.00 for it, there were complaints (including one from a fellow-blogger who went to that same place three days earlier) that the lime was cut and kept for too long so the bits of it were kind of dry and they also found the udang kering stale, not so nice anymore. Thank goodness, all was good here – the one that we had, just that the leaves were too small.
The massaman curry beef…
…also tasted nicer before – that night, I thought it tasted like those coconut sweets that we used to enjoy so much when we were small. It was still nice though, different from the usual curries and not spicy at all – maybe that was why there wasn’t any kick so the ladies were obviously not too impressed, the mum especially. I guess RM28.00 for that was all right seeing how the serving was quite big and there were those huge chunks of beef in it.
The pad thai (RM14.00)…
…was a little too salty and if I am not wrong, there was way too much chili sauce so it came across something like mee mamak, not anything that we would want to rush back for more, I’m afraid.
A friend of mine dropped by a few days earlier and she liked the Thai spring rolls (RM7.50)…
…and yes, my girl loved it a lot too so the mum and I just had a piece each and left all the rest to her. Well, that’s her for you – she loves anything deep fried.
Of course, I did not miss out my favourite dessert, their mango sticky rice (RM16.50)…
…and yes, it was very nice just that I would not mind a little less mango and more pulut (glutinous rice) and more coconut cream as well and that price tag seemed kind of steep too, don’t you think? But of course, we do not get mango that easily here and I did hear that glutinous rice doesn’t come cheap either these days.
I got to speak to the mum of one of the co-owners of this place and the one next door. It turned out to be somebody that I used to know – her mother was the one who used to run an immensely popular and successful Malay/nyonya restaurant here many years ago, the Metropole, on the first floor in the shops opposite the Wisma Sanyan (of course, it was not there at the time), above what is now a bakery downstairs.
Rice was RM1.60 a serving and sky juice was 60 sen a glass and the total that night came up to RM86.50. My girl insisted on picking up the tab that night, a belated Father’s Day treat for her old man. She’s such a sweet girl, she is…
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 