Dinner @ Krua Thai Restaurant, Kepong

Today I went all the way to Kepong for dinner. DL was craving for some Thai food. When he wants Thai food, it has to be genuine Thai, not some chapalang Siam stuff that you could get from Vichudda or those premium bastardized Thai food like Amarin Heavenly Thai Restaurant. We came down to 2 choices. Either we go for his Elephant, which is located in Section 17 or Krua Thai Restaurant, which is farther from me. Seeing that I’ve got no interest at all on *his* Elephant, I buck up and drive all the way to Kepong for a safer bet.

… upon looking at the menu, I felt that I just stopped by a restaurant in Thailand. It has Thai language all over the place! Talks about genuineness of Thai food, this place has already scored 50% before I even try the food.

… a table for 2 please.

… if they would serve tom yam as beverage, I’d have ordered that. Unfortunately, the closest I could get would be a Thai coconut. This was 1 sweeeeeet coconut and plenty of flesh. RM3.80 each.

… within 5 minutes after the waitress taken our order, the first dish came. Pak Ku vege. I’ve got no idea what it was, neither did DL. I just thought by ordering the Pak Ku vege, the dish would be served by those beautiful pak ku from China. I guess I was wrong.

… what would a Thai dinner be like if without a pot of tom yam, right? Isn’t that a bit too much for like, 2 pax?

… I has soon forgotten about the portion and was mesmerized by the dancing flame below the pot of tom yam. Clever diversion tactics they used. Hmmph!

… flame could be seen from the chimney of the pot. It keeps the soup boiling hot even after 30 minutes of serving it.

… mushroom, mushroom cut into slices, tomato. I found some clams underneath the bowl of tom yam.

… barramundi fish (ikan siakap) in sour soup (no, not sour sop). Despite its look, it was heavenly! This dish was served with dancing flames as well but I wasn’t that much interested in those flames. They were fat. I still prefer my old flame.

… each of the steamed rice is served in a metal bowl. I supposed it should bring out the fragrance more? Taking them out would be a bit of a PITA as the metal bowl is hot.

… see how difficult it was? And a lot of wasted rice stuck to the bowl and the serviette as well.

Rating: 7/10

This was probably the most genuine Thai food I’ve ever tasted. I can’t really tell how genuine it was as I’ve yet to try out the real Thai food up north beyond the border. My first comment was, “wow, this is real Thai style. The soup is sweet!” DL said that the tom yam was northern style because they used coconut milk. He was actually looking for tom yam without the coconut milk part, something similar to the tom yam served by Vichudda. Unfortunately, the prawns in the tom yam were not fresh. It felt like eating prawn paste. The vege was very nice but too salty due to the anchovies in it. It was best to go with the rice, hence I had 2 bowls of rice. The fish was acceptable as it still has some mud taste in the meat. I rarely have barramundi on my meals. The soup that came with the fish was nice and sour. In fact it was even better than the tom yam it self. Shame!

Both of us couldn’t finish all the dishes. The size of those dishes were gigantic. I guess they were made for at least 4 persons.

… the bill came up to RM75 for 2 pax. See how the bill was written in Thai?

I was taken aback by the price of our dinner. I guess the portions were in fact prepared for 4 pax. This averaged to about RM20/pax, which is a rather reasonable price for a decent dinner. I know I shouldn’t be complaining on this after paying for more than RM100/pax of Japanese sushi. *roll eyes*

The boss is most probably Thai, though I didn’t confirm this fact with him. When I was in their washroom, I could see posters of “Visiting Thai” everywhere on the walls. This further strengthened my speculation on the boss’ origin. The waitress that serves us was friendly. Somehow she didn’t greet us with “Sawadeeka” though.