Food Review: Food Tasting at Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe, where taste buds sing
3/13/2016
Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe
My blogger friends and I were privileged to be invited for a cozy blogger's food tasting session at Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe. I am happy to be able to bring my husband along with me as he enjoys eating and will be there to share our calories.
Don't be misled by the name of the cafe, there are plenty of non-spicy food available here. You do have the option to add additional chili, separately into your food, if you need that extra kick.
Spicy Thai-Thai cafe is located amongst the neighborhood of the Aljunid estate. To get there, you can either take a bus from the Paya Lebar MRT station or from Tai Seng MRT. The cafe is nowhere located near to the MRT station thou, so you will have to find your way to the cafe. The cafe is located somewhere near the hawker centre.
It is not difficult to miss the cafe as there are lots of food photographs around their cafe premise. Spot them across the road from the wet market. It occupies quite a huge unit.
Unlike the usual Thai food that you eat around Singapore which originates from Bangkok, Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe's food is centered more towards the northern Thailand cuisine. Be wowed by their various interesting dishes!
In case you didn't know, the Northern Thais ate their dishes mainly with glutinous rice, as it is more filling and cost efficient, their main aim in their dishes is to be enable the diners to keep themselves full with a minimum cost as most of them are poor farmers back in the early days. In order to cater to the local Singapore crowd, the cafe had replaced glutinous rice with normal white rice (available for you to order).
We were hosted at a nice corner away from the crowd in the cafe, so that we can have our private conversation and mini food discussion. You can choose to sit either inside the cafe or outside.
I believe the more popular drinks when visiting a Thai restaurant is the Thai Milk Tea ($2.50), which my husband requested for. The drink is quite fragrant and not too sweet. While the bloggers were recommended with the Thai Tea-O ($2.20), and Ice Lemongrass Tea ($2.00). You may wish to check out their other recommended drink which is the wheat grass drink. Tea leaves from their tea are specially ordered and imported from Thailand, hence it tasted different from the Singapore tea.
There are four different level of spicy chili, 2 are on the spicy side while the other 2 are sweet chili. While most of us chose the sweet chili, my husband selected one of the spicy chili which was actually the red chili padi. He was warned on the level of the spiciness as well.
Fried Sotong ($20), reminds me of the commonly found calamari rings that we often tasted which comes with mayonnaise sauce. There is nothing very "Thai" about this dish though. The dish was pleasant to the taste, the batter was crispy on the outside, with the sotong easy to chew on, inside it. This dish seems to be Shirley's favorite as she kept going for it.
Cat Fish Lemon ($35), in sweet and sour lemon soup over hot charcoal, keeps the meat of the cat fish tender and not overly cooked. For most of us, this is the first time we tasted Cat Fish. It tasted great with the soup. Few places nowadays serve their fish hot and moreover over a traditional charcoal fire.
They even gave us an additional bowl of soup so we could top up on the steamer while we were having our Cat Fish. I find that gesture utterly sweet, for how many restaurants or cafe you have visited, would have such a service?
Chicken Basil ($10) had the taste of Basil leaves stood out. They did not use the typical western types of Basil we get locally. The Thai basil does not have a strong taste and smell because it was Thai Basil. Most of the herbs used in their dishes were imported because the cafe prefers their food to have an authentic Northern Thai food taste. Beware if you were to chomp into a chili padi as it fires up the heat to your throat and bring numbness to your ears followed by a tingling sensation down your head. Tracy and I felt that. This dish is good to go with rice.
Next up we have the Hommok (Otah) ($18), served in a coconut with coconut bits. This is the non-spicy version with whole prawns. It gave the dish a refreshing twist, I find the Otah bits was a little too lumpy and I somehow expected for something more from this dish.
ChaOm Omelette ($10), fluffy fried omelette with Thai dill had generous strands of Thai dill in the and it turns out to be one of my husband's favorite dishes as he kept on going for more. Perhaps it's all about the local's love for egg dishes. The Thai dill did not have any significant taste or smell to it, perhaps overpowered by the taste of the fried omelette.
LaLa BeeHoon ($18) , LaLa is one of my all time favorite shell fish dishes. Soak in peppery soup, the beehoon soaked up the soup very well. It was a little peppery spicy but the dish was nice and received nothing but compliments from the table.
Crab Fried Rice ($24) with bits of crab meat was a delightful one but I do wished that the fried rice could be a little less salty. Overall this dish is still fragrant and quite tasty to go with most of our dishes.
BBQ Pork Neck ($12) was polished off quickly by the crowd. It taste like your typical charsiew meat, only much tender and cooked very nicely without any bitter or burnt taste.
Crispy KangKong ($10), this dish is one of Tracy's favorite as she kept going for more. You can't really taste the kangkong so kids who dislike eating vegetables should try this. The Kangkong is very crispy and this makes a great finger food to go with beer go-er.
To enhance the feeling of this dish being a "Thai" food, the cafe had a dip for you to go with the crispy kangkong dish. The dip was neglected by us as it was already good to have the kangkong dish on its own. Sour sweet in taste it was nice as a dip to go with the crispy kangkong.
Overall, the ambiance is cozy with seats both inside the cafe and outside. Mookata and other unusual dishes like porridge (teochew style) and an assortment of fishes are served here.
I'll leave it up to you to visit and explore this place. I would recommend you to try out this place. There were too many dishes for the four of us to share, hence we packed some of the food back so as not to be wasteful.
Thank you Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe for extending the food invitation.
Spicy Thai- Thai Cafe:
Blk 115 Aljunid Ave 2. #01-35, Singapore 380115.
Disclaimer: Review is honest and based on personal experience. No monetary reward is received for the review. I was invited to a food tasting at Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe.
Be Confident, Be Yourself.
My blogger friends and I were privileged to be invited for a cozy blogger's food tasting session at Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe. I am happy to be able to bring my husband along with me as he enjoys eating and will be there to share our calories.
Don't be misled by the name of the cafe, there are plenty of non-spicy food available here. You do have the option to add additional chili, separately into your food, if you need that extra kick.
Spicy Thai-Thai cafe is located amongst the neighborhood of the Aljunid estate. To get there, you can either take a bus from the Paya Lebar MRT station or from Tai Seng MRT. The cafe is nowhere located near to the MRT station thou, so you will have to find your way to the cafe. The cafe is located somewhere near the hawker centre.
It is not difficult to miss the cafe as there are lots of food photographs around their cafe premise. Spot them across the road from the wet market. It occupies quite a huge unit.
Unlike the usual Thai food that you eat around Singapore which originates from Bangkok, Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe's food is centered more towards the northern Thailand cuisine. Be wowed by their various interesting dishes!
In case you didn't know, the Northern Thais ate their dishes mainly with glutinous rice, as it is more filling and cost efficient, their main aim in their dishes is to be enable the diners to keep themselves full with a minimum cost as most of them are poor farmers back in the early days. In order to cater to the local Singapore crowd, the cafe had replaced glutinous rice with normal white rice (available for you to order).
We were hosted at a nice corner away from the crowd in the cafe, so that we can have our private conversation and mini food discussion. You can choose to sit either inside the cafe or outside.
I believe the more popular drinks when visiting a Thai restaurant is the Thai Milk Tea ($2.50), which my husband requested for. The drink is quite fragrant and not too sweet. While the bloggers were recommended with the Thai Tea-O ($2.20), and Ice Lemongrass Tea ($2.00). You may wish to check out their other recommended drink which is the wheat grass drink. Tea leaves from their tea are specially ordered and imported from Thailand, hence it tasted different from the Singapore tea.
There are four different level of spicy chili, 2 are on the spicy side while the other 2 are sweet chili. While most of us chose the sweet chili, my husband selected one of the spicy chili which was actually the red chili padi. He was warned on the level of the spiciness as well.
Fried Sotong ($20), reminds me of the commonly found calamari rings that we often tasted which comes with mayonnaise sauce. There is nothing very "Thai" about this dish though. The dish was pleasant to the taste, the batter was crispy on the outside, with the sotong easy to chew on, inside it. This dish seems to be Shirley's favorite as she kept going for it.
Cat Fish Lemon ($35), in sweet and sour lemon soup over hot charcoal, keeps the meat of the cat fish tender and not overly cooked. For most of us, this is the first time we tasted Cat Fish. It tasted great with the soup. Few places nowadays serve their fish hot and moreover over a traditional charcoal fire.
They even gave us an additional bowl of soup so we could top up on the steamer while we were having our Cat Fish. I find that gesture utterly sweet, for how many restaurants or cafe you have visited, would have such a service?
Chicken Basil ($10) had the taste of Basil leaves stood out. They did not use the typical western types of Basil we get locally. The Thai basil does not have a strong taste and smell because it was Thai Basil. Most of the herbs used in their dishes were imported because the cafe prefers their food to have an authentic Northern Thai food taste. Beware if you were to chomp into a chili padi as it fires up the heat to your throat and bring numbness to your ears followed by a tingling sensation down your head. Tracy and I felt that. This dish is good to go with rice.
Next up we have the Hommok (Otah) ($18), served in a coconut with coconut bits. This is the non-spicy version with whole prawns. It gave the dish a refreshing twist, I find the Otah bits was a little too lumpy and I somehow expected for something more from this dish.
ChaOm Omelette ($10), fluffy fried omelette with Thai dill had generous strands of Thai dill in the and it turns out to be one of my husband's favorite dishes as he kept on going for more. Perhaps it's all about the local's love for egg dishes. The Thai dill did not have any significant taste or smell to it, perhaps overpowered by the taste of the fried omelette.
LaLa BeeHoon ($18) , LaLa is one of my all time favorite shell fish dishes. Soak in peppery soup, the beehoon soaked up the soup very well. It was a little peppery spicy but the dish was nice and received nothing but compliments from the table.
Crab Fried Rice ($24) with bits of crab meat was a delightful one but I do wished that the fried rice could be a little less salty. Overall this dish is still fragrant and quite tasty to go with most of our dishes.
BBQ Pork Neck ($12) was polished off quickly by the crowd. It taste like your typical charsiew meat, only much tender and cooked very nicely without any bitter or burnt taste.
Crispy KangKong ($10), this dish is one of Tracy's favorite as she kept going for more. You can't really taste the kangkong so kids who dislike eating vegetables should try this. The Kangkong is very crispy and this makes a great finger food to go with beer go-er.
To enhance the feeling of this dish being a "Thai" food, the cafe had a dip for you to go with the crispy kangkong dish. The dip was neglected by us as it was already good to have the kangkong dish on its own. Sour sweet in taste it was nice as a dip to go with the crispy kangkong.
Overall, the ambiance is cozy with seats both inside the cafe and outside. Mookata and other unusual dishes like porridge (teochew style) and an assortment of fishes are served here.
I'll leave it up to you to visit and explore this place. I would recommend you to try out this place. There were too many dishes for the four of us to share, hence we packed some of the food back so as not to be wasteful.
Thank you Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe for extending the food invitation.
Spicy Thai- Thai Cafe:
Blk 115 Aljunid Ave 2. #01-35, Singapore 380115.
Disclaimer: Review is honest and based on personal experience. No monetary reward is received for the review. I was invited to a food tasting at Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe.
Be Confident, Be Yourself.
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