Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Simpang Kitchen: Thai Singaporean Cze Char

With Taukwa and Cactuskit

Fried Sotong with Crispy Garlic $8

Our favourite Thai food when we were living in Bangkok was not the typical staple that we order here whenever we visit a Thai Restaurant. One of my favourite dishes was Pad Krapau which loosely translates to fried basil leaves. Although it is called "Pad Krapau", minced pork seems to be the main part of the dish. Another dish that I love was the Kana Pad Mu Krop, or fried Kale with Deep Fried Pork Belly. Hmmmm...... I used to just pop downstairs (of my apartment) for a Kana Pad Mu Krop with rice for just 20 baht (80 cents) and that was a simple and very satisfying meal that really hit the spot.

Now, that kind of food is still hard to find in Singapore, which is why I quickly came down to investigate this little eatery when I heard about it from some of my patients.

It turns out that it is run by a Thai Lao Ban Niang who is married to a Singaporean man. To be able to order Thai food in Thai is usually a good sign that the food is going to be quite authentic.

Everyone tells me that there are three dishes here that are outstanding. The garlic sotong, kangkong with chili padi and the butter pork ribs. So I ordered these, but our man, Cactuskit just couldn't resist ordering some other dishes that looked good on the signboard.

One of the things the Thais love to do is the fry the garlic with the skin intact. In Thailand, they have these really small garlic which are sweet and very aromatic. Unfortunately, I haven't seen such garlic here, but what they did was to use the commonly available garlic for the Garlic Sotong which was eaten with a chilli dip. The Lao Ban Niang told us it was actually a dish to accompany beer. To borrow the phrase from one of our readers' daughter, it was "Bombastical" (meaning quite Shiok). However, please be aware that you would end up with a breath that would scare off a Vampire with a severe cold. 4.25/5


Boong Fai Daeng (Kangkong with Chili Padi) $6

Perhaps the dish that really did it for me was the Boong Fai Daeng. Fai Daeng literally means "Red Light" and refers to the red colour of the chilli padi on the bed of greens. In Thailand, this dish is usually made with the leaves of the morning glory, but in Singapore we use Kangkong instead. (Please see interesting discussion on this in our comments section) The signature taste of the dish is a smooth caramel Wok Hei flavour and this one really did remind me of the real deal. 4.5/5


Butter Pork Ribs $8

I was a little dissappointed with the Butter Pork Ribs though. Perhaps I was expecting it to be like the excellent one I had at Two Chefs. Their version is very different. The deep fried and then topped with a mixture of deep fried eggs, basil, chilli padi and dark brown morsels which we assumed was the butter. This was supposed to be one of their signature dishes but I wasn't overly impressed by it. 3.5/5


Curry Mutton $4

Cactuskit just had to order their curry mutton which is part of their repertoire of "Value Meals" I was really quite surprised that the whole claypot of curry was only $4 and it had quite a few pieces of mutton in it! Frankly it looked more like a $8 dish. It was creamy and spicy, definitely can eat but not exceptional. 3.75/5


Caramelised Yam $6 - photo by Cactuskit

We had a surprise off menu dessert of caramelised yam with compliments from the Lao Ban Niang who was so charmed by Cactuskit. If you recall, Cactus was the "Aunty Killer" who also charmed the Kway Chap Aunty from Yong Li into inviting his family to her home for a very special dinner.

This dish has to be eaten hot, while the sugar is still sticky. It is picked up and dunked into a bowl of ice water which then hardens the caramel. If you wait too long, the whole dish will be one big piece of rock hard candy. The contrast of the crunchy caramel with the powdery yam got Cactuskit so excited that he finished almost the whole plate by himself. 4/5

Conclusion

Good place to go for a cheap Cze Char with some rather unique Thai inspired dishes.

Simpang Kitchen
Simpang Bedok Food Centre
#02-03
96695293
12pm-3pm, 6pm-10.00pm
Closed on Alt Mondays

18 comments:

P. Chong said...

phad phet kapow is also a favourite Thai dish of mine...something just gells with the mix of pork (moo is my preferred meat with this concoction), Thai basil leaves, fish sauce, chilli padi. Does this place serve good phad kapow?

ieat said...

I don't think it is on the menu but I am sure they can probably dish it up since they have the ingredients there. If they can get it the same standard of the Poom Fy Daeng, then it should be Aroy Mak Mak!

Blur Ting said...

At last, somewhere good and near my place. The yam sounds wonderful!

cactuskit said...

Yep, fell in love with the yam when I tasted it. I think its quite a few calories but heck lah.

Anonymous said...

the yam dish is like a chinese dish named 'ba si', cos of the strands of 'si' when it's picked up..but using sweet potatoes instead

Anonymous said...

yup, i've had that dish in China when i was visiting Harbin (Northern China, pretty close to Russia).

Anonymous said...

You are wrong that they use leaves of morning glory. Morning Glory is what they called Kang Kong in Thailand. I am damn sure because I used to live in London and in a particular grocery store, they import Thai veg and on KangKong their sticker reads " MORNING GLORY ".

ieat said...

Well, you could be right. The Kang Kong is also known as water morning glory. However, when I ate this dish in Thailand, I remember seeing the tendrils and the leaves were of a different shape to that of kang kong.

iJeff said...

Looks good, will give it a try when I am around that area.

Anonymous said...

By right, MORNING GLORY is a flower but I don't know what you had on that occasion but from Wiki it says :

Morning glory is a common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_glory

I searched from a few blogs and found the common name in Thai is pak boong fai daeng. Did a search and found out it look like Kang kong.

http://images.google.com.sg/images?hl=en&q=pak%20boong%20fai%20daeng&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

This article confirms that they called Kangkong - Morning glory.

http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php/2008/11/21/how-to-cook-stir-fried-morning-glory?blog=5

So I don't think they really do eat the plant of flowers or anything of that beautiful 'Morning Glory' flower that is purple in color we know in Singapore that climbed the fences or walls or whatever.

I already know this long ago misconception, and I thought you knew something I don't. :))))

Steven said...

There're many names for plants. Just like eggplants are called Aubergine or Brinjal. That dish up there in singapore would be called Sambal Kangkong lah.

Leslie probably had went to Thailand and saw the dish 'Morning Glory ' everywhere and maybe they use different type of kangkong. Then he thought it is the leaves of Morning Glory, I mean you don't need einstein to put things together that way right? I'm sure a lot of people will mistaken it that way.

Anyway Morning Glory is indeed KangKong aka Eng Chai. I just confirmed with a Thai friend of mine.

Anonymous said...

This will explain everything once and for all.

http://www.makansutra.com/forums/singapore/viewtopic.php?p=252974&sid=4593b29dfffe009e8ad5d4b347a73a88

ieat said...

Thanks for the interesting bit of information! I have updated the post to reflect this.

ck lam said...

The caramelised yam is one of the dish that I am looking for in Penang. The texture of the yam and the stickiness of the sugar is a good combination and I am not surprised if your friend, Cactuskit can't stop eating it.

Sadly to say, it is indeed difficult to find this dish in our island. I heard that this dish can be found in some Taiwanese restaurant.

ieat said...

I had an excellent one at Hand in Hand restaurant where the sugar was so sticky it became like Dragons beard when you stretched it.

Anyway, I look forward to meeting with you on Sunday CK Lam. So much to eat! So little stomach.

tj han said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica

That solves the confusion I hope. The problem with vegetables is that there are a zillion names for them in various regions, and thanks to human cultivation, the same species can branch off into various varieties. Like the brassica plants, where B. Oleracea has been cultivated into so many groups it's like almost all the veggies we eat. Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, Chinese kale aka kailan, etc.

Few people now have realised how much hard work our ancestors have put in to give us such a large variety of good veges.

Makando said...

This definitely not a place to come for Thai dishes. Tried to order a Thai salsd dish once (Yam dish) turn out to be sweet sour. Only the fried rice can be commended has wok mei.
FYI the Thai wife does not cook.

Anonymous said...

I finally tried it but it was such a disappointment. The garlic squid - the squid was not springy but chewy and the garlic wasn't crunchy at all. The fried rice had no 'wok hei' and I figured the rice swept up all residue from the wok such as the oil and what nots. I will not return for another time.... :(

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