The name would sound familiar for visitors to Thailand, as this Thai restaurant has established itself in Bangkok since 1994. Managed by 1957 & Co. in HK, there are three outlets and having visited the one in Cityplaza three months ago, we came to the one in Elements today.
Located in the wing underneath ICC, the restaurant is certainly big, maybe one of the largest Thai restaurants I have visited in town. The décor is contemporary, but comparatively having less character if I compare with the Cityplaza one.
We were seated at the window side overlooking the flyover and the West Kowloon Art District. It is good to have a view, but the windows were really dirty on the outside. Quite a bad customer experience and I wonder whether the restaurant can have the landlord at least clean them regularly?
After ordering some refreshments, we had the appetizers and soup. The Thai Fish Maw Soup with Crab Meat ($188) certainly reminds me of similar dishes in Bangkok, with the soup still boiling on the clay pot when served. While the ingredients are not the best in quality as expected under this price point, the flavors are familiar in taste after adding the vinegar and coriander.
Next came Deep-fried Shrimp Cake ($88 for 3 pieces) served with sweet plum sauce and Deep-fried Thai Fish Cake ($88 for 3 pieces) served with sweet chili and cucumber sauce. The shrimp cake has a crispy bread crumb coating while the fillings are nicely seasoned. Even it was a bit white in color (not sufficiently deep fry?), the flavors are quite good.
The fish cake comparatively is less delicious. I think the chef had added too much lemon leaves into the fish cake so it was very dominating in the flavors. Reducing that, and also maybe tuning down the spiciness a bit, would make it more appealing for the general customers in my opinion.
Trying another traditional dish, the Thai Style Steamed Whole Fresh Garoupa ($348) is served with the stove with tealight to heat the soup with minced pork, fingerroot, lemongrass and sweet basil. While the fish is fresh and the meat tender, I found the soup lacking in sourness. In many restaurants I found they had put sour plum but not this one, not sure this was the true traditional style or not, but I would prefer having that sourness which was appetizing and giving the dish the vibrancy and appeal.
The Stir-fried Garlic and Chili Morning Glory ($108) is another popular dish we had ordered, and here they had used yellow bean paste, garlic and chili to cook, with the reduced spiciness per our request. Decent in taste but probably with the usual level of chili the vegetables would be more enjoyable.
Wrapping up we had Rice Noodles with Chicken in Oyster Sauce ($128). Generally, the taste is good, with the sauce appropriate in saltiness and thickness. I had bad experience when the sauce was gluey but this one was right on. The mixed vegetables and chicken were also nice, and if only they could have more rice noodles, as the proportion of noodles with the ingredients was not correct to me.
Service was decent, and they had paced the servings according to our speed of eating which was a nice move, in particular considering the size of the table would have problem with everything coming at the same time. The bill was $1,185 and to me would seem a bit high considering the quality of the food, and honestly if I have to compare with the one in Cityplaza, I would prefer going to the latter.
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