If there is one dish that stands out amongst the plethora of dishes on the menu at Thai bistro and restaurant Tha Chang, it is this bowl of Boat Noodles that I had the very first time I was there.
I'm not sure if I've said this before, but I've never been able to have boat noodles here back on the island ever since trying the legit-as-can-be Boat Noodles in BKK at Ploenchit.
I dont' want to compromise my taste buds with the clearish, watered-down beef soup versus what I have had back in the hometown.
But then one evening we came upon Tha Chang up on the 3rd floor of Bugis Junction near where the restaurants are, and decided to try.
Guess what, I fell in love straight.
If anything, the magic lay in the soup.
Because ingredients wise, yes, you can have three, four, five meatballs, you can have wagyu grade slices, or even lovely thin slices of beef floating all about in your bowl, but if the soup don't have that oil, if it don't have the rounded flavor mixed with (what I think is) a bit of herb, and a bit of spice, and if you don't get that earthy, meaty flavor that gives the soup a color of dark brown (but incredibly hard to describe), that bowl of noodles won't feel so authentic after all.
Come to think about it, earthy doesn't even describe it well.
Swampy might be more suitable.
Yes, that's right, swampy, meaty flavors all mixed together skillfully in one bowl.
The noodles of Tha Chang have a fair bit of ingredients, by the way.
Except that I don't really pay much attention to what's swimming about inside.
I dont even know how many meatballs I have.
I just know that there're more than enough to share, and so I do, sharing them with my friend whom- at our very first visit there- got a crab omelet that he said he missed.
I liked the chunks of soft, tender crab flesh over the thick, fluffy egg omelet, which added that hint of mush every time you took a bite.
But maybe our memory held close to the wetter styles of crab egg omelet which we'd had back in BKK, and so quietly both of us found this one a little more dry.
Still neither of us had any problems finishing up the crab omelet with the delicious bowl of Boat Noodles, the extra order of pleasantly-sweet Moo Ping Grilled Pork on Skewer (the size was huge), and we decided we'd come here at another time.
One thing about the food here at Tha Chang is that you get bistro quality at bistro prices.
So dont expect prices here to be cheap and portions to be small.
Nope, not happening.
It doesn't matter whether you order pints of beer or not.
Your food is crafted to look shiok, the flavors are well adjusted to make the taste shiok, and when the plate arrives, even your eyes are greeted with a visual delight.
So enticed were we by the food that we went back to Tha Chang a couple of weeks after.
This time- in the late afternoon- although the hot pot seemed attractive, and they had a lovely looking Pad Thai on the menu, we decided we'd have a sort of Crab Omelet Rice, and because we wanted to know how the island's seafood tasted like when prepared the Thai way, we got a plate of tiger prawns.
The omelet done this way was significantly softer, but what we liked most was the sauce.
We don't know exactly what it was, except that I remember it to be savory and thick, like a paste on its own.
If I'm not wrong, it might have been a concoction of salted egg, thick, full of teeny weeny little salted egg yolk bits, and which went very well with steamed, slightly fried, white rice. There was no need to have the rice with chili or anything else- we just ate the rice with the sauce, a spoonful of egg omelet, and one little chunk of crab.
I think below the egg there was more of them crab.
Although secretly I think we were wishing there could be more.
My friend also took a liking to the prawns.
He had been drawn especially to them since the last time he'd tried those river mantis prawns back in Thailand.
These ones here were tiger prawns, and the most attractive thing about them were the heaps of garlic over and above them well-prepared prawns.
I had forgotten just how great seafood tasted when dipped in garlic bits.
There was, of course, the strong fragrant taste of the stir-fried garlic, and, because the portion was so generous- I don't think I'd ever seen a dish with this much garlic in any of our local dishes, I found myself smothering the prawn with them bits and eating them at one go using my hands.
We haven't been back to Tha Chang here in a while.
Perhaps one day I might go try the outlet at Tanjong Pagar.
Or maybe I might just come back here, order a big cup of Thai milk tea, and one plate of Pad Thai.
Just for the fun of it.
I love Pad Thai.