It has been a while since I last came to this place for a meal.
For some reason I have found it a little difficult to go back.
Maybe because there are parts of me that miss BKK (and Thailand).
Maybe there are parts of me that wonder if I would prefer spending a bit more money on a Thai buffet at the MacPherson Aljunied area rather than on two dishes of food that I love but seem to feel is not enough.
And maybe there are parts of me that are too impatient for long waits.
Life changes.
So does the mood.
To be honest I didn't know about this place.
Amongst all the places I searched for Thai food in the vicinity, this one here hadn't come up, and were it not that I'd happened to chance upon a singular influencer video about an authentic and affordable Thai food place here at the basement of Katong Shopping Center, I may not ever have come.
But life introduces you to new things.
And so here I was outside the little diner space on a Sunday afternoon in the queue looking through the menu.
There were a good number of diners around us. Some of them seemed to be regulars- probably fellow tenants from the shops in the shopping center itself. Others looked like they had just come from Sunday morning services in the church next door.
We had to wait a while before we got a table but thankfully it didn't take too long before we got a table all to ourselves.
The prices here are relatively affordable.
A Pad Thai is, I think, about $8.
That's as standard a price of a Pad Thai as it can be.
And the green curry here is about, I think, $10?
Something like that.
The prices here aren't over the top. They're prices which one can find just about anywhere if you're talking about Thai food.
And the portion aren't small either.
This afternoon we'd decided to order two of the simplest, yet fulfilling dishes to be had on any Thai street food menu.
Thai Green Curry.
Thai Egg Omelet.
One rice.
The one thing I liked about the food here was the price, and how moreish they were.
Now, 'moreish' is not a usual word to use when it comes to savory foods like Thai, but they really were.
Take the green curry, for instance.
We'd finished all the chicken pieces inside, some of the vegetables, even the basil leaves- which I normally don't eat. I had also dipped the rice into the curry, worked part of the egg omelet into the curry, eaten it together, but still somehow at the end of it, I still had more than enough green curry left over.
We ended up drinking it like a soup.
Well, at least I did, together with the gourds and all the other vegetables that were in it.
My friend liked the omelet; said it reminded him of the nice fluffy omelets that he had eaten elsewhere.
For those of us who don't know what Thai egg omelets are like, they are a signature dish of Thai street food, popular not only for what eggs naturally are, but also what ingredients go into the omelet, how they work the spatula over the frying egg into the oil, how they control the fire, and, as the egg is being cooked, how well they can hold the strainer inside the hot oil as it bubbles over the egg to make it fluffy, and deep fried.
It is not every place that does their omelets as fluffy as the OG like how those are made in Thailand. Some feel more like a typical zichar Fu Yong Omelet.
But this one had that thickness and double fluffiness that tasted warm and savory eaten on its own.
I think I might go for the Tom Kha Coconut Cream Chicken soup next time I go there.
I might also go back for the green curry chicken with rice.
Or try their pineapple fried rice.
If my appetite hits it, I would go for the Pad Thai, but I think I might quieten down on the Pad See Ew.
As much as I love fried kuay teow, this dish somehow did not sit with my stomach very well.
A pity; I wish I knew why.