Thai Tanic @ Jalan Besar

Located at the ever busy Jalan Besar where cars zooms past every now and then. Lucky, is how you get to park your car nearby.

Went on a Friday night, and the place was full. The only seats available was outdoor and almost blocking the walkway. Numerous newspaper cuttings were pasted on its glass door.

front entrance (newpaper clippings on the left)

large menu of its best dishes displayed outside

thai iced tea and milk tea are actually same same

We were in a party of 5, so we ordered a couple of items to share. Previous reviews were almost always about its BBQ steamboat but majority didn't want to eat steamboat that night, so we decided to go ala-carte items. Pineapple fried rice, green curry, fish cakes, stir fried chicken with basil, stir fried kai lan with pork, oyster omelette, phad thai and for desserts, we ordered red ruby, coconut jelly and glutinous rice with mango. And for drinks, thai iced tea.

thai iced milk (aka milk tea)

For me, the epitome of a good Thai iced tea is that it must have a strong tea taste, milky and smooth (but usually tends to be quite sweet) and if use crushed ice, then all the better! Here, it tasted pretty much like a glass of very sweet milk tea. I'm still yearning for my Amari Watergate's cafe thai iced tea...

Anyway, our food soon arrived in quick succession and our tiny table couldn't accommodate so many plates! I think it was Raymond who noticed that, and offered to join another table next to us, as soon as the previous diners left. Thanks! A table for my so-called 'photoshoot' before the dish is devoured. Muahahaha!

pineapple rice

green curry

fish cake

stir fried chicken with basil

Liked the pineapple rice because the rice was not too soft, has ample ingredients like floss, cashew nuts, diced pineapples and raisins. Tasty and goes well with the green curry. Speaking of green curry, it was quickly polished off by us famished few. Milky and spicy, and served hot! A very agreeable taste and good as gravy for the rice. Hmm, found the fish cake and stir fried chicken with basil as so so only. The basil chicken was quite spicy as well.

stir fried kai lan with pork

oyster omelette

The stir fried vegetable looked innocent enough, but there was a few pieces of chili lurking inside. Everyone loved the oyster omelette. Quite a lot of oysters in this dish.

phad thai

condiments for the phad thai

However, one of our discerning makan kaki detected that the phad thai had an 'unusual' smell, which she described as "noodles that were kept for far too long inside a cupboard' kind of smell. Musty. Perhaps. So we sniffed and sniffed and all four concluded that yes, indeed, it had. So we sent it back to the kitchen and they offered to refry a new plate for us. Good service recovery.

coconut jelly (agar agar)

mango with glutinous rice

The coconut jelly was agar-agar like texture and only a hint of coconut taste. Nice, not too sweet. Liked the glutinous rice with mango. Glutinous rice was served warm, slightly sweet and saltish due to the coconut milk. Tasted very rich too. The sprinkle of sesame was nicely decorative. Mango was not very sweet and perhaps if it was chilled, then it will taste superb with the warm rice. Yums!

Next, was our mysterious bowl of red ruby. At first, we were served this:

wah.. such a big bowl of red ruby

But we were busy eating other stuffs, so didn't have time to deal with the red ruby yet. Then it was taken away from us. We heard something like need to change the bowl. Ok, we thought. So, it came back looking like this:

red ruby.... with more coconut milk and different bowl?

Hmmm.

red ruby which tasted rather nice and waterchestnutty crunchy

Unfortunately, there was an incident with regards to the red ruby dessert and again, we had to send it back to the chef but this time round, we did not have the mood to eat it anymore. The lady boss apologized and this item was struck off our bill.

So all in all, our meal costs about $80 in total for 5 pax. The service staff here are all very likeable and earnest. Perhaps we were just a tad unlucky in encountering two incidents in one meal.