Charcoal Thai

Situated in Kovan area, this Thai eatery is opened by my friend’s boyfriend. We finally had the opportunity to meet up for dinner today!

It was a clean place and the air-con was comfortable. The interior gave a cosy feeling. Here’s what we ordered:

The crackers tasted spicy! I was expecting some really normal-tasting crackers but these proved me otherwise!

The tom yum came in a mini ceramic furnace. It was POWERFUL! It was spicy enough yet not chocking to the throat (at least for me). The ingredients (fresh mushrooms, prawns, squids, fish) were generous. However, just to note, the fish in the soup is dory fish. So for non-dory lovers, you would have wasted big chunks of dory slices. I know of many people who cannot take the taste of dory. I’m a fish lover, so dory’s ok for me!

The minced pork with century egg was too full of the taste of basil leaves. I don’t really like basil leaves. Hence, I only took a piece of the century egg. The egg was tasteless compared to the traditional century egg porridge. So if you do not like the century egg taste, don’t be afraid to try this.

The fish was well-sliced and its presentation was good. The meat wasn’t overcooked and I loved the meat texture. The slices of fish made it easy to eat too.

The green curry chicken wasn’t the type of curry I was expecting. Probably I was too accustomed to the taste of the ready-cook pack by Dancing Chef. This green curry chicken was again too full of basil leaves’ flavour which I don’t fancy.

The toufu was average. Though toufu tasted plain and the same everywhere, the restaurant could have spent some time creating a special dip sauce to go with it. The peanut dip wasn’t that good to leave an impression in me.

Clams! Oh clams! Vongole! My favorite! The clams were considerably fat and juicy but lack a “wow” factor. I am always looking out for that “sea” aroma in shellfish – the kind of taste that makes you feel like you’re just by the sea eating freshly-harvested clams.

The stir-fried vegetables were good. I like the wok-hei it had and the various vegetables were evenly cooked – crunchy ones remaining crunchy and the soft ones juicy.

The Thai milk tea was refreshing and cools the throat after having much heaty food. The tea was aromatic.

Thank you boss for the red ruby dessert! It wasn’t reflected in the bill!  It was very nice and the red rubies were very crunchy and full of coconut flavour. However the red rubies were all stuck together and doesn’t give a good visual appeal or the ease to eat.

Bought home chicken wings and tom yum soup for my mum. She said the tom yum soup was good. However the chicken wings lacked of flavour. Probably it wasn’t well marinated as she said the wings were tasteless – not salty and neither were they spicy. She also commented the wings were small, but I thought they were normal in size? She probably expected more after drinking the aromatic tom yum soup.

The restaurant had a good flow of customers on a Friday night. So you may want to make reservations. The restaurant also serves steamboat and bbq (grill). Hence, if there are customers having bbq, you will walk out “fumed”. The boss may have to look into their fume hoods and ventilation.

Plain rice – $0.80
Towel – $0.30

There is no GST or service charge.

Restaurant: Charcoal Thai
Address: 7 Simon Road Singapore 545894
Tel: 6288 6260
Opening Hours:
Mon – Fri: 12pm – 2 pm; 530pm – 10pm
Sat – Sun: 12pm – 10pm
Email: charcoalthai@gmail.com 

November 25, 2011 | Categories: Thai Food | Tags: Charcoal Thai, kovan, simon road, thailand food | 2 Comments