Hello all, hope all of you are doing fine and ending your workweek after a week long of work. Today I explored another place while I was out at the shopping district in Singapore, Orchard Road. Been quite a while since I came over as most of the time I can get the things I need at neighbourhood shopping centres. Food typically are not cheap here but somehow I manage to find a simple restaurant is affordable with good quality Thai food.
The Place
Nana Original Thai Food
Address: 14 Scotts Road Far East Plaza 01-21, 228213
The restaurant is located at Far East Plaza which is at the heart of the shopping district of Orchard. While it not looking like some posh 5 star restaurant, it is a simple restaurant that packs a whole load of authentic Thai food. No fanciful decor, brightly lit dining and spacious. If you are looking for a nicely done up restaurant, this is not the place for you. If you want to enjoy a simple authentic quality Thai food without taking too much consideration of ambience, this is the place for you.
Here's how the place looks like:
As you can see from the photos, this is a place that looks very basic but even after 8.30pm when me and my wife visited this restaurant, there are still quite a number of diners. A restaurant does not thrive on good decor, though simple, Nana still fulfils the basic requirements of a nice and cozy dining place. So let's move on to the food.
The Food
When we look into the menu, basically everything you are looking for in a Thai food restaurant are all here, so things like Tom Yum soup, Pad Thai, Pineapple Fried Rice, Papaya Salad etc are all available.
- Tom Yum Soup
- Garlic Fried Chicken
- Stir Fried Kang Kong
- Beverage (Green Milk Tea and Thai Black Tea)
- Rice
Everything looked so and yummy. And this is the first time I am having Tom Yum soup in a claypot with a burning fire which I will share more later when I talk about Tom Yum soup. The rest looked really good too and now let's dive into each of them individually.
Tom Yum Soup
Often, to gauge whether or not the restaurant serves authentic Thai food and if it is of high quality, the best is to judge based on their Tom Yum soup which I always felt that it is like the heart and soul of Thai food. Without even ordering more items, a bowl of rice with a bowl of Tom Yum soup is already capable to deliver a hearty meal. I like how the shop serve this in a claypot with burning fire. While claypot is able to intensify the taste, it is also able to retain heat and the consistent burning fire below further ensures that you will have hot piping soup from start till the end of your meal. This is really nice of them because they understand that Tom Yum soup is best served hot and the taste will be less expressed when it is not hot. They serve 3 types of Tom Yum soup that is based on 3 different ingredients. Chicken, Seafood or Shrimp alone. We took the seafood version and it did not disappoint us. Tasted really awesome and the ingredients used such as (shrimp, squid and fish) were all very fresh. A mixture of umami from the seafood with the spices from Tom Yum soup make this dish such a joy to savour.
Fried Garlic Chicken
Another dish that can be found in almost every Thai food restaurant. Simple yet to do it nice and well, there needs to be a good control on the cooking and paying of attention to the fried garlic as well. The meat needs to be properly fried to ensure it is crispy and not tough which is really well done here. Love the texture of the meat. The next key element is the garlic which needs even better control as a poorly timed frying of the garlic will make the golden brown garlic into char which will convert fragrance to bitterness. You can tell from the pic, the garlic is very well prepared and good control of the frying. Another nicely done dish which is of really good quality cooking.
Stir Fried Kang Kong
To balance the dishes, we ordered Stir Fried Kang Kong. We also wanted more greens to have a nice and balanced diet. This is another simple dish that needs good control during cooking. There are many placed which I ordered this, the stir fry process uses too high heat and resulted in burnt ends or adding too much water when frying and the Kang Kong becomes soggy which is not nice. We can see from the one we ordered, there is no sign of sogginess and it is well mixed with the sauce and every bite, we can feel the crunch from the vegetable.
Beverages
Nice and refreshing for both. Both did not disappoint and I like how the Thai Green Milk tea was not too sweat that your teeth tingles after you drink it.
Overall:
Authenticity is there for sure and the key I would like say is that, the skills of the cook are really good. Many of the simple looking dish requires good skill to cook them as a badly controlled cooking can easily spoil the dish. All the dishes we ordered were nicely done and I am really glad.
Closing
Thank you for coming by and reading my post. I am also thankful to be able to find such a place in the heart of the shopping district that will not burn a big hole in my pocket. Nice, simple and authentic!
See you in the next post!
