The name “Took Lae Dee” may sound like the Singlish answer to the question “have you taken your dinner?” but that is not the reason why this Thai restaurant is popular in Singapore. Took Lae Dee finds ready acceptance because it caters to the many Singaporeans who spend considerable time and energy looking for C&G food. In Thai, Took Lae Dee means Cheap and Good (C&G) and Took Lae Dee Singapore in 18 Tai Seng does serve C&G Thai food.
Brown Sugar Bubble Tea, Fancy Cheese Toasts and Thai Boat Noodles are among the latest food trends in Singapore. Kuay Teow Rua ( ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือ ) or Boat Noodles is a Thai cuisine classic. Its origin could be traced back to an era when Thailand was connected by an intricate network of waterways. Vendors would row their long slender boats up and down the canals and serve small bowls of noodles to people along the banks of the canals. Today, there are numerous Thai Boat Noodles shops all over Thailand and more than a few in Singapore. HatYai Noodle Cafe is a fairly new Thai Boat Noodle chain with outlets in Eastpoint Mall and 112 Katong.
Baan Ying Singapore is a new Thai Restaurant in Royal Square. Royal Square is a new complex at the corner of Thomson Road and Irrawaddy Road. It is sandwiched between Novena Square Velocity and Novena Square 2. The three buildings are internally linked to each other and to the Novena MRT station. According to the Baan Ying SG website, this is their first restaurant outside Thailand. The restaurant features Thai home cooking. “Baan Ying” translates to Auntie Ying’s home. They serve genuine flavours of Thailand using Auntie Ying’s receipes.
We concluded that Erawan Tea Room at Grand Hyatt Bangkok is not a good place to go for those with slim figures and are calorie counting. But if over-eating is not a concern and you have the time and appetite to try all kinds of Thai food, then it is a good place for dinner. Erawan Tea Room opens daily. At dinner time from 6pm to 9,30pm, they have an all-you-can-eat option that costs $950++ baht per person (approx S$40++). We thought that it was good value for money dinner at a 5-star hotel and at a restaurant that has a Michelin Plate status. The Plate symbol was launched to recognize restaurants that ‘simply serve good food’. We do not have much of a figure to worry about and so there was nothing to lose. This story is about our two-hour, 2000 calories dinner in Bangkok.
Audrey Cafe Des Fleurs is a cafe in the Emquartier Bangkok mall. This is a new mall that opened in 2015. Across the road, on the other side of Sukhumvit Road is the older Emporium mall. They are both linked to the Phrom Phong BTS Skytrain station. The top floors of the Emquartier mall are dedicated to restaurants – in a zone named “the Helix Quarter”. So named because the floors are connected as a continuous spiral. We once had a mall built like this in Singapore, the Promenade Shopping Centre, next to the Paragon. Both buildings had merged to form the present Orchard Paragon. The Helix Quarter hosts a collection of restaurants over four floors. The Audrey Cafe Des Fleurs is one of them.
