Food Picks: Lesser-known Thai dishes on Sawadee Thai Cuisine’s refreshed menu

SINGAPORE – Singaporeans like to think they know what constitutes an “authentic” Thai meal. Check the Google reviews of any Thai restaurant and you will find that word littered about as liberally as garlic in the wok of a Thai chef. 

It is, in a way, a perception often encouraged by the restaurants, many of which promise to transport patrons to one of the country’s mouth-watering alleyways through no-frills cooking, a faithful list of the same old favourites and culturally accurate decor. 

Sawadee Thai Cuisine, which opened in 2001, is no different. For the recently renovated restaurant in Tan Quee Lan Street, however, authenticity is not just about encountering the foreign in a familiar way, but coming into contact with obscure regional specialities that do not immediately announce themselves as Thai. 

The new menu, developed by chef Suthasinee Deerob, who hails from the country’s north-eastern province of Si Sa Ket, is full of such surprises. One highlight is the tom khlong soup ($14) – tom yum’s smokier, more sophisticated cousin, which gets its earthy depth from snakehead fish flown in from the chef’s home town and smoked in small batches over a wood fire by her mother. 

The chef’s other specialities include the lemongrass sea bass ($48), fried instead of steamed in this case, and topped with shredded bits of lemongrass for extra aromatic oomph. 

The dessert menu also features one particularly curious creation: som chun ($12), traditionally enjoyed during celebrations and now increasingly elusive, perhaps due to its eyebrow-raising inclusion of deep-fried shallots on ice. 

Despite their savoury intensity, the dessert, lifted by the floral fragrance of jasmine-infused sugar syrup and bits of fruit, remains light and refreshing. This is next-level authenticity; this is authenticity that would impress even Rama II, the 19th-century king who made reference to som chun in his poetry.

If it is all slightly too authentic, do not fret. The usual suspects feature here too: a piquant green mango salad (from $16); an exquisitely fatty, deeply caramelised phad see ew (from $22); and a bowl of red ruby that is, unfortunately, overwhelmed by a few strips of jackfruit. 

Something for everyone, just like the holiday paradise itself. 

Where: Sawadee Thai Cuisine, 9 Tan Quee Lan Street
MRT: Bugis
Open: 11am to 2.30pm and 6 to 10pm daily
Info:

sawadee-cuisine.com