SAWASDEE THAI RESTAURANT: THAI CUISINES

Thai food, as we have talked about before in our previous post on one of our Thai cuisine episodes, is one popular delicacy here in Kuching. And as said before, there are many Thai restaurants in town, but today, we're going to try out some authentic Thai delicacy somewhere out of town instead. Located at a shopping mall which is quite a far drive from Kuching town, it is Sawasdee Thai Restaurant at Summer Mall Kuching.

I first got introduced to this hidden spot by one of my friends who said that this was the best place in Kuching selling authentic, delicious Thai cuisine with a reasonable price. And indeed, after we got to try what Sawasdee had to offer, this place is a must try for Thai cuisine lovers.

Sawasdee Thai restaurant is located at the top floor of Summer Mall, right at the food court area. It can be seen upon entering the food court, as it is just at the right corner.

Sawasdee offers Thai Boat Noodles as well, and they have a small boat noodle stall set up just next to the kitchen, where all the orders for boat noodles will be sent to and made.

They also offer one of their specialty, Thai Iced Green Tea. In fact, it is quite hard to find this in any other Thai restaurants in town. The owner of Sawasdee also mentioned that the thai green tea leaves were imported from Thailand, from a specific factory producing them. She says she prefers their produce compared to other factories.

The thai iced green tea was smooth and rich, filled with the vanillary aroma from the  thai tea leaves. It wasn't bitter but it tasted really fragrant, it's almost like a rosy fresh scent. Really tasty, do try this drink.

Another authentic Thai delicacy you wouldn't be able to find in any other Thai restaurants in town is the Miang Kham. Miang Kham is a Thai snack, consumed before a meal, or during tea.

It is made up of a few components. The sour, sweet, spicy, bitter and salty. Actually, these 5 components are actually what makes any good Thai dish. Here we have onions, lime (skin still in tact),

chilli and ginger, peanuts for texture, dried shrimp and cuttlefish and a sweet herby thick sauce in the middle. These are diced up into small pieces, and served with bai cha plu known as wild pepper leaves, which has a bit of a bitter after taste to it. Eaten together, you would be able to taste the sweet, salty, spicy, bitter and sour.

Here the owner is showing us how to eat this dish.

First, you fold the bai cha plu into a bowl-like shape, then you take about 2 to 3 small pieces of each item and place them inside the bai cha plu bowl. Last, you top them off with the sweet sauce in the middle, wrap it up and eat it in one mouthful.

There were so many things going on in my mouth, I could taste the tanginess and strong citrus flavour from the lime skin, the crunchy textures from the peanuts and dried shrimp, the pungent aroma from the onions, then the spiciness from the chilli and ginger began to kick in, all rounded off in a nice sweet sauce. The bai cha plu gave the bite a nice refreshing taste as well. A wonderful snack indeed.

Now for the boat noodles.

The broth, which was the most important component of this dish, had a very strong and flavourful beef taste to it. The meatball was soft and chewy but not rubbery. It had a bit of peppery taste to it as well.

For boat noodle lovers you would want to give this a try too.

Next was the som tam which was the papaya salad.

It was very spicy, but the it was full of flavour and texture from the peanuts and vegetables. I do think that the dish would have been even better if it was more sour.

Pineapple fried rice, the usual order in any Thai restaurant.

It was delicious, and had a generous amount of chicken, prawns, squid and vegetables in it. The pineapples were still juicy and sweet.

One interesting dish they sell here was the lemongrass chicken. It was fried chicken marinated in lemongrass and spices, topped with a generous amount of deep fried lemongrass. Chunks of deep fried garlic were also sprinkled on top.
This was the deep fried lemongrass.

The lemongrass had a crispy layer on the outside. It was soft on the inside, packed with it's aromatic fragrance and juices. The chicken was good as well. It was crispy and juicy, and was marinated really well. You could taste lemongrass in each bite.

They have many desserts here as well such as the famous mango sticky rice. Here, they have a special edition of sticky rice which is the seasonal jackfruit sticky rice. Today we tried red ruby, which were sweetened chestnuts topped with coconut milk and ice.

It was a nice dessert to end the meal, although I think that it was too rich and thick, could be from too much coconut milk used. Other than that, the chestnuts were crisp and good, and the whole dish wasn't too sweet as well.

For all you Thai cuisine lovers out there, this is one Thai restaurant you would definitely want to try. Real good food, authentic, delicious, yummy and comes with a reasonable price.


Opening hours:
Everyday from 10am to 10pm except Tuesday



Sawasdee Thai Restaurant,
2nd floor, Verano Food Court,
Summer Mall,
Jalan Datuk Mohammad Musa,
94300 Kota Samarahan,
Sarawak.









This is Jolynn signing off this week's episode on The Makan Post. Stay tuned for more.

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ENGLEHAM 31 THAI FOOD & BBQ: THAI DELICACIES

Here in Kuching, we have plenty of restaurants that sell international delicacies such as Chinese, Japanese, Vietnam, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Nyonya, Western and Thai. You can pretty much get all sorts of international cuisines here in Sarawak and today, we’ll be adventuring into one of these international cuisines which is; yes, you guessed it, Thai.



Located at the heart of Kuching, Engleham 31 is one place you would definitely want to go to for a fusion of Thai food and BBQ (as the signboard suggests). I like how they give a different concept to others by adding BBQ to the normal Thai menu concept you get. This thai and bbq can definitely be spotted as you’re passing by. There are just so many cars parked just outside it. If you’re planning to park there, be prepared to wait or, park somewhere else and take a few minutes stroll to this place.

Upon entering engleham, you would be able to see the divided sections of this eatery from the outside. One, the non-smoking section which is air-conditioned, and the other, the smoking section which was non air-conditioned. When we entered, the whole bistro was full, but we managed to get a table at the non air-conditioned section after a few minutes.

In terms of looks, I would say this place has a fun, happy, joyful theme to it, perfect for people to hold birthday parties, family gatherings and special occasions here. We also couldn’t really find any Thai elements in their deco, this was more of a fun, warm, inviting setting, rather than a typical Thai restaurant setting.

Their menu had interesting choices of Thai food, and also other bbq items such as hot plate oysters, seafood and so on.

Because there were a lot of people, we had to wait for quite a long time for our orders to be served. Also, the staffs were going up and down asking each table whether car plate numbers belong to them. Yes, the parking there was really bad so cars upon cars were definitely blocking each others’ exits.

Ok, enough of the parking issues. Where is our food?

I was getting hungry

Our first item was Sambal Thai Petai. I was really craving for Petai as it has been awhile since I last ate them. The thai petai used in this dish had a different texture compared to our local petai. It was much crispier but hard at the same time. The sambal sauce was really spicy and if taken too much, would overpower this dish with heat. However, it had a really strong sambal-belachan taste and smell to it.

Next up was the prawn omelette. 

You should be able to find this dish in any Thai restaurant. I like how the omelette had a nice fluffy consistency and it was still juicy on the inside with flavours from the prawn. This dish was also served with their homemade chilly dipping sauce. The egg was well seasoned, and when cut into, the moist texture of the omelette can still be seen. Really fragrant, lovely dish and you can taste those bits of prawns in every bite.

Moving on, Thai green curry. 

Another typical order at any Thai restaurant. This curry has lots of unusual ingredients in which you wouldn’t put into your normal curry.

It actually had many different types of fruit in it. Some in which I’ve never seen before. Besides those unusual ingredients, there were your usual coconut milk, potatoes, chicken, mint leaves, chilli and spices. Overall, it had a mild spiciness to it, good flavours from each ingredients in it, balanced with the richness of the coconut milk. Those fruits definitely lifted this dish and made it something special and different.

Here we have the Pandan Chicken. This dish, I would definitely order at any Thai restaurant I go to. It’s actually pieces of chicken (size varies depending on different restaurants), marinated and then wrapped around Pandan leaves and then grilled, bbq-ed or sometimes pan-fried.

Here, this dish was served with Thai chilli sauce. It was really fragrant and was really juicy as well upon unwrapping the Pandan leaves. You could still see the juices around the meat.

 It had a really nice grilled savoury flavor to it and was marinated really well.

It was also soft and tender, making you want even more after each bite. It also went well with the Thai chilli sauce. However, I would prefer eating it on its own. It was flavourful on its own, no condiments needed.

This is sizzling oyster omelette. Not the typical o-jien you get at seafood restaurants, this is more of a teochew style oyster omelette. This was served on a hot sizzling plate along with a handful of chives on it and chilli dipping sauce to go with it. Indeed, the whole thing really looked appetizing. Sizzling appetizing. They really didn’t skimp on the oysters as well. The oysters were really juicy and when eaten with the sizzling hot omelette, some chives, dipped in the spicy citrus chilli sauce -  just indescribably delicious. It really had me wanting more. The textures of the juicy oysters, semi crispy semi soggy omelette made this dish incredible. This, is really a must have and you would definitely want to give this a try the next time you make a visit here.

I really love some of the orders we had from engleham 31 and would definitely make a visit again to eat those. Do give this place a try too. 

Engleham 31 Thai Food and BBQ is opened daily except Wednesdays from 11.30am to 2.30pm and 6pm to 10pm.

Engleham 31

47 Jalan Tabuan,

Kuching 93100,

Malaysia.

Contact no. : 082 253131

This is Jolynn signing off this week's episode on The Makan Post. Stay tuned for more.

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The Makan Post brings to you weekly food adventures, so be sure to catch us every week for new episodes and dont forget to subscribe to us. Cheers.

themakanpost@gmail.com

Absolute Tribal: Fusion Hunt

One fine evening, out of the blue, we, actually Jolynn, decided to try something exotic for dinner. So we made our way to this restaurant down at the busy Tabuan Road, called Absolute Tribal. It’s famous for its mixed ethnicity of Thai and Dayak food. Don't be daunted by the sound of that, in actual-ness it's kind of impressive that the chef would try something so ballsy with two types cuisines that have such boldness in the use of ingredients. And if done well, like the chef did, you'll get such rich flavors that complements each other.

The chefs specialties menu, duck Kerabu,which caught our attention.

The one thing about this restaurant is that not everything is available,  and it depends on the season of certain ingredients such as durians, petai and so on. However, the waitress there suggests to make a call about one day earlier if you would like to place some special orders for those specific orders with those main ingredients which aren’t always in stock at their restaurant.
We wanted to try their tempoyak infused dishes, but since they didn't have durians during that time we had to go for other options.

First up, we had papaya salad.

The papaya salad, you know, the classic thai salad where they mix the taste of sour and sweet. The papaya was shredded, infused with a type citrus, hence the sourness. The salad was tossed with peanuts, that’s where the crunchiness comes from, and the red onions. The shallots left a sweetness in the palate, balancing the sour already there. It has also some other shredded vegetables making it  an overall light and summery dish. It’s fresh, doesn’t make you full, so you will have appetite for more dishes to come.
Here’s a close up of what’s inside it.

Definitely a must-try on your appetizer list.

What caught our eye on the menu was also the bidin kerabu. This is an interesting twist to the normal kerabu we always hear about. What they actually have in this kerabu is bidin, (you don’t say), and seafood: prawns, squids, fish and chicken strips, drenched in a generous amount of savoury sauce.

You could actually tell that there was a hint of salted fish used in the gravy, as well as a generous amount of coconut milk. It was amazing how these two flavours complemented each other very well, coating each ingredient, giving them a whole new different and interesting taste in this kerabu dish.

Next up was the Absolute Tribal Fish Curry.

As you can see from above, here, they have sour brinjal put into this dish; also known as Dayak brinjal. In this dish, coconut milk is evidently used, and actually, balances out the spiciness from the chillies inside.

Here’s a close up of what’s inside this dish:

Fish fillets, sour brinjal, mint leaves, chillies, serai, all cooked together in this thick curry. Just delightful when eaten with steamed rice.
Overall, you get a well-balanced mixture of sourness from the sour brinjal, that herby freshness from the mint leaves, the rich and smooth texture from the coconut milk incorporated into the curry base and a hint of spiciness and a taste of serai altogether with the fish fillets.

The fried oysters, was a pleasant surprise, we actually ordered something else, which was the oyster pancake, very well-known as the ‘o-jien’, in local terms, but in the end, due to a misunderstanding between the waiters, they served us with fried oysters – which was also divine! It was definitely delicious, crunchy, not too oily, and soft and juicy on the inside. It was served with some fine savoury and sweet powder; we think its plum powder, not entirely sure what it was. It went very well with the crunchy texture of the outer layer of the oysters.

Here’s a close up of the crispy oysters, and the inside of it.

Also a definite must-try from us the next time you decide to step into this restaurant.


Absolute tribal is open daily for lunch and dinner from 11am - 2.30pm and 6.30pm - 10pm respectively. Number for reservation is 082-237468. If not mistaken, reservations would only be taken for bookings of more than 2 pax. Do give this place a try. It’s a thumbs up for exotic, fusion food from us at The Makan Post.

Absolute Tribal Restaurant
78, Jalan Tabuan,
93100 Kuching, Sarawak.

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Stay tuned for more updates and drooling posts from us. The Makan Post brings to you our food episodes every once a week, so catch us again next week for a new adventure.