Porn’s Thai Cafe @ Mt Faber SAFRA

Not sure why, but I have been to Porn’s Thai cafe at Mt Faber 3 times. Perhaps, I really want to try a dish that blows me out since the cafe in town is known to be very popular. Honestly speaking despite going there 3 times, I could not find any “whoa!” moments. Dishes were palatable but really nothing exciting. But I still wonder if the dishes are indeed better in town.

One of the worst thing about the cafe is the service. I am not here to critic about all Filipinos waiters and waitress but to me they are really bad at what they do here. Actually even the main person in charge was not as good as I thought he/she should. My main grip is that nobody seem to know how the dishes sounds like in Thai. Even worst the most common Thai dishes like Som Tum (Papaya salad) or Nam Takai (lemon grass drink), they know what the order is, but still need to refer to the menu to see what number they are and this is one of the guy captain running the cafe!

Still on service, while I was eating, they were chatting away in Tagalog… across the cafe! I have not problems with service persons talking amongst themselves, but they should do it quietly and away from customers. No, the 3 of them were almost shouting across the cafe to chatting and giggling with each other while the customer is eating. Worst still, the 3rd time I was there, they bought out the main dish first (Phad Thai) instead of the vermicelli salad and the lemon grass drink. So what I told the waiter why the main dish came out first instead when I was still waiting for my drink and salad, he asked me what my order was, which I retorted “Don’t you know what my order is?” Mind you, there are only 3 table of customers in the cafe at that time.

My pet hate about their service? Despite having a ice water jug in plain sight, nobody served me water while I waited for my food and drinks.

Okay, back to the food. I was trying to find out what makes the cafe so popular and try to flip through the menu for some clues. I looked at the menu for quite a while but could not decide what to order. I was wondering why and then I realized that its because there is nothing extra-ordinary about the food they offer. The menu is simplified to few dishes (which I do agree to keep inventory down), but they did not have out outstanding dishes that would make you want to try the first time you open the menu. All the dishes are just the same as what the other 100 other Thai restaurant serves. In fact, other restaurants have more exciting dishes!

However, that is not a death sentence. If one brings down to the menu to serve dishes that are common, then one would need to produce really good common dishes for it to stand out and be worth the money paid for. There are hits and misses and unfortunately I feel that there are more misses than hits. The misses are mediocre and relatively bland and even one dimensional. I went back there 3 times in hope to see what makes it ticks but still not convinced about its success.

Som Tum (raw papaya salad):

Its  a general notice that most Singaporeans order mango salad instead of papaya salad when going Thai. However, the papaya salad is ubiquitous with Thai food and it the most defining dish of any Thai restaurant. Screw that up, you can forget about the rest of the food. The most important point about the papaya salad is that the raw papaya is rather tasteless by itself (unlike raw mango which is sour).

The dressing is coated around the papaya and hence its becomes very important to have well-balanced dressing. The salad dressing has a good balance of sourness from the lime juice, just spicy enough (this is not an Isaan restaurant so its okay not to be so spicy), sweetness from the palm sugar and saltiness and fragrance from the fish sauce. My only complain is that the papaya was a bit soggy. This is because it was machine cut rather than hand cut with all the uneven size. The hand cut papaya tends to stay crunchy longer. However, I wished that they had added some dried shrimps to perk up the dish.

Tom Kha Gai (Chicken in coconut galangal soup):

Even in Bangkok, it is not very easy to get a good Tom Kha Gai, let alone in Singapore. This is the reason that I ordered this dish, instead of Tom Yum Goong. Unknown to most people the herbs used are actually similar, except there is coconut milk and more galangal in Tom Kha Gai. Few people do a good Tom Kha Gai and I am glad to say that this restaurant does a good one.

The coconut milk was rich and just thick enough and not too watery. The soup has a good blend of sweetness (absolutely important), spiciness, sourness (very important) and fragrance from the herbs. You can drink the soup by itself without filling too bloated and sick of the coconut milk. My only complain is that I wished they had used fresh straw mushrooms because I could taste the “can-ness” of the straw mushroom they used in the soup. Other than that, its a dish that I recommend (ask them not to put straw mushrooms).

Pek Gai Yat Sai (Stuff chicken wings):

I just love fried chicken wings, what’s more stuff fried chicken wings. The filling is pretty tasty, but it was spoilt by the chicken meat being too bland and dry. The saving grace is that they were stuff with chestnut which was a surprise. However, it a dish that you cannot eat without dipping into the sweet chilli sauce only because the chicken mean is too bland and dry.

Yum Woon Sen (Vermicelli Salad):

This dish was bland. Period. Thai salad must be exciting, but I felt like eating vermicelli with a bit of souping soy sauce or salt. It tries very hard to be spicy, sour or whatever, but none of those taste emerged. There is nothing much for me to say about this dish.

Phad Thai:

Personally, I don’t eat too much Phad Thai so I cannot say which is good or bad. But I know that for me Phad Thai must not be overwhelmed with sweetness or coconut milk such that it feel gerluck (nauseating) after eating. Good thing to know, this dish was not like that. I like that they provide peanuts as a condiment so that I could put as much as I like on top. However, I thought that the noodles was a under-cooked; it was a bit hard and chewy and took me quite a while to chew them down. Other than that, taste was nice albeit there could do with some more wok-hey (wok heat).

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