Bangkok Jam (Great World City)

It was JH's farewell after her one month stint with us. We decided to bring her to Bangkok Jam, with the idea that she'll probably not get a lot of Thai food back in New York. It was a big group of us, so we decided on ordering a main each, with some side dishes to share.

The decor in Bangkok Jam is nowhere like regular Thai restaurants. It's very hip, with snazzy wall decals, and a menu that looks like newspaper. None of the usual elephants, figurines, woody furnitures and dim lights. At first glance you wouldn't even think you're in a Thai restaurant. But Thai restaurant it is, and we put their food to the test.

Between us, we ordered quite a number of different dishes. Pineapple rice, olive rice, basil chicken with rice, Thai green curry with rice, Thai yellow curry with rice,  and I had a beef noodle. While I can't quite comment on the food others ate, my beef noodle was passable. I wouldn't say it's super authentic, but smooth noodles in hot soup is comfort food for me, so I enjoyed it. I must say the basil chicken looked good.

Pineapple rice

Olive rice

Basil Chicken with rice

Thai green curry with rice

Thai yellow curry with rice

Beef noodle soup

We ordered two tom yam soups - once clear one red to share. The soups are served in cute little lopsided bowls. They were fiery, with a right balance of sour. Nice tom yam soup. Deceivingly clear but secretly loaded with a lot of zest. We also shared a pomelo salad. Refreshing, slightly spicy, good tinge of sour. We enjoyed it. The last side dish was fried chicken wings. Who doesn't like that? It's a foolproof dish and I always say it's very hard to make bad fried chicken wings.

Seafood in red tom yam soup

Seafood in clear tom yam soup

Pomelo salad

Fried chicken wings

Overall the food here isn't the most authentic Thai food you'll find. Still, it was decent Thai food. That said, I didn't try many of the dishes, and we didn't exactly order the Thai mainstays such as Phad Thai so my comments are still limited. But their prices are reasonable, and service staff attentive. Great for people who wants to enjoy Thai food in a more relaxed and chill out environment, where it's ok to chat loudly without fear of disturbing others.

p.s. Ok, I just found out from its website that it's supposed to be a Thai-western fusion cuisine. So that probably explains the lack of 100% authenticity.

Bangkok Jam

Great World City

1 Kim Seng Promenade

#02-26, Singapore 237994Tel: 6732 4523

Thai Accent

It was mom's birthday and since my parents were spending the day at the casino in Resort World Sentosa, I had to rack my brain for a dinner venue nearby. I browsed through all the options at RWS, and then decided that it may be more practical to have dinner at VivoCity instead. Since parents don't eat beef, and brother don't eat pork, and hubby don't eat meat altogether, shabu shabu wouldn't work. And I had to find a relatively child-friendly place because of my 8 months old nephew. Then brother suggested Thai Accent. He hadn't tried it but thought it smelled quite good when he walked pass previously. I had colleagues who said it was nice before, so I thought, why not? I did call ahead to enquire about vegetarian options, and was told that several items on the menu can be made vegetarian. However, tom yam soup was out because they use a premixed seasoning containing fish paste. I appreciated their honesty.

I was a little late and they had pretty much decided what to order by the time I arrived. I simply had to make decisions for the vegetarian options because hubby was later than me. I found out that both the Phad Thai and the Pineapple rice can be made vegetarian, so I ordered a Pineapple rice for him. The Broccoli was also requested to be vegetarian. The hotplate tofu, unfortunately, has a non-vegetarian sauce, so I didn't bother to omit the prawns in the that dish.

The food were generally quite good, and suits my family's taste. Their tom yam soup looked deceptively clear, making me wonder whether I made the correct decision by choosing the 'clear' version. Turned out it was fiery and sour, the way tom yam soup should be, though initially we thought it wasn't quite sour enough. Any spicier, my dad wouldn't have been able to handle it. Towards the bottom of the pot, the sourness was getting more and more apparent. I think the lemon juice must have settled to the bottom. It was also getting too spicy for my stomach by the end, so my brother had to finish it.

The glass noodle salad was spicy and sour, great at whetting the appetite before the start of the meal. The fish was fried to a good crunch, and drenched in the thai chilli sauce. However, this was a month back. For some reason I vaguely remember I didn't like something about it. Maybe it was a little on the fishy side, or the freshwater fish 'soily' flavor was too strong. The other dishes were all flavorful, with enough spices without being overpowering. I grumbled a little about the pineapple rice, but mainly because I personally dislike raisins, and there were plenty of them. Nothing to the restaurant's fault. I did like the Phad Thai, and had a lot of it. I was even considering getting hubby to order a vegetarian one after he finished his rice, so that I could pinch some. But he said he was full, so no extra Phad Thai for me... =(

Broccoli with tofu and mushroom

Clear Seafood Tom Yam

Glass noodle salad

Chicken in oyster sauce

Pineapple rice

Hot plate Tofu?

Thai Style fish

Phad Thai

The food here are priced pretty steep though, something along $11 for a pretty small plate of broccoli and tofu. They only have their stuff in one size, and the serving isn't big. It's nice on one hand because you get to sample a variety of food. But looking at the price, you don't really expect that kind of serving. The stuff's attention was a little hard to get because we were at a corner, but service was generally pretty good. One waiter was sharp enough to notice my cake when I walked in, and offered to keep it in the fridge for me. When we requested for the cake, they did clear our table well enough so that the cake was enjoyed without clutter.

Bar Bar Black Sheep (Boat Quay)

It was V's bachelorette party and my colleagues and I were looking for a dinner place near Clarke Quay, where we had booked a hotel room to spend the night. Turns out Groupon had a deal for Bar Bar Black Sheep, and seeing that Boat Quay isn't so far from Clarke Quay, we bought 2 vouchers and tried out that place. Prior to going, however, another colleague mentioned that Bar Bar is like a 'high class kopitiam', not so much a restaurant. We were quite horrified actually, and did a quick google. Yup, saw the same description for the Robertson Quay branch on HungryGoWhere.com. Reviewers said that their style was ordering at the counter and food will be delivered later. I can handle that. I later found their facebook site and saw the photos, didn't look so bad lah!

There was an event at the indoor area the day we were going, so we had to reserve an outdoor table. To add to the already expected discomfort (Singapore is HOT!), it poured that afternoon. So it was a little wet, and very, very humid when we reached. I have over-active sweat and oil glands, so the dinner was not comfortable at all. But this is a food blog, so I'll talk about the food. Bar Bar serves up a fusion of Indian, Thai and Western cuisine. I think they are most renown for their Indian, but the Groupon specifically excludes Indian food. Since there was 11 of us, not a big issue cos we were sure to hit $40 worth of non-Indian food to utilize our vouchers.

We girls who reached first ordered their Tandoori Platter. Tandoori chicken, fish, prawn and choice of lamb or chicken kebab, and we chose lamb. I liked the fish - flaky and well-flavoured. The tandoori chicken was okay. Wasn't keen on the kebab. Did like the chutney that was served alongside, which complemented the dishes perfectly. We also ordered garlic and butter naans. I ate half a butter naan plain. Very aromatic even without gravy. By the time the rest arrived, we were semi full. So we carried on with ordering appetizers to share rather than to order main courses each, though the latecomers still went ahead with their mains.

The buffalo wings, though informed by the waitress that its one of their signature dishes, was very normal. It was gratifying to see that the calamari wasn't made from frozen supermarket varieties, although I think I've eaten better ones elsewhere. (Oops, I think its my mom's. She's spoiling the market.). We also ordered nacho chips with salsa, which my camera obviously missed. Crisp with gooey cheese and spicy salsa - I like. Fries, well, were fries. I was just telling Lynn the other day this, and suddenly we both remembered the remarkable fries at Les Bouchons. Lol...

I remembered clearly X ordering his steak medium. But he gave me a small piece to try, knowing that I love steak, and it's very very obviously well-done. But being Mr Nice Guy, he didn't complain and dutifully finished up the entire tough steak. It came smothered in mushroom sauce. Though the sauce was flavorful, it's there to cover the fact that the meat is less than high quality. Its quite lean too, and doesn't have the much-needed fats to give the meat more flavor. The phad thai was pretty good, though I only had a mouthful. The fish and chips was HUMONGOUS!! Even after distributing the fish to a good number of people, V and me were unable to finish the rest of it. Although it was one of the recommended dishes by reviewers on HungryGoWhere.com, I found it waaayyy too oily for my liking. Fish was a little bland too. Makes me miss those from Aussie... haha...

The other mains that my camera missed include Thai green curry, Butter Chicken, and Thai seafood fried rice. The feedbacks I got was that the green curry was good, but too spicy for V, but I guess it was great for J who love spicy and ordered that. The butter chicken smelled fantastic when it arrived, but it reached late because the kitchen missed that order. We were quite filled by then and couldn't finish it. I sampled a little of the gravy and found it it was rich, buttery, and would have been perfect with naan. Heard that the fried rice was good too.

Tandoori platter

Buffalo wings

Calamari

Steak

Beef phad thai

Fish and chips

Other than the discomfort, I quite enjoyed the food here. Although I will recommend to come here for the Indian and Thai food, and steer clear of the Western. Service was a little slow cos I think they were under-staffed for a Friday night. Curious though, you're in Boat Quay for goodness sake, you should know to increase staff numbers on a Friday night!