Video
Read full review
2013-06-13
16 views
I had expected my visit to Balithai to be an experience like any other Thai chain in Singapore (Absolute Thai, Thai Express etc) but I was wrong. Balithai had disappointed me in terms of their food -although I wasn't hoping to have purely authentic Thai fare (it did had Balinese influences, I suppose?), the flavour and the value just wasn't there.The lunch crowd wasn't as hectic as I had expected -perhaps due to the quality of the food here, yikes. We were ushered to a table quickly, and the bes
The lunch crowd wasn't as hectic as I had expected -perhaps due to the quality of the food here, yikes. We were ushered to a table quickly, and the best thing about this place is that they have an option for you to customise your noodles -you choose a noodle time, the main ingredient you'd like (vegetables, seafood, etc), and the style it's fried in.
I opted for the phad thai noodle with vegetables fried with basil & chilli. This cost slightly over $10.
The noodles were really not much -the phad thai noodle had this distinct ricey smell (the exact smell you get when you buy kuay teow from the wet market!), and the basil/chilli had no real flavour. The vegetables weren't a lush green and they were slightly overcooked. The fried noodles were a completely lacklustre attempt to recreate the true Thai flavours. Overall, while it wasn't too salty, it also had no flavour nor aroma to speak of.
The tom yum soup cost slightly over $10 as well, and it came in a clay, earthern pot. This was a nice touch as it helped to keep the heat in very nicely. However, the soup was a letdown. There was way too much lemongrass in the soup, and the flavours didn't fuse with each other nor provide a smooth transition. The flavours were way too isolated, the initial taste was (too) sour, then came the hit of spiciness, followed by the sickly sweet aftertaste that didn't sit so well with me. While there were ample ingredients (mussels, prawns and squid...), we would have rathered they cut down on the lemongrass instead.All in all, BALIThai is not exactly the best out there for Thai food and if you need to satisfy a thai food craving, this isn't the place for it. The fried noodles had no real aroma nor flavour that was remotely decent, let alone impressive. The clay pot kind of made me anticipate something more for the soup, but it still fell flat. If you do try this place, maybe you want to give their rice & dishes a try. A colleague tried the fried rice and commented that it wasn't up to standard as well.
Post
