Nakhon Kitchen (Hougang)

Had a surprised treat from wife and friends and their kids. Drove to Kovan for other purpose but was led to this Thai restaurant by my wife for dinner. Had heard about this restaurant and did wanted to try before but was very put off by the super long queue.

This time was different, my wife's friend had volunteered to queue for us and waited for us - to celebrate my birthday :)

Food was already ordered before you got your seat. One thing you gotta have is - patience. (Due to long queue)

Got seated, served with a small glass of water. Then came the food. 

First was the kang kong. Medium spicy.

and fried drumstick - its a boneless drumstick filled with minced chicken meat, diced carrot and some minced turnip. Great! 

then, fried fish cake - taste like otah but is the shape of fish cake. Not so spicy.

next, deep fried prawn patty - taste good.

fried beef - a bit oily but real good taste of beef. Not so spicy.

sweet & sour fish fillet - the sauce is the highlight of the dish, very nicely done, not too sour, very good blend.

tom yam soup - a clear but spicy tasty tomyam flavour. Superb!

pineapple rice - tasty and not overly cooked, just nice.

pandan chicken - unique wrapping of chicken in pandan leaves. Taste like rice dumpling, but is all chicken meat only. Good.

green curry - strange color, but taste is same as curry and even better!

Mango salad - the most spicy of the food, but very unique. HOT!

Lastly, the dessert  - Red Ruby - red pearl with sago and mango in coconut milk in blended ice.

Is a good place for exotic Thai food. If you don't mind the ambience, the long queue, the horrid table and chairs...

After hearing quite abit about Nakhon's great tasting Thai food, I took a drive down to Hougang to give it a try.

When we got there, there was not much of a queue but one promptly formed after we were seated, so I'm glad we got there when we did.

We ordered the clear tom yum soup, green mango salad, kang kong and the jungle curry.

I was quite excited when I saw the jungle curry on their menu as not many places usually list it on there, I've had to request it on many occasions.

The dishes:

Green mango salad - nothing great here, tasted very strongly of fish sauce. Didn't have that balance between sweet, salty and spicy.

Clear tom yum soup (chicken) - This was good though, tasty without being overly spicy.

Kang kong - This was a good tasting dish as well

Jungle curry (beef) - This was disappointing. The only thing about it I remember is that it just tasted spicy and it basically overpowered the other flavours in the soup.

Won't bother taking a drive to Hougang just to eat their Thai food. Too far and not that great a deal, price and food-wise.

Since it's like 4 bus stops and a few steps away, I've finally decided to explore this place and as usual, it's packed but this time round I've found new patience and courage just to find out what the hype is all about...for many years.

We were there about 8pm and got a table pretty soon but as soon as we sat down, I could see that the line started to form again and wheeee lucky us!

Well the efficiency is there cos were asked to go thru the menu while waiting but I was kinda lost as to what to order and decided to steer away from the norm except for the veggie & soup.

We had:

Seafood Stir Fry with Basil Rice - Nice thick gravy with the sweetness of the basil.  Something different and pretty pleased with it

Seafood Kway Teow - I thou it is supposed to be the dry kind as there's hor fun stated in the menu or am I just disillusioned?  It came as the wet kind which well never mind cos they are so busy with the rest so I just tucked in.  There's a nice mild hint of fish sauce in the gravy which is a small surprised, other than that, no surprised

Tom Yum Kung - Hmm sweeter than I anticipated, could be a little less sweeter but the fiery substance is there

Kang Kong Thai Style - By now you should know I am a fan of Kang Kong hahaaha!  Well, as least this isn't oily and the crunch remains.  Like the combination of deep fried & stir fry garlic

There's no ambiance to say the least, although we had the outdoor seat but was happy as the fan was blowing directly at us :)  I didn't hear the loud techno music that most people were complaining about, just some Thai songs that I find no fault.

The servers are a little robotic and I do not expect services.  I am happy that every time I call out to them for something, they responded and goods delivered.

Price well, I find it slightly pricey.  The price is with a bottle of beer.

If I am around the area and is willing to queue, I would go again but for the moment, it won't be anytime soon.

P.S - BTW I have been having problems uploading all my photos for almost my new reviews which is frustrating...anyone with the same issue?

Ambience: Terrible. It is primarily outdoors seating. The music, which I find unpleasant, is blasted at a very loud volume. The tables are placed very closely together. There are flies that are constantly trying to dine on our food.

 

Food: Average.

 

Green Curry Chicken ($8): Poor. While the chicken and curry are good, the curry chicken primarily consisted of vegetables. Hardly appropriate.

 

Thai Noodles ($5): Average. Tastes normal.

 

Honey Chicken ($6): Average. Tastes normal.

 

Value: Terrible. The food is actually not bad. But when they are charging restaurant or nearly restaurant prices while not offering restaurant services and ambience, this is not good.

 

Service: Terrible. The staffing is not sufficient considering the massive crowd on the Friday before Chinese New Year. The water is not refilled except at request. The waitress is not responsive to my questions, either pretending not to understand or simply not understanding them.

 

Overall: Poor. Decent food, poor value. Worth going only if you are a Thai food lover and don’t mind the terrible environment and so so service.

Not recommended.

Over hyped once again, typical lack of authenticity.

Food similar to imitation cooking (fusion style).

Killer pricing.

Fake sugar in all the drinks.

Finally...got to try Nakhon to chk out the roar We went as the lunch crowd was about done. First impression off the street...wow...it's a good crowd!As we get to the resturant ...I realized it's packed coz it's small. But so many good reviews cannot be wrong. We got our seats without a fuss as a table must have just left.

Tom yum kung, beef fried rice, garlic fried pork, pandan chicken & prawn cakes were quickly ordered. My choice of drink? Lemon Grass iced tea. The fried rice came and it's good. Not mushy or overly oily. The tom yum kung arrived next. Tasted authenthic too. Pandan chicken was not over done and not as sweet as some other places. Prawn cakes tells you how genuine the cakes are made of. U can taste bits of prawn and even see a prawn whisker every now and then. My only grip has to be the garlic fried pork. Perhaps a tad too subtle for me. But hey, this is SE Asian cuisine.....it's supposed to be overwhelming!

I did not order any phad Thai since there was only thew 2 of us. For me...any self respecting Thai resturant must served an acceptable version of this national dish. Trust me I have been to areas in Thailand obviously not known to please the locals' palette and I HATED it. The dishes mentioned turned out to be too much to handle despite modest serving sizes.

While I like how the food taste, I'm not sure If it's worth the effort. Don't get me wrong I would recommend it....just that it's something you can get almost anywhere.

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow.

As Chiobu wrote this review, I looked over her shoulders and said, “Wahhhhh, need so many pictures a not arh?”

She replied, “I like.”

Ok, sounds like a valid reason to me.

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Hello everybody. I’m back! I know my diehard fans have been missing me! So enjoy~ [Editor: Chiobu has fans meh?]

Yandao was in Serangoon Gardens so we decided to meet for dinner at Nakhon Kitchen since our last thai meal was eons ago. I’ve been raving about Nakhon to Yandao but Yandao was super skeptical. Are you sure it is nicer than Ah Loy Thai not? Actually I wasn’t sure but who cares! Now we get to eat authentic Thai food in da’ hood without going downtown to Shaw Tower or Orchard Towers!

We were at Nakhon on a Wednesday night, around 8.40pm and there was a long queue. Good sign. We saw ang mohs eating there too. Woah. The food must be really good. Yandao said maybe they live around this area but seriously, Kovan? Ang Mohs? Don’t match. Anyway, they took our orders while we were queuing. Good job! Service: Love that the people running the place are smart, efficient & prompt.

I kinda like the authentic Thai setting – King & Queen’s portraits on the wall, Thai souvenirs & Thai music blasting in the background. The waiting staff were all Thais. Even the condiments & toilet roll on the table is so Thai. I love!

Service was very prompt. Water was served once we sat down. Food came pretty quick as well.

YOU MUST ORDER TOM YUM GOONG PRAWNS ($6). Choose the thick soup! Yum. It’s sour, slightly spicy, thick and super yummy. I never had such good Tom Yam Goong! I could devour this all by myself. I love love love it. What’s good is that the prawns have already been de-shelled! The prawns were not fresh but I’m not a huge fan of prawns anyway. There were plenty of abalone mushrooms in the soup. Lucky for me, Yandao only eats Portobello mushrooms so I got to eat all the mushrooms!

Skip the Pineapple Rice ($6). I think even Thai Express has nicer Pineapple Rice. Should have gone with Yandao’s suggestion to order plain rice. This Pineapple Rice has prawns, pork floss, pineapples (duh), mixed frozen vege, lup cheong & raisins in it. Lup cheong – FAIL. It had an awful taste. It tasted like meat that was sunned and dried. There was no effort to soak it in oil or add seasoning to make it tastier. I prefer claypot rice lup cheongs. The raisins were sweet and didn’t complement the Pineapple Rice at all. The entire plate was very oily.

I made this dish better by pouring my yummy tom yam goong over the rice.

Pandan Chicken ($6) smelt heavenly when it was brought to our table. The chicken pieces were big, tender & juicy (oily). 1 piece already so big. How 2 skinny people finish 4 pieces of Pandan Chicken?

I was practically turning the entire plate of Minced Beef with Basil Leaves ($8) upside down, searching for beef slices. We turned to the waitress beside our table and asked if they have forgotten to add the beef slices while frying. She told us it was meant to be minced beef. Both Yandao & I were so so disappointed. Why we so blind, never see menu properly? Who eats minced beef anyway? It came with onions, chilli and string beans. String beans were too crunchy! Tasted quite raw. I don’t like. This dish was very spicy. I’m the sort of Chiobu who pours an entire saucer of red chilli into my ban mians & fish soups but I couldn’t take the spiciness here. This dish was quite monotonous. Fail.

Drinks were good. Ice Milk Tea ($3): Very Gao! Not as sweet as the Iced Milk Tea I’ve drank in BKK but still good! Lemongrass ($3): Good & Refreshing! I didn’t know what else to order that’s non-carbonated and non-milky on the menu so this was a good choice!

Ooh! Another thing! If you are pregnant, crave for good Tom Yam Goong & don’t want to queue, this is the place to go. The staff gave priority to 2 pregnant ladies at the back of the queue. They specially set up tables for them and gave them chairs with backrest. The rest of us who were in the outdoor area were sitting on round stools. Thumbs up for their care!

This is quite simply a hidden gem for Thai food lovers.

Tucked away in a corner of Kovan nowhere near the main mall - this place has ambience like a food court but the food is authentically and unappologetically thai.

The food is spicy and some items are distincly fiery but if you enjoy that then this is just the place for you.  Dont go with any expectations on ambience and service - you dont pay a packet either and just enjoy the dishes. Try the Prawns and the Tom Kha soup if you get the chance.

The bottled drinks from thailand are a nice touch too

We visit Nakon Kitchen every 2, 3 weeks and the must-try dishes are (in order of preference) clear tom yam soup with prawns, fried garoupa with thai chilli sauce, thai ice tea, spring rolls and pandan chicken.

The rest of the dishes like pineapple rice, asparagus with prawns and minced pork with tofu are pretty decent too. We love the four variations of chilli sauce that is placed on every table and that everything is priced between $6 - $8 and the fried grouper at $22.

The queues are long but they take your order in advance so that you can feast once you're seated. :)

http://lifestartsonfriday.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/authentic-thai-food-at-kovan/