What, another food place at Tiong Bahru. This time a Thai restaurant by the name of “Baan Tong Thai” which means ‘Thai Golden House’, located at Kim Thai Road two shops away from Big Mama.
Cheers for Thai food fans who are looking for spicy tasty dishes at the Tiong Bahru enclave, currently peppered with new café joints, bakeries and Japanese restaurants. Bad news? Hard to find parking my friends. (Read: 5 Best Places For Cakes At Tiong Bahru)
The interior of Baan Tong Thai does not suggest ‘golden house’ though. It is more like a casual family-style restaurant where prices are still kept medium-affordable. Stuffed chicken wings are $8.80 for 3, a Phad Thai is $5.80, Pineapple Rice $7.50, and Tom Yum at $8.80 per bowl.
Baan Tong Thai is opened by 4 partners who set up this restaurant because they are all food lovers and want to do more to promote authentic Thai cuisine. I seriously think this place needs some publicity (anybody heard about it?), and so I spoke to one of the partners Daniel Teh.
Why open a Thai restaurant at Tiong Bahru?
As the area here lack of authentic Thai food other than Thai express located at Tiong Bahru plaza which consider more on Modern Thai fast food.
Do you think there is too much competition and too many restaurants at Tiong Bahru?
Not really. I agreed there is more & more restaurant, but more on Western Base. As we stand out as Authentic Thai Cuisine.
What are some of your signature dishes?
Majority of the dishes are our popular & signature dishes, as we go through many rounds of tasting. However, the most popular dishes are Honey chicken, Green Curry, Claypot Tanghoon Crab, Prawn cakes etc. We just serve it real authentic, nothing more, nothing less.
You sell quite a number of Thai dishes here. How do you ensure quality in your food?
The Seafood- We getting from Jurong fishery port through our appointed supplier, The seabass we having is not from the pond, but from deep Sea.& for the prawns, We don’t use frozen, we using the fresh market prawns (We are Proud of this) Eg. The Crab – We only accept quality Sri Lanka Crab that is meaty & full of Roe. That is why we indicated” Limited Stock” as we are very particular about it.
What is Baan Tong Thai’s unique selling point?
Let the food & service do the talking. As we served Authentic thai cuisine & we source the freshest & good ingredients.
PS: Though not easy to achieve, We believe strongly in “Serving Good Food, Good Service” as our main focus. We value all feedbacks very seriously no matter how big or small it is.
Serving that many dishes, there are some that do not quite meet the mark. The Beef Kway Teow Soup ($6.50) was a let-down as it lacked that special herbal taste in the soup, and the beef slices were overcooked and tough. The Tom Yum ($8.80) felt it could have more ingredients within.
The Green Curry ($8.80) was decently thick and flavoursome though, unless some places where the gravy is really watered down. My favourite dish so far is the Claypot Green Curry Fried Rice ($7.50) which interestingly keeps the green curry taste locked in, with the claypot keeping the dish warm and moist throughout the meal.
While slightly unpolished, Baan Tong Thai does have a few dishes that reminds you of the great food memories you have in Thailand. What it needs is a little push.
Baan Tong Thai
16 Kim Tian Road (10 min walk from Tiong Bahru MRT) Tel: +65 6270 1008
Opening hours: 11am – 230pm, 530pm – 1030pm
Other Thai Restaurant Entries
Sweet Salty Spicy (Rail Mall)
First Thai (Purvis Street)
Suan Thai Restaurant (Killiney Road)
Porn’s (Liang Seah)
Coffee Stars by Dao (Wisma Atria)
