Ah Loy Thai, Shaw Tower, Singapore

Doesn't this look just like the makeshift tables at the roadside stalls in Bangkok?

Lime Juice (Kumquat), $1.50

To be sure, there are nicer seats within the restaurant itself, but these makeshift tables really made me feel like I've been transported to the amazing streets of Bangkok! I've never had Kumquat juice in my life, but they taste just like lime or calamansi juice, and was pretty refreshing. Also pretty sour.

Thai Mango Crispy Chicken, $6.50

We wanted to try their Handmade Steam Fish Cake at first, but it was sold out, so we opted for Thai Pandan Chicken, which was sold out too, and ended up with this. We made our order at around 8pm? So that gives you a pretty good sense of just how popular this place is. In fact, we came at a really bad time (there was some corporate function going on and they took up most of the tables), so we waited for a pretty long time (at least 35 minutes) before we finally got our table. I'm hoping the wait wouldn't be so bad normally but I've heard that there's most likely going to be a wait depending on the time you reach. Your best bet would be to make a reservation (which is exactly what I'd do next time)! This dish is really just fried chicken topped with slices of unripened mango. The unripened mango was pretty fun to snack on, but the fried chicken was just okay. We'll probably skip this order the next time!

Thai Fried "To Fu", $5

Ah Loy Thai's fried tofu was great! The really, really crispy batter gives way to silky-soft tofu, which tasted really good with the papaya/mango slices and the spicy sauce laden with chopped peanuts.

Stir-Fried White Basil Leaf with Pork (Pad Ka Prao Moo), $5

M's favourite dish! I love straw mushrooms, so I loved that this dish came with it even though it normally doesn't. Ah Loy Thai also serves Stir-Fried Red Basil Leaf with Pork. I'm guessing that the colour (white  vs. red) refers to the sauce of the dish and not the colour of the basil leaf. Basil leaves are all green.. right? This was pretty good, and occasionally when you bite into the well-incorporated chilli bits, the spiciness kicks in. This was a really great dish with rice.

Papaya Salad (Som Tam), $4.50

My favourite Thai salad! By now, after the three spicy dishes above, our tongue was starting to sting, so we had a lot of difficulty with this one. To be fair, this dish was really wickedly, wickedly spicy. Almost as spicy as the one we had in Bangkok. Maybe equally spicy! These days, I'm starting to feel like my spiciness threshold isn't as great as I once thought. On a really random note, do you think your spiciness threshold fluctuates with time? Because I'm starting to believe that mine does. Anyway, I guess an eatery that doesn't care about how spicy their dishes are (and doesn't bother warning you) ends up ranking pretty high on the authenticity factor. We also realized at this point that the dishes we ordered sort of overlapped - we had a lot of papaya and mango. Next time (I keep saying next time because we're so going to be back), we'll probably order a steamed fish (we saw a lot of tables enjoying this one), pandan chicken, and pad thai or fried rice!


Ah Loy Thai
#01-39/40 Shaw Tower
100 Beach Road, Singapore
Tel: +65 9165 1543

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