Roy Thai, Ipoh Garden

If you pass by the road from Ipoh Garden leading to Canning Garden, you would notice there is a new black and white signboard attached to the lot in between of Season Cake Shop and also Y Food Box. This lot belongs to the iconic Kam Hor which is among the top few choices for beansprout chicken meal and is notoriously famous for the slow wait, especially on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday night whereby the owner will casually chuck all preparation work aside and check on the lottery results at 8pm onwards, regardless of the long queue of orders in line. 

Rumours have it that the chef from Lanna Thai is now attached to RoyThai. For benefit of those reading, LannaThai has now shifted from their previous location in Ipoh Garden East to Ipoh Soho and is currently drawing a lot of flaks from dissatisfied netizens over the poor taste and quality delivered not up to the price charged. Another piece of information claim that the current RoyThai’s owner is the son of the proprietor of Kam Hor beansprout chicken. Enough of background information, lets move towards the menu and also the food sampled

They have a few appetizers which are fairly common if you are familiar with Thai cuisine, namely the fish cake, pandan chicken and various salads such as the papaya, mango and also chicken feet salad. I always reckon that the pandan chicken is a worthy benchmark on how good is the food in the Thai restaurant. The verdict for the version in Roythai was... a bit disappointing. I could not help to give kind comments as the chicken was not well marinaded and the taste was rather flattish. The chicken has a faint unpleasant frozen odour which was not masked by the weak marinade. No, this dish is not meet my expectation at all. Its RM15 for 5 pieces but price is no longer a consideration as the taste is already substandard

The Grilled Pork Skewers fared slightly better than the Pandan Chicken. Probably this is my first time eating this as yours truly has not been travelling overseas, even to Thailand. Neither yours truly bothered to sample one in pasar malams. Though being slightly sweetish from the pandan leaves marinade and a sugary glaze, the meat, albeit tender, but it was far from being memorable. Maybe if it has a more distinctive aroma with some charred bits with smoky aftertaste, it could score a few more points there. RM15 for 5 skewers, yay or nay?

This is the stir-fried brinjal with minced pork (RM12). Not really a Thai specialty but the vegetables here are not cheap. I picked this because it was one of the cheapest vegetable dish available. The fried beansprout was at RM9 though but was poorly executed as the taugeh was already "lifeless"and "mourning" on my table

After all my not-so-positive comments, you would probably wanna skip this place right? Well, there is a saying save the best for last. And I reckon their Thai Lime Steamed Fish is quite good. At RM38, you are assured of a fix priced and spared from getting a heart attack by certain restaurant who go by weight or worst still, play the Joker card/Draw Four/Wild card called SEASONAL PRICE. Yours truly detest SEASONAL price remark as it shows how irresponsible the owner in the poorly managed procurement of their ingredients until there is the need to pass down the burden to the customers. Okay, enough ramblings on unscrupulous Chinese businessman, lets give a review on this Siakap. The sauce is made from generous squeezing of lime and fish sauce (nampha) and finally topped with some cilantro, garlic and red chilies. This dish manage to turn the verdict around and saved the meal on an overall basis. The bill came to over RM100 for 4 pax. It is neither the best Thai restaurant, in fact far from being a decent one, but I wouldnt stop you from giving it a try. I seldom give the RED LIGHT unless its really as poor as Choo Choo Chicken (refer earlier posts - purposely give them another stomp to bury them under!)