Por Jai @ Serangoon Gardens

We went to Por Jai Authentic Thai Restaurant to try out their weekday set lunch. For just $6.50, you get a choice of a main meal, side dish, and hot/cold drink. If you are a desert person, you can add $1 for either red ruby or tapioca with coconut milk.

Main: Phad Thai – I’m not a big fan of Phad Thai but thought that this was not a bad dish, the flat rice noodles were perfectly done and the dish was seasoned nicely. Authentic? Yes! Value for money? Not really. I thought that they could have served it with a little more prawns or seafood. Note: the egg you see in the photo does not come with this dish.

Main: Black Pepper Beef with rice – A filling meal of stir fried beef with black pepper sauce, ginger, and spring onions. Very tasty dish packed with flavour and the gravy complimented the rice and fried egg nicely. I would have preferred if it came with some vegetables on the side.

Side: Papaya Salad (top) and Mango Salad (bottom) – A refreshing salad of unripe mango/papaya, with onions, chilli and a spicy-sour dressing. Both side dishes were great but I couldn’t really tell one from the other as they both tasted almost identical.

Side: Tom Yam Soup – Hot, sour, and a little sweet all at the same time! My choice side dish between the three we tried. Authentic and super delicious, the spicy seafood soup comes with prawns, squid, and fish.

Desert: Tapioca with coconut milk – My favourite thai desert! However, I found this dish a somewhat disappointing. The tapioca was a little hard and under-ripe and not as mushy as I would like.

Desert: Red Ruby - It didn’t look anything like the photo in the menu. The waterchestnuts in gelatine were nice and crunchy but the ice didn’t come  shaved making it slightly annoying to eat. It is however a nice refreshing dish after a full meal.

We had made a reservation for 30 people to take up the back half of the restaurant, but they forgot our reservation and we ended up having to be seated saperately scattered all over the restaurant. Service staff and also not very helpful with explaining the dishes, perhaps because of the crowd, but it’s no excuse. My ratings – Food: 8/10. Service: 4/10. Ambience: 8/10. Value for money: 8/10.