P&P Thai Authentic Restaurant

“ Authentic Thai are for wimps!”

Thai food is Thai food. If the chef or restaurateur need to tell you it’s authentic, original or traditional…then smile, do the “wai”(clasp your hand and bow), walk backwards and leave. If a qualification is in order, then it’s only when it’s fake, fusion, aga-aga or wannabe. But its kinda hard to find an Aga-Aga Fusion Thai Restaurant.

So, what’s this P&P Authentic Thai Restaurant? I smell insecurity in this full fledged Thai kitchen located in a ..umm…coffee shop, that doesn’t sell som tum(papaya salad), khao niao (sticky rice) khai yang (bbq chicken) and red chili paste tom yam.

Firstly, an encounter with the owner, Mr Peter De Luze, a 47 year old dark complexioned Eurasian with a Chinese Peranakan mother, who sells her Nonya style nasi lemak by the side of the eatery in the heart of Little India.

So I gawk at them in disbelief, what with the “Authentic Thai” sign hanging above them, wondering how much more south will the interview get. But alas, a saving grace came in the form of Ms Supaporn Ratanapech, a shiny, sparkling and spunky 30 year old chef they all nicknamed Pook. She’s also the “boss wife’, so the humble logic of joining Peter and Pook saved me the pain of rationalizing the P&P name.

But so what, I reckoned they need to explain, if not apologise for the “authentic” qualification, as their sign says.

“My stuffed chicken wing hah, two cook already leave in one month because I say must make like that means must make like that…no short cut wan!” offered Pook. So when I sunk into the their signature stuffed chicken wing…lo and behold, it was filled with lovely harmuk, (Thai otah) which fattened the de-boned wing, with skin intact, well battered and fried to a crisp. “They all say cannot tahan the manual handwork and ask me how I make money like that” said Pook with a hint of bahasa nonya now that she’s been here long enough and is already a PR. But it’s not cheap, seven bucks each, but big in size and flavour, nicely presented and worth it.

“Some more, I only use the vegetable and herbs that I only know how to use. Like I use the saw-blade coriander, Thai galangal, small Thai garlic and lemon grass. If cannot get, then I don’t cook lah!” she professes, which explains the purity in their clear seafood tom yam nam sai soup lifted with Thai galangal, lime, nam prik ki nu suan (farmer rat dropping chili..which describes the shape) and a good dose of Thai and saw-blade coriander. The prawns are decently big enough for a coffee shop eatery but I wondered if they did not pound more nam prik into the soup base for fear of being too “authentic” and too spicy. And if you fancy the gorgeous looking Thai fish cake (as shown in their picture menu), you might as well bite hard onto a plate and forget about it as you scream knowing they’ll never serve it. They had not been able to get the Thai “pla kai” fish that’s commonly used back in Thailand to make the fish cake.

Pook says she still pounds every herb and spice and if the crowd gets too big and fast for her…”too bad, they have to wait”.

I cornered Peter. I asked if saying so in their sign means others aren’t authentic and WHAT’S YOUR QUALIFICATION, MR ADVERTISING BUSINESSMAN? He yada-yada-ed on about his eight month stint in Thailand ( I know some taxi drivers with “stints” that totalled more than that and they weren’t even based there and can’t tell the difference between pad thai and cha kway teow.) and about checking out the street Bangkok cze cha stalls at Fang Kun and Intramara, just outside Bangkok. Of course it all makes sense when it was done with Pook, who once helped her sister and mother operate a very popular roadside Thai cze cha stall at Sukhumvit Soi 31 in Bangkok.

“Today still got big people send their big car driver there to packet 50-100 packet everyday one.”, as she recalls hating the stint there as a teenager “no choice and very hot some more.” But then she got her fairly tale marriage of asmall Thai town girl princess tying down with slick town Singaporean. Within a month of wedded bliss in tai-tai-dom, she got bored. So she headed for Geylang, not knowing what it stood for, and began to hawk some of her dishes to Thai “workers” there. It was a hit and she quickly set up a stall in Lor 34 Geylang. Two years on, they got bored again and closed for golf and recuperation.

Then it itched again. And they returned here, after two years of golf and holiday and “figuring out the business”. With pride, she tells me her fried belachan rice is fragrant, not smelly and she does not use lap cheong (Chinese sausage) but sweet meat marinated forever in sugar and fish sauce. And yes, the rice did have the fragrance and not the stink from the use of …again, non Thai belachan. Surrounded with cut chillies, long beans, shredded fried eggs and sweet meat, it was good value at five bucks.

Then she pounded the Thai drum and brought out the yum voon sen (glass noodle seafood salad) and nearly killed me. Her claim to why this was the real mc-coy was kinda arty farty...”balance in sweet, sour and spicy”, until it swam in my palate. Now it explains why some other Thai eateries serve it Little Thailand instead of the Thai Kingdom style. You know there are chillis, lemon grass, fish sauce, galangal, a dash of stock and coriander in there, but you can’t quite taste any one in particular, they all ganged up for a third flavour to give the zinging sting a BOOM!

So if you want to feel the real deal from any Thai eatery then think Mah Boon Krong, Rama 4, Chatuchak and the Four Faced Buddhas. Get into the groove and taste it for proof. Don’t let signs, looks and picture menus distract. Ooh don’t get me onto these food court pictures…

P&P Authentic Thai Restaurant