Located at Customs House overlooking the Marina Bay waterfront, Sabai Fine Thai offers mouth-watering, flavourful Thai dishes and it comes with a magnificent panorama view of Singapore’s city skyline.

The prices of the food are on the heftier side, but it’s not surprising to us, given the prime location. Nonetheless, this waterfront restaurant is a nice place to celebrate a special occasion, especially if you are craving for Thai food.

You have the choice to enjoy your food inside and admire the intricate decor of the Thai restaurant, or dine outside to enjoy the scenic bayfront view.

We started off with the Khao Dtang Nar Dtang (S$20.50), which are crispy rice crackers served with simmered minced chicken and minced prawns in coconut milk. The rice crackers had a good crunch, and coupled with the delicious dip, it makes for a delectable appetiser.

The restaurant leads up to an equally delicious main dish, the Pla Neung Manao (S$48). It consists of steamed seabass; and seasoned with bird’s eye chilli, garlic and fresh lime juice.

Wash the food down with their refreshing, classic Sabai Mojito, made with lemongrass, lime, homemade ginger and lime syrup, crushed ice, and topped off with ginger ale. The best drink to battle the heat.

End off your meal with the Kao Niew Mamuang (S$23). The mangoes were sweet, ripe and juicy, and paired with sweetened sticky rice, this dessert was devoured within minutes.

Sabai Fine Thai
70 Collyer Quay
#01-02 Customs House
Singapore 049323
Tel: +65 6535 3718

It’s no secret that Singaporeans love their food. But do we love food enough to supersize it? Across the world, we have seen food lovers take this love for eating to the next level, some going all out with extravagant feasts in their mukbang videos, while others preferring to challenge themselves with exorbitantly-sized dishes. Now that this trend has finally reached our shores, it’s our turn to get on the supersized train.

When we think of cuisines with disproportionately exaggerated sizes, we tend to look towards American and Korean fare. However, there is a new entrant to the giant food scene: Thai cuisine. Traditionally conservative in portion sizes, the easily scalable nature of many of its food items has made it one of the best contenders for supersizing. Moreover, the growing global palate for Thai fare has only perpetuated this trend.

Thai food lovers, this one is for you! Bring along your friends with the most robust appetites and iron-clad palates to embark on an unforgettable Thai XXL journey. From addictively slurpable pork spines to red, hot tom yum bound to set your tongues alight, here is a list of 5 mouth-watering Thai XXL dishes to binge on, and challenge your friends to!

Photo Credit: https://www.facebook.com/flyingwok/

FLYING WOK [HALAL]

Opening this list is a dish quintessential to Thai cuisine: tom yum soup. If you’ve ever felt that the modest pots of tom yum soup outside aren’t enough to satiate your cravings, order Flying Wok’s Jumbo Mama Wok (S$13++ for 1-2 pax; S$22++ for 3-4 pax; S$79.90 for 8-10 pax) to never again experience the lingering want of an unfulfilled tom yum craving.

Requiring three litres of soup to fill, each pot includes a heap of assorted seafood – clams, crab meat, scallops, shrimps, and squid – amongst more routine ingredients like eggs, chicken, and meatballs atop a very sizable nest of instant noodles.

Good news for folks with a more moderate spice tolerance, due to the size of the wok, the soup ends up with a milder spicy tang than it would with your typical tom yum soup. Instead, spend your time indulging in the abundance of ingredients – all that for under S$10 per person! – and watching the clock lest your noodles steep past their original springiness.

105 Canberra Street
Singapore 752106
Tel: +65 8776 1795
Daily: 12pm – 10.30pm
Nearest Station: Sembawang

Photo Credit: https://www.facebook.com/ImThaiKitchen/

IM THAI KITCHEN

A Thai street food classic, Phad Kra Pao (Thai holy basil chicken) is beloved by locals and foreigners alike for its all-encompassing nature that features all essential food groups in a simple, portable dish. Capitalising on the familiar flavours and scalable modular nature of the dish, Im Thai Kitchen offers two sizes of Giant Thai Basil Chicken Rice at the economical prices of S$11.50++ (regular) and S$15.90++ (large).

Keeping in line with traditional iterations, Im Thai’s version includes a respectably-sized, mildly crisp, and delightfully fluffy omelette draped over rice. Unlike other places that subsist on carbs, this variant arrives with a generous mountain of minced chicken and beans alongside traditional garnishes of choice.

Deceptive in appearance, the challenge of this dish lies in the heartiness of all its components. While the egg is airy, it is especially adept at soaking up sauces, and even though the meat is minced, the rich wok hei aftertaste saturates your palate quickly, with the inclusion of beans only serving to more effectively fill up your stomach.

658 Punggol East
#01-10 Stall 6
Singapore 820658
Tel: +65 9224 5992
Daily: 11.30am – 9pm
Nearest Station: Kadaloor
** Multiple outlets islandwide.

LENG SAAP AT ROT FAI MARKET

For the uninitiated, Leng Saap can be thought of as the Thai version of bak kut teh. More specifically, it refers to a spicy pork spine soup that is prepared by boiling pork bones for multiple hours until the meat is fork-pulling tender and has been infused with the accompanying herbs and fish sauce.

Instead of drinking the broth as with bak kut teh, the highlight here is instead the pork bones – stacked as you would a firewood pile, they are then flourished with a heavy-handed serving of sliced chilli padi and cilantro for added zest.

Named after its main offering, Leng Saap is housed inside Singapore’s equivalent of little Thailand, Golden Mile Complex. Available in four sizes, M (S$19.26) serves 2, L (S$26.75) serves 3, XL (S$42.80) serves 4 to 5, while the eye-popping XXL (S$58.85) number is meant for 6 to 7 people. Advertising its dish as being comparable to Bangkok’s rot fai (railway) markets’, this is one of the best places locally to get an authentic taste of the more unique side of Bangkok’s food offerings.

6001 Beach Road
Golden Mile Tower, #B1-65
Singapore 199589
Tel: +65 8119 6664
Daily: 12pm – 12am
Nearest Station: Nicoll Highway

Photo Credit: https://www.facebook.com/thaigoldminekitchen/

THAI GOLDMINE KITCHENER

Another contender for supersized tom yum dishes, Thai Goldmine Kitchener’s traditional offering is the Jumbo Goldmine, which features a mix of seafood and pork-based protein items for S$38. Alternatively, you can choose to supplement your hotpot with just pork (S$38) or a more luxurious mix of seafood (S$48). For the undecided, Thai Goldmine offers á la carte additions to suit the exact preferences of each table as well.

Regardless of your preferred ingredients, all patrons have a choice of four spice levels: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and the supposedly infamously hot Level 10. Take note that even for the lower levels, a prominent bite of spice is present in every mouthful.

While its hotpots may pale in comparison size-wise to its counterparts, Thai Goldmine’s claim to fame originates not from gimmicks, but from serving quality Thai fare. With multiple awards over the recent years for excellence in its food offerings, be prepared to join the near-permanent queue if you wish to partake in its voluminous hotpots.

147 Kitchener Road
Singapore 208524
Tel: +65 6909 2020
Daily: 11am – 10pm
Nearest Station: Farrer Park
** Multiple outlets islandwide.

Photo Credit: https://www.facebook.com/timeforthaisg/

TIME FOR THAI [HALAL]

Rounding off the list is a place that does not just one, but two colossal dishes at their Cheong Chin Nam and Simpang Bedok outlets – XXL Leng Saap (Mutton) (S$45++) and XXL Seafood Bucket (S$50++).

Offering what is probably the only Halal-friendly Leng Saap dish in Singapore, the kitchen substitutes pork spines for mutton. Seemingly threadbare, add up the individual sticks and you’ll have a platter suitable for sharing between a table of four or so. Instead of just eating the meat straight from the bone, don’t forget to sample it with the 15-herbs-infused broth as well to get a full taste experience of the dish.

For those who prefer seafood, try the XXL Seafood Bucket instead. Filled to the brim with a potpourri of succulent seafood like crabs, prawns, mussels and more, each bowl contains enough for a hungry table of 3 to 4. Unlike the typical tom yum broth, this one isn’t as sour, with the infusion of seafood rendering its profile smoother and sweeter.

15 Cheong Chin Nam Road
Singapore 599739
Tel: +65 6909 3903
Daily: 11am – 3am
Nearest Station: Beauty World
** Multiple outlets islandwide.

Local Thai delights are a dime a dozen in Bangkok and there is always something to eat at every turn. While we love our pad thai and tom yum soup, we thought that it would be interesting to try something that belonged to a completely different era for a change.

Tucked away along a street at Pratunam is Gong Tong, a charming and quirky cafe that dishes out themed homemade dishes that revolve around different historical periods of Thailand.

You can choose either à la carte options or sets. They have a really thick and extensive menu for you to flip through and we were thoroughly spoilt for choice.

While the prices here are on the steeper end, we can assure you that it is well worth every cent.

After much deliberation, we finally settled on the Rattanakosin Niyom set (255 baht) which comes with a bowl of Chicken Mussaman Curry, Stir-fried Sweet Peas, a plate of rice and Toddy Palm Fruit in Scented Syrup.

We absolutely loved the Chicken Mussaman Curry which featured superbly tender, fall-off-the-bone chicken that was doused in a mildly spicy and full-bodied gravy. Slather the provided rice in all that umami-filled gravy and eat it with the chicken for a flavour bomb that’ll keep you hooked to your very last bite.

We initially thought that there would be nothing special about the Stir-fried Sweet Peas but boy, were we wrong!

Despite being stir-fried, the dish was not very oily and the vegetables still remained surprisingly crisp and crunchy. The sweet peas added a subtle sweetness to the overall dish as well as a lightness that was a good contrast to the bold flavours of the curry.

We ended off our sumptuous feast with a bowl of cooling Toddy Palm Fruit in Scented Syrup which certainly helped to combat Bangkok’s sweltering heat.

Gong Tong 
Thanon Phaya Thai
Ratchathewi, Bangkok 10400, Thailand
Tel: +66 64 879 0149

Read: Bangkok food guides on the best places to discover in the city.

 
Daily: 10am – 8.30pm