Address: 6 Raffles Boulevard, Marina Square Shopping Mall #02-202, Singapore 039594

The Queen Bee’s (”QB“) birthday was coming soon, and me, being the dutiful humble bee decided to stop work for half a day to give the usually self-sacrificing QB a treat. Plans were made to meet at 1.15pm Marina Square, but as usual, punctuality on my part was not possible due to an arduous and thankless job. By the time I arrived at 2 pm, the stinging look of annoyance on QB’s face was unmistakable. Ouch.

Anyhow irritation and hunger aside, I was secretly glad that the lunch time crowd has dispersed and we were one of the few strolling around in the Mall. We made a quick assessment of the eateries available and finally decided at Lerk Thai, since there was a good selection of lunch sets available for either 1 to 4 persons and the service staff appeared Thai (an almost sure sign that the food will be authentic).

The décor of the small eatery was simple, with wood carvings hung on the walls and Thai songs playing in the background, and since we were seated by one of the tables besides the full glass windows, we even had an unobstructed view of the traffic along Raffles Boulevard! Yes… the owner certainly took pains to create an authentic Thai dining experience, pity the traffic wasn’t more congested when we were there. As an extra bonus, the service staff was also extremely efficient and polite (qualities which the Thai are usually credited for), addressing and acknowledging us with a “Yes Mum” (they probably meant “Mdm”) every time we requested for assistance.

The prices on both the ala carte menu and the set lunch menus will be a huge relieve to potential treaters since single person set lunches (comprising of a seafood tom yam soup, stir-fried kalian, rice and choice of main course like seafood green curry, grilled fish in special Thai sauce, grilled squid, pineapple fried rice etc) average between S$7.30 to S$9.30, 2-person set lunches average between S$18.90 to S$20, and prices for the ala carte items were also very reasonable. In fact, we were pleasantly surprised to note that items like otar, pandan chicken, chicken wings stuffed with meal fillings can be ordered individually at S$2.50 – S$3.50 each.

(clockwise from top left, chicken fritters, grilled fish and kai lan)

QB went for the chicken green curry set (S$7.30) while I ordered the grilled fish in special Thai sauce set (S$8.30), and 2 pieces of the special Thai chicken fritters (S$2.50 per piece). Notwithstanding the low prices, the food was definitely not substandard. The tom yam soup was a right mixture of spicy and sour, with chunks of squid, prawn, fish and button mushrooms. Generous portions of the kai lan was also served. As for the main courses, the grilled fish was firm and well marinated but it was the chicken green curry that was a clear winner. The curry texture was fragrant and not overly thick or cloyingly sweet, and contained lots of huge chicken chunks. It went so well with the rice that QB and I eventually finished the entire bowl of curry gravy (Fyi, it wasn’t a small bowl!).

At the end of our meal, the look of contentment was evident on both of our faces. We set back, looked out at the vehicles wheeling past us and with the Buddha carvings and paintings on the walls, it seemed like nirvana. (ok, almost…..lets not go into specifics here.)