Fancy a spot of Thai food in an English Smokehouse?

Really, sometimes some restaurants surprise me. I used to hunt for Thai food around KL. Often, they are either very far away or they have small servings or they are too fusion i can't tell it is really a Thai dish. So i was pretty surprise after some googling - i found that the Smokehouse in Jalan Telawi 3 actually served Thai food. Yeap, an english smokehouse with Thai food. Don't ask my why, probably the owner woke up one day that was a spot on good idea to work on.

However, i am not really complaining because Thai food is my latest craze.  On one recent meet up with a girlfriend who was about to get married, we decided our meeting ground was The Smokehouse in Jalan Telawi 3.  And yes, they are related to the one in Cameron's and Fraser.  Being a typical english smoke house, this place is filled with men of a age > 50 who were busy smoking and discussing the previous days' English league games. So suffice to say when 2 working ladies walked in, i bet a pound they were surprised. On top of that, one with a camera.  After a while, they got used to us and they went back to the football game on the TV.  

Since we wanted something sour and spicy, we decided on the Thai menu. I will come back though to explore the English menu some other time. 

First up - a veg dish or rather salad. Ya Ma Moung - young mango salad was our choice. Have to say this was quite an excellent dish. With rather green sourish mango, with plenty of onions, fish sauce and nuts and a few weapons of mass destruction (Chilli padi ) hidden along there, if you are not hungry that day, the right mix of sourness and spiciness will get your appetite going. 

Now, i was meaning to try this in Bangkok. However because we had so many other choices of food, i decided to skip it. So when i saw this on the Smokehouse, i decided to call for this purple dish - known as Chor Ladda. It's a traditional Thai dumpling stuffed with chicken and peanuts. The dumpling was shaped into a pretty flower and then drizzled with sweetened coconut milk. While it sounds a bit overwhelming, it was actually quite an umami moment for my friend and myself. Only thing we need to mention, the flour used to make the skin of the dumpling smells a bit "hong".

Can't tell if this really a Thai dish or just because Softshell crabs are very popular, but we had the soft shelled crab deep fried. It was ok nothing really spectacular.  Good food to accompany beer though.

Meat is up next with a standard carbo required. Our choice is Thai Green Chicken with pineapple fried rice. I find that Thai Green curry is the epitome of Thai cooking. Either you do it well or you don't. Like the one i had at City Square in BKK, twas horrible ( chicken was soft and felt uncooked ) however, the smokehouse version was just right. The pineapple rice was a bit meh ,nothing special, should have just ordered plain rice. I could just drown in green curry sauce.   Plus, the amount of meat provided was quite substantial. 

Some how or rather, i felt we should have skipped the rice, cause we were like super full after that. So much for dieting for the wedding :P . We couldn't even stomach a try for the Thai desserts. I should try it with a bigger crowd later.

For those who are craving for decent Thai food but ain't willing to fly to BKK just yet, try the Old Smokehouse.

The SmokeHouse Restaurant
67,  Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar