Having dinner on a weekday at Novena area is quite a breeze because most of the restaurants there as well as food courts are never crowded so seats are always readily available. A couple of years back when my old office was located in Novena, I often combed the area with my colleague after work for dinner options and that was how we discovered the Lotus Thai Viet food stall at the Fork & Spoon Food Court at Square 2. I normally don’t fancy eating at food courts much because food isn’t that great (with exceptions of course) so this is one of the few food courts I frequent as it serves up some decent fish soup as well as laksa yong tau foo.
Spending $18 (used to be $16.90 but prices are inflated these days for obvious reasons) for a set meal for two persons in a food court sounds ridiculously expensive but this is one stall worth returning because the dishes are cooked by Thai chefs and are pretty authentic. Most importantly, their food tastes good.
The husband and I went for our usual Tom Yum Steamboat Set Meal that comprised of an omelette with minced pork, oyster sauce chicken or beef, seafood tom yum soup and steamed white rice.
Omelette with minced pork
Can a simple dish of omelette ever go wrong? Yes it can. I’d eaten omelette that was over-fried hence the exterior was a tad too brown, overly salty ones and under-seasoned ones too. But this was perfectly done. The minced pork filling was well seasoned and the sliced onions gave a good crunch too. It wasn’t greasy either. I liked dipping the egg into the sweet chilli sauce. Yum. On previous occasions, the omelette was served on a bed of bean sprouts that really gave depth to the dish but there wasn’t any this time.
Stir Fried Beef in Oyster Sauce
Very home-style cooking. The oyster sauce gravy was savoury salty, a perfect pairing with the rice. The meat was tender, so were the sliced carrots and button mushrooms that seemed to soak up the lovely sauce. I loved the side serving of the green mango salad that was fresh, crunchy, sharp and simply moreish! I just wished the ginger strips could be sliced bigger so it’d be easier to remove them. Just not nice to bite into any!
Tom Yum Steamboat
I totally heart this tummy warming soup, not just the temperature (kept hot by the flame) but also the spices in it. Spicy and soury – an absolute appetite whetter! In it was a generous serving of prawns, squids and sliced fish with accompaniments like button mushrooms, onions and tomato wedges.
If you want to have a taste of authentic home-style Thai cooking that serves up down-to-earth dishes, check out this place the next time you’re in Novena. Price may be steep for a food court establishment but food wise, it is still above average compared to some Thai restaurants. No GST, no service charge. You don’t have to break the bank to enjoy a good Thai meal. The Tom Yum Soup has my two thumbs up.
Lotus Thai Viet @ Fork & Spoon Food Court
10 Sinaran Drive
#04-14 Square 2 (Novena)
Opening hours: 11.00am to 10.00pm daily
lovely!
it is, go try! 🙂
i will but need to let my tummy rest. i think the last couple of months’ food are still stuck somewhere in my pipe (know what i meand?) 😉
U need a detox 🙂
Very much so, lol… feeling so sluggish and lazy :p
*drool*