Tuk Tuk Thai Boat Noodle @ Aeon Mall - Kuching, Sarawak

We saw this franchised restaurant first time at Plaza Merdeka shopping mall. I thought their menu was interesting. Even though their name is Tuk Tuk Thai Boat Noodle but their menu expand beyond Thai boat noodle. Their menu includes fried chicken wings, steam fish and tom yum. 😍

We did not make it back to Plaza Merdeka but when we stayed at The Podium, we found Tuk Tuk Thai Boat Noodle at Aeon Mall across from it. Well, once it's a coincidence, twice is fate. So I talked hubby into trying it.

I had my eyes on it's steam fish. I miss the lemon steam fish that tried in Thailand and also in Petaling Jaya before. Seeing it on the menu made me drool. 😋 I still had a bit doubt when I looked at the picture menu though. The picture menu showed a plain fish on a steamer. This dish supposed to have lots of slices of lemon, cut up chinese celery and onion to flavor the fish. Because of that we decided it's probably safer to order a tom yum steam fish instead.

To round it up we added vermicelli salad and grilled chicken (ping gai). When I'm writing this up I found out that ping gai is actually a Laotian dish. That explained why the name was ping gai. I thought grilled chicken is usually gai yang (kai yang) in Thai.

Now the taste. The tom yum fish came out looking pretty, red and fiery with a pile of cilantro and celery on top. The broth had a bit oil floating on a milky yellowish liquid. It looked indeed very appetizing. Though we were wondering why it didn't seem very hot. Once we pushed away the greens on top, the fish below looked a bit plate. Cooked or not ? To be on the safe side, we let it cooked for a bit then turned it around to cook some more before we dug in. The broth was flavorful and not spicy at all. Fish tasted okay and not fishy. I think more spices in the tom yum broth worked out better in our favor.

The vermicelli salad looked a bit pale and not enough greens, chili slices or onions typically be found on Thai salad. Taste wise was mild. It had the tanginess of lime juice and enough sweetness with savory from fish sauce. But I think it could use a bit more spiciness. Only then we realized that they didn't ask us how spicy we wanted our vermicelli salad.

The last dish we received was ping gai, the grilled chicken. It was completely boneless and well seasoned. I presumed the chicken was well marinated. It did take longer for it to be served because it needed to be grilled well before serving. 

All in all it was a great meal for a total of RM 67 9USD 15.85). Three dishes, two steam rice and a drink.