On our search for something new to entice our palate Shara and I decided to meet at the Ayala but it seems like we've been through the same place over and over. I had a very long day at work and not to mention I barely had sleep for the past 72 hours. I felt like the Energizer bunny gone overcharged. The night before I got into drinking GPS with office mates over a Kere-kere-o-k session (how we call our Video-k session). I got home 4 AM not to mention had a shift at 6 AM. I even made it to my long postponed swimming time.

So we decided to stay away from the usual places and hop on a taxi to Sto. Niño Village in Banilad. A friend suggested a place there so we decided to give it a try. It seems like our dear taxi driver does not know where the place was. We asked the guard and pointed us more about 5 blocks from the gate. The night turned out to be an unlucky one for the place was closed. We asked the driver to go back and drop us off by the Banilad Town Center (BTC).

Fish fillet in black pepper sauce

Red curry rice

There we found ourselves into a Thai restaurant called the Royal Krua Thai. Having in mind that Thai's are best known for their hot and spicy food we forewarned ourselves to be very careful in choosing the food from the menu. We settled down on a table near the bar and we were very much amused by the ambiance offered by the restaurant. The seat was comfortable enough to drive my appetite into frenzy along with the intricately designed hardwood panels hanging overhead held by metal chains that were screwed into the concrete roof. I can't help but take a few pictures of the view around our table. The small statues sitting on top of the bar stole my attention so I snapped a few pics using my phone's camera.

Taking the leisure of looking into the list of food on their menu, we talk ourselves over as to what we should eat. We decided to have fish and vegetables for we have been eating pork and chicken over the week. Our dinner was a platter of red curry rice (fried rice in spices with chicken shred), fish fillet in black pepper sauce 'Pla phad prik thai dam', and sauteed mixed vegetables which the call as 'Phad pak ruam mid'. For our beverage we tried their house specialty their Krua Thai Iced Tea special which is naturally made from lemon grass best known as 'tanglad'  for Cebuanos.

Their special tea made a great impression on my taste buds giving it an A-OK. To our surprise the rice platter that we ordered which they said is good for 3 person could feed up to 5. As the name suggests the rice is red in color and was spicy. The attending waiter told us that the red curry rice is mild compared to the green curry rice in their menu (now I wonder how spicy could that be?). The fish was indeed very soft that it melts on my mouth; it went very well with the rice. The rice was spicy and makes my sinuses alive while the sweet and smooth flavor of the fish gives it a good harmony. The veggies makes the pyramid  complete, oh yes we are a trying to balance it out with fiber source so to speak.Sometimes we try to make ourselves look like diet conscious though Shara and I consider ourselves lucky. We can eat as much as we want and barely gain an ounce in the weighing scale.

We savored the rest of what we can finish and commend ourselves for picking up the right choice of food. The satisfaction we owe to the chef. Our dinner kept us in our seat for 30 more minutes after we ate giving it enough time to settle down and a room for dessert.


www.thaismile.jp is a good site to learn Thai phrases.