Ying Thai PIK

Who is excited that a Thai restaurant finally opens at PIK? ME! ME! I've been saying on how typical all the diners which open at the neighborhood, western mostly, and have you counted how many bubble tea and Taiwanese dessert joints they have? So, bless you, Grandma Thai and Ying Thai, to come along with your Thai cuisines. 

Just last night my fam and I went there for dinner. The crowds were massive. From the outside the place share more or less the same concept as P&B with the sort of glass house type. To be honest, I never thought a name so Chinese as Ying Thai will actually comes with such quirky modern design. The ambiance was nothing like a Thai restaurant. You know how somehow, Thai or Chinese restaurant mostly never come across our mind for hang out place? I'm just saying that in my opinion, normally youngster would prefer to hang with friends at coffee shops or those well design cafes. Chinese, Indonesian and Thai most likely wouldn't be the first choice as usually they come with slightly boring ambiance.

With Ying Thai, somehow they manage to combine the place to suit for family or more formal dine place, but also quirky enough for casual hang outs. My favorite part would  be their graffiti wall art. It totally brightened up the whole room.

Before I get to the food part, a shout out is needed for the good service. It was almost impossible to meet good service on a newbie restaurant, normally during soft opening, they are still in adjusting period that mistaken are often to happen. In my case last night, it was almost faultless. The staff who took our order, understand perfectly on the product knowledge, food was promptly served, even when some of the dishes were served late, number of times the staff would came to our table to check, without we even had to ask. 

Now, food part. The menu comes with lots of selections. Lots. They even have more than 15 types of salad and most of the menu comes with pictures. My kind of menu book! 

For the appetizer, we had Tod Mun (Thai fried fish cake) 29k, Satay gai (chicken satay) 33k, Sai Oue (pork sausage) 38k. 

One thing need to be careful think about when you decided to put images on the menu book is how important it is to have the real food resembles the certain images. They failed. When the food served, we can't help but to say on how different the looks were from the pictures. To be completely honest, the presentation blows. The food looks unappetizing, yet so small portion!! The plate portion fit only for 3 persons max, and no, I'm not talking only about the appetizers, but the overall dishes. 

Luckily, taste wise, it was more than okay. 

The salad, Yum sam grop (Thai salad with crackling pig crackers and seafood) 49k, was yummy! I love love the crackling crackers. Unique combination and the seafood was generous. As for the curry, they have several types of curry with selections of meats to choose, chicken, pork, beef, seafood, duck and vegetarian. We went with red curry, Gan Dang (65k) and was shockingly surprised when it was served. It was such small portion and I practically having hard time in finding the duck meat. Dad even like "hey, where's the meat?". The flavor was great though, it was light and well seasoned, but the tiny portion of slices meat was a total bummer.

Our favorite goes to Pud prik gang (sauteed beef with special chilli and Thai basil) 39k. It was so goood. The beef was extremely tender and the chilli was spicy enough. If you have to pick one, this is definitely it. But again, ridiculous tiny portion. The Pla lard prik (fillet of fried fish with Thai chilli) 69k was so so. I liked how they fried the fish so dry that it wasn't oily but nothing really special to be bragged about. The chilli was great though.

The Tom yum ta lay (68k for large) which was supposed to be the Thai specialty wasn't good. It was not sour like how a tomyum soup should taste. It was a bit bland like eating a clear soup, and they were being stingy on the seafood. I only saw lots of mushrooms and tomatoes. :( 

We saw next table order their Pad Thai, so instead of dessert, we had a plate of their pork pad thai and it was quite okay. The seasoning was right, it wasn't oily and the pork was tender.

To sum up, despite some of the few flaws, overall taste wise was more than good. Hopefully in the future they would adjust on the portion size.

Btw, incase you are not aware of this, there is a pretty popular Thai restaurant in Melbourne named Ying Thai and people had been saying and thinking the one in here is their branch due to the same brand name, more or less same menu and their concept design which resembling the city of Melbourne. The respective one in Melbourne had put strong notice on their account and website that they don't have any branch in Jakarta, so during our dinner, I asked one of the person in charge for clarification, and he said they are not the same, but the Thai chef who used to work at Ying Thai Melbourne is now working as the head chef here in Jakarta. So, there you go, be confused no more.

However, I do not understand if they are not coming from the same management, then why they design the place with all those Melbourne words graffiti walls, and how they used the words "the legendary Ying Thai is finally here" on their instagram account. It's like they are purposely trying to make people think that they indeed are the same one. If that is their way to attract customers, isn't that a bit inappropriate? You know, just a thought. 

Ying Thai 
Ruko Crown Golf Blok B No. 8-9
Pantai Indah Kapuk
North Jakarta
Ph. +6221 29525756