Soi Chicken - BGC — Restaurant in Taguig

NOT REALLY THAI FOOD

and that’s not because ingredients are not available. You can find everything from groceries to Thai herbs and even Thai lime here in Manila.

Rice; such a simple dish but, it seems, so difficult to prepare. First of all, it wasn’t Thai jasmine rice (what I would expect in a Thai restaurant) then it was overcooked. A bit longer and you could have sold for a Chinese congee porridge!

Pla Duck Foo; crispy fish should be fried in clean oil not old ones. Can see at the colour that this was pretty old. The green mango salad that came with it was swimming in oil. Thai food is all about the harmony of four flavours; salty, sweet, sour and spiciness. That salad was pretty dour a d that not from lime but, most probably. From calamansi.

Your version of the Sai Krok; it should be a fermented pork sausage, slowly chargrilled that it gets an even golden brown crust. That was some local longanissa that barely saw the inside of a pan. Not properly cooked and super sweet. Krapow; your trademark dish. Wasn’t spicy at all, and was swimming in oil. Pork had a very bad flavour (don’t think that this was fresh!) needs only Thai fish sauce. Light soy sauce and a bit of oyster sauce; that’s it! Not really add lily difficult to do!

Highlight; fried chicken. Was nicely cooked a d crispy! Could be better marinated with some lemongrass, ginger and perhaps some kaffir lime leaves!

Thai milk ice tea was good, although served as a smoothie.

Green curry that we ordered was t available…

The Thai Singha beer...

Dine here with family of 7 so we ordered a number of items from their menu and cocktails on BOGO at that time. Here’s what we ordered and what I thought about it-

Pad Thai- good enough but lacks a bit of flavor Moo Hong (stewed pork belly)- inedibly salty; we returned it to the kitchen and didn’t ask for it to be redone. Tom Yum- really good balance of sour, semi-sweet from the coconut milk and a fair serving size of protein and veggies Bagoong Rice- really enjoyed this one; generous serving also Chicken with cashew nuts- delicious but serving size was not commensurate to the price Original Soi Chicken- flavorful but chicken size was small Fresh Spring Roll- I had better and the peanut sauce was too runny and lacked flavor Crispy spring roll- i really liked the spring roll itself but oh my, the sauce was VERY SALTY Mango Sticky Rice- very good with generous serving of mango slices; sticky rice is mildly sweet which was great Black gulaman with gata- TOO SWEET to the point of being inedible; didn’t finish it Bua Loy (Thai ginataan)- enjoyed it Mai Thai- it was okay but could be better in terms of flavor plus it was served almost room temp; lacked iced Mojito- i would pass up on this. Too sweet and too alcoholic

What we noticed after dining there was we felt very lethargic and sleepy which made us think their food might have a lot of MSG.

It was okay to try once but i will not come back.

(Added some photos but wasn’t able to take a photo on all our orders)

To note, Wilson and the lady with glasses...

Having lived in Thailand last year, I was badly craving Thai food, so we stopped into Soi Chicken. The first red flag was the glass of water still had a greasy lip stain on the rim, which they replaced quickly. No big deal I guess but it speaks a bit to the cleaning standards and attention to detail, or lack thereof.

Pad Thai: It had a hint of wok flavour, but it's lacking a few ingredients that prevents this dish from tasting authentic. No peanuts, no dried chili flakes, no salted radish, no lime (they used a green lemon instead). It was nothing special, and a bit expensive, considering it only included 3 small shrimps.

Stir Fried Pork With Chili Paste: The chili paste hits you in the face with a big punch of ginger. The beans were undercooked and still had a hint of unsavoury raw floral notes. And the pork belly skin had zero crispiness to it. Safe to say they would never serve anything like this in Thailand. This was a big miss.

Soi Fried Chicken (half size): The dark meat was nice and moist, and the skin was crispy. The white meat was pretty dry, but this is typical of Hat Yai style Thai fried chicken. My main complaint is that this was topped with fried garlic, while authentic Thai fried chicken is topped with fried shallots. That means you get a lot of bitter garlic, rather than sweet shallots. The dark meat pieces were nice enough that I might order this again.

Would I return? Not so sure about that. By the end of the meal, I was still...