Thai

A love gift for those who itch for flirtation with oral danger – a highly citric flare blitz assaults your senses, the soup marvellously imbued with the essence of squid so thoroughly leached that the squid lies lifelessly shagged from all the flavour extraction. 4.1/5

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/10/lemon-steam-squid-haha-thai/

The texture of the fatty pork collar is not so much meat as it is a most intriguingly delectable rubbery gelatin with sexily smoky edges, and the slices are addictive in their own right without assistance from the insistently sour and tamarind-heavy dip. 3.8/5

P.S. Somehow our $80 meal didn't feel very $80, which isn't a sentiment I ever had at the Joo Chiat outlet. Hmmm.

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/10/grilled-iberico-pork-collar-rochor-thai/

An appetite-arousing aroma assaults your senses once the cover is removed, but once your saliva forms and expectations peak the fragrance quickly peters out. What’s left is essentially levelled-up and thicker economic bee hoon – which curiously leaves a slight powdery residue sensation on your lips – with the saving grace being some luxuriously phat and undeniably fresh prawns. 3.4/5

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/10/baked-prawns-in-claypot-rochor-thai/

Essentially a most scintillating extra-marital jungle romp between instant noodle curry powder, mee rebus and green curry…if you request for it to be more spicy. The picture on the menu showed sliced red chilli in this dish, but said chilli was missing when the pasta was served. I tried the pasta anyway, and subsequently asked if I could add the chilli for an extra spicy kick in the pants. They added the chilli and more, and the pasta went from hmmm to HELLOOOOOOO. 4/5

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/10/pasta-x-curry-x-green-curry-som-tam/

Essentially happily fatty, thoroughly marinated and flavoured grilled chicken satay soaking in a creamy, lush and literally verdant green curry (the greens are in the green, if you know what I mean). 4.1/5

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/09/green-chicken-curry-soi-60/

The pancake was like a Indian-spiced prata who eats Wheat Baumkuchen and The Daily Cut for lunch, while the juicy lychee and moist duck had the same chemistry with the salty and slightly spicy black sauce as an IG frequent staycationer has with the Marina Bay Sands Infinity Pool. 3.7/5

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/08/crispy-duck-pancake-soi-60/

The soup was suitably sharp and spicy, and should sufficiently satisfy all heat-seekers. The flames just kept on going and going, so you get the soup piping hot throughout the meal! However, the soup somehow lacked a certain oooooh, a certain umami that some of its contemporaries (ParaThai comes to mind) possess, so you’d just be riding the decidedly one-note tang train throughout. 3.7/5

This was a hosted meal, courtesy of Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe.

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/06/thai-walking-catfish-with-spicy-lemon-soup-spicy-thai-thai-cafe/

Truly one of the best salted egg yolk items I have ever tasted. Instead of slathering the soft and chewy squid with aggressively-flavoured thick, pasty salted egg yolk goo as most others would do, the approach here was to leave the salted egg yolk as largely #nofilter as possible – observe the actual chunks of egg white and yolk randomly lounging around! The runny salted egg yolk was more gravy-esque than paste, and the squid soaked up the eggy goodness most marvelously. Damn legit. 4.5/5

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/06/stir-fried-squid-with-runny-salted-egg-gin-khao/

The very wet bee hoon strides in with an unabashedly fiesty and peppery sass, taking absolutely no prisoners and instantly triggering ooohs of ardourous appreciation and approval from my dining companions. But for the fact that prawns beat clams any day, this would have been a major contender for the peppery bee hoon throne (which, personally, The Prawn Star currently holds with an iron grip). 4.3/5

This was a hosted meal, courtesy of Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe.

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/06/lala-bee-hoon-spicy-thai-thai-cafe/

Wildly different from its more sadistic Red Tom Yum Soup sibling on the menu. The tom yum soup was robustly spicy yet at the same time sweet and not too milky, and I enjoyed the uncommon inclusion of coconut slices, which added an uncharacteristic crunch to the proceedings. 4/5

This was a hosted meal, courtesy of Spicy Thai-Thai Cafe.

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/06/claypot-coconut-tom-yum-soup-spicy-thai-thai-cafe/

The sauce was thick, salty, and sharply spicy – the kind of life partner every rice grain dreams of meeting, someday. The marquee name almost feels like a supporting actor here but is itself commendable for its crunchiness, although you may have to excuse how the squid heads often squirt their liquid squid head goodness into your mouth in a most impertinent manner. 4.1/5

P.S. One needs to be faithful to the concept of street food, so the artistic direction is intentionally Bangkok backstreet alley.

[This was a hosted meal, courtesy of Long Chim.]

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/04/stir-fried-squid-long-chim/

Delectably fatty and salty, and wickedly spicy of the slow-burn, mouth-numbing variety. Remarkably humble a dish (and humbly-priced at $10), yet it spectacularly kickstarts the meal on a supernova explosive note. 4.3/5

P.S. One needs to be faithful to the concept of street food, so the artistic direction is intentionally Bangkok backstreet alley.

[This was a hosted meal, courtesy of Long Chim.]

http://secretlifeoffatbacks.com/2015/04/chiang-mai-chicken-relish-long-chim/