MP Thai Mini (Shenton)

Have always been wanting to give MP Thai a try but there hasn’t been a particularly enticing reason for us to make our way down to Vision Exchange at Jurong East just to really go for it — so it was pretty surprising for us when we were going around the Central Business District looking for somewhere to settle for lunch when we found out about the new MP Thai Mini that had recently opened its doors at Shenton Food Hall at Shenton House. MP Thai Mini had taken over the former premises of another Thai eatery within the food court which doubles up as a live music bar in the evening — the stall of which it had taken over being the one which Kimberley Thai Kitchen had operated from. Whilst the food hall had seen a few new tenants opening up in the past few months, a number had since moved out — this includes Sanchon Korean Cuisine, The Saigon and King of Chicken Rice. Since MP Thai Mini operates out of a food court stall, the menu at MP Thai Mini is much more focused as compared to that of MP Thai’s original and independently run location at Vision Exchange. With that being said, patrons can still find quite a variety of individually-sized rice and noodle dishes here — a smart move to target the busy office folks that head here to dine alone or just are not too comfortable to order communal dishes to share with their colleagues. That being said, MP Thai Mini also does serve up a good variety of communal dishes such as Tom Yum Mama Hotpot, Steam Seabass with Garlic and Chilli, Handmade Esan Sour Sausage, Tom Kha Kai etc.; quite a good variety to choose from.

Since we have pretty much headed to MP Thai Mini ourselves, we only had stomach capacity to go for a single individually-sized dish. Whilst we did have had Thai food fairly recently, it has been quite a while since we have had our last Pad Thai; this was how we found ourselves going for the Pad Thai with Chicken Slices whilst dropping by MP Thai Mini for the very first time. MP Thai Mini does serve up their Pad Thai in a few variation of meat and seafood choices; other variants of the Pad Thai available at MP Thai Mini includes one with Pork Slices, as well as those which feature elements such as prawn and seafood. It is noted that patrons would be issued with an electronic buzzer upon order and payment at the counter; the patrons will be paged to collect their order from the counter once the food is prepared and ready for collection. Peanuts are placed on the side of the plate by the staff here, though patrons would be able to help themselves to chili flakes on the side and add them to the dish to their fancy. From the first look, one could easily tell that the Pad Thai served up at MP Thai Mini is the slightly wetter sort; some might call it sloppy considering hot wet it is but there is some serious flavour going on in this one. First taste of the noodles and one could already taste the sweetness and tanginess from the calamansi added in this one; all while the noodles come with a good chew and tossed with rather sizeable chunks of chicken that whilst is nothing much to shout on their own, does provide a good meaty bite to the dish. Adding sufficient chili flakes meant that it provides a burst of spiciness that further elevated the dish; one that gives the Pad Thai a good contrast of flavours, while the cubes of beancurd puff provided another sort of bite whilst laced in all that flavour which the noodles comes with — the greens and the beansprouts adding a bit of a wholesomeness to all of that. Hadn’t been to the original MP Thai so it ain’t up to us to comment if the quality of food is consistent here, but we are most certainly looking forward to give their other dishes a go here. Prices of the individually-sizes dishes starts from $7 with the most expensive item being the Omelette Lava Fried Rice (Crab) being listed at $12; not the cheapest dining option around here, though still somewhat decent considering where it is located at.