When I first twitted about going to AHROY Thai Cuisine thanks to BBO, there were quite a number of surprising response from the twitterville claiming that it’s one of the best Thai restaurants there is! This only fueled me to accept the offer and brave the jam-packed Pasar Malam night last Friday to find this can’t-be-missed restaurant, located just opposite Leisure Mall, beside Hong Leong Bank at the corner.

Now the first thing that would come to your mind when having Thai cuisine would be their tom yam soup, isn’t it? Well, the above happens to be their Tom Yam Seafood Soup (Red), prized between RM20 (S), RM28 (M) and RM38 (B) which are pretty reasonable! In this case, however, their tom yam proved to be inferior especially when it came to their specialties! Many thanks to our gracious host we all got to try most of them, all reviewed below

This, happens to be one of their most authentic Thailand dishes, called the Thai Traditional Leaf Wrapped Savouries (Mieng Kam) @RM15. This dish consists of small cubes of lime, roasted nuts, imported dried shrimp (oh it makes a WHOLE lot of difference!), dry roasted coconuts hand-chopped, shallots, chillies and ginger surrounding their specially home-made tamarind sauce, as seen in the pic above.  The leaf used to eat this with, is called betel leaf which is apparently known to reduce the level of bad cholesterol in human’s body. Sounds like a healthy alternative to snacks, no?

And this is how you turn the betel leaf into a cleverly shaped cup for you to stuffed the ingredients into before popping the delicious morsel into your mouth. Cute and dainty isn’t it?

But I digress. We should probably start with the appetizers first which were served before the main courses.

We were first given Tapioca with Coconut Milk @RM6 to start, and as per recommended by the restaurant, it was indeed a delicacy of it’s own class. The simple dish required some secret ingredients which the owner insist is a trade secret, and rightly so too as we soon realize how special it is with the spongy texture, sweet demure taste topped with fresh cream! A definite must to try

Now THIS is a dish worth craving for. The Cashew Salad here is to DIE for. One just have to take a bite into a mouthful of crispy fresh lettuce stuffed with a lemony mix of sweet roasted cashew nuts, dried prawns, shallots, roasted old coconut and others that brought out the zesty zing out of the concoction.

But I guess pictures tell more than words, innit? A bite like this is enough to send you in an out of body experience lol!

Okay enough raving about the Salad. Let’s take a look at another of AHROY’s specialty, called the Octopus with Special Sauce @RM10. To prepare a dish like this one requires fresh squids as it’s not really cooked. Eaten with a special lemony sauce spread all over, it becomes a crunchy and zesty snack that you can’t seem to stop eating

Cockles Salad @RM12, to be honest, would probably be my mother’s favourite dish. Fresh and doused in lemoney sauce, these morsels tasted fine so I’m all good :p

Steam Fish in Thai Style (seasonal price) – The above is the “before” pic.

This is after it’s been steamed using a very traditional device that utilizes charcoal to bring the flavour out of all the ingredients, making the soup really, really tasty! Yum

We also had the Golden-Brown Stuffed Crab In Shell @RM10(2 pcs) which was a concoction of crab meat and mixed herbs that gave it an aromatic smell together with a savoury taste that lingered on our tastebuds. Its sweet flesh seemed to leap out there and then

A definite must to order in any Thai restaurant, the Pandan Leaf Chicken @RM13 (5 pcs) became my favourite way to tell if the Thai cuisine is really worth trying or not. My verdict: a definite YES! The wrapping, while not the original style, has been modified to enclose the pieces of thigh meat (yes, THIGH, yums!) really tightly with special house herbs to retain the  juices while it is cooked, giving the pieces of meat an unrivalled wholesome, herb-filled aroma and taste!

Go for this one, I bet my life on it

Go for Deep Fried Crispy Kang Kong @RM8 (S) | RM12 (B) if you’re looking for a quick snack, especially for the young ones. They will love this dish, especially when dipped in their home-made sauce made of chilli, lime, onions and squids!

Steam Squid in Lime Juice @RM25 also happens to be their specialty dish. The seemingly plain-looking dish is actually a power-packed lime-infused squid fest cooked so perfectly that its texture can’t be defined as too springy or two chewy. It’s right in the middle!

Of course you’ll also find the usual Thai menu such as the Green Curry Chicken @ RM15 (S) | RM25 (B) filled with coconut goodness, best eaten with hot steamed rice.

Tub Tim Krob a.k.a Water Chestnuts with Coconut Milk (Red Rubies) @RM5 need I say more?

They also have Thai Otah-Otah in Banana Leaf @RM8 (2 pcs), which happened to be a favourite of a few returning customers. I can’t figure out why, maybe you can tell me

Remember the leaf? It’s been made to wrap these morsels of meat to create this dimsum-ish dish, nicely eaten with Thai chilli sauce

Once again I have to impress on you the goodness of the Thai Traditional Leaf Wrapped Savouries (Mieng Kam) featuring the Betel leaves which are really hard to find, and yet, the owner constantly looks for it because they know that it’s a delicacy that can only be obtain here. Refreshing!

Om nom nom!

Once again thanks to Sidney and Sunny of BBO for the invite, and well met Yew Li of about-uli.blogspot.com! Read her entry here, she took really gorgeous photos!

To be honest, after the session I told myself that though the recipes and method of cooking used here may not necessarily be the most authentic way, they have certainly took painstaking efforts to strive as the best Thai food served in the area, if not the whole of Klang Valley. Lots of respect for them, especially as they work with Thai Tourism as well among other things.

I would most definitely come back here again, if not with Annabel who’s parents know their boss. Possible to get discount, yes?

Ahroy Thai Cuisine
Address: 48, Jln Manis 1, Taman Segar, Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: +603 9133 2330

My Elephant is located in Happy Mansion, which is at SS17. It is at the third building from the entrance, and if you’re a regular customer of Food Foundry or that nasi lemak place, then it shouldn’t be too hard to find. I love the way they have glasses on the exterior, it does exudes some kind of elegance to it.

Once you enter the restaurant, you may find that it’s always packed. We had to make reservations earlier or otherwise would have to wait at the waiting area, which looks like the above. Then again, seeing how classy it was I wouldn’t mind just lying on the sofa cum bed, if only there weren’t a lot of people there to give you the stares.

There’s this really comfy section for group sessions, and it feels like some sort of hearthy area, where you have the fireplace nearby to give you a nostalgic feeling especially if you’ve lived overseas. I’d love to come back if possible to celebrate, say, a friend’s birthday over here. It is, however, a little cramped as there’s not enough space to go around anywhere.

While waiting for the rest to come (I arrived the fastest) I made the orders upon recommendation by other bloggers which I will include at the end of this post. One of them is the Fish Cake that you see above. Dipped into this sweet sour chilli sauce, I thought the taste sorts of whets my appetite, to prepare myself for the incoming main dishes. Savoury and yet not salty (which I usually find in most fish cakes), it does make one hell of  a good appetizer

My Elephant has quirky drinks in its arsenal. I can’t for the life of me remember what you call this flower but I remember having them before, so once again it did brought back some nostalgic feeling. Apparently it’s good for health etc etc but you know, a lot of people would have said that as a gimmick so I tend to just let it all pass, relying just on its sweet yet subtle taste.

When the rest came, we were served. First off we had healthy multigrain brown rice, which had a particular flavour that may not interest some people, but when eaten with savoury dishes it will be totally drowned so it was okay for all of us. A healthy option of course.

I ordered an apparent specialty that they have (though I missed their famous  Miang Kum which is a self-service Thai delicacy, sadness) but was a little disappointed. The Yam Mamuang Talay or otherwise known as Mango Salad (Gado-gado look-a-like) was more bland than it is tangy, and the salad isn’t as crispy as I’d like. We actually didn’t finish this dish, but then again, the three of us ordered quite a lot.

Of course when eating rice, Kangkung belacan is never to be missed! This was obviously one of our favourites as we started whacking it the minute it was set down (well of course I wouldnt’ let them touch it until I took a decent picture of it lol). Savoury and spicy, definitely a good try to have when you’re here in My Elephant.

I also had the honour to order  a main specialty of theirs, which is the Salt Baked Siakap Fish. Interestingly enough you’d have thought that it would cost you a bomb, but it is surprisingly moderately priced! It was so interesting as the waiter brought an aluminum foil wrapped fish looking all hard and brittle, then as he proceeded to knock it with an apparatus, peeled off the aluminum foil I swear you could see steam rushing out of the hardened salt baked skin of the Siakap. He then proceeded to take a portion of the skin off like you see above, and there it was; a meltingly delicious looking fresh Siakap meat that had the aroma enough to skin a cow! It was baked in salt just long enough to maintain the right bounciness of the flesh as well as having it marinated just right. Needless to say it was so irrestiable and looked so easy to eat that we basically tore at it without mercy.

Oh and need I mention that to eat the other side of the fish, one just needs to pull of the bones in the middle and snap it off at the rear end? Ah the beauty of it all, it’s certainly a gastronomic experience.

How could we not order Tom Yum in a Thai restaurant? It would have been an insult worthy to be punished by Heavens above! So here we had Tom Yum Gong which is a clear-based tom yam soup with seafood. It was surprisingly spicy but not to the extent tha would have made you teared. Once again we were not disappointed as we gulped every ounce of Tom Yam there was in this generous bowl.

This dish was delicious as I remembered it, but easily forgettable too, so much so that I forgotten what it was called. If I had to give it my own name, it would be “Fried Spiced strips of Chicken” which had a unique aroma, thanks to the herbs which they used to marinate it. If I can recall we didn’t finish this dish either. But then again, we were only 3 and….

There was at least THIS much of food in front of us. Lol. Talk about being greedy But then again you have to admit the squarish table coupled with that cute little round banana leaf on top of the plate lent to the aesthatic factor in My Elephant

The total amount came up to just about RM140, which for the amount of food we ate, would be actually quite cheap! Rare it is these days to find cheap but quality food especially in PJ or KL. As you can see, the fish costed RM40 which, for the size of the Siakap, really priced at a great value! 3 of us paid RM46 or so each (which could’ve been less if we were 4 people, since we ordered enough for 4, really, amounting to RM35 each) and left the place in high spirits. Service was par excellent despite the horror stories we heard of My Elephant staffs (and even bosses, I hear!) so I guessed we either hit it at the right time and were lucky enough to be spared, or that these rumours were unfounded to begin with.