Last year the blogosphere was flooded with posts on Erawan, a Thai restaurant located in Kota Damansara, Selangor. In addition, it was voted as one of Top 5 Best Restaurants in Malaysia by The Miele Guide 2010/2011, alongside the likes of Sage and Cilantro (two of my favorite fine dining restaurants in KL so that says a lot about the food here), hence making it a must-go place for us. We had not had much experience with Thai food except for tom yum and Thai green/red curry, hence we were excited to try what this restaurant had to offer.
If you're planning to visit this restaurant, one thing you have to do is plan ahead. You will have to visit their website and make a selection of the dishes you would like and pre-order via email or telephone at least one day beforehand. The reason for this is because most traditional Thai dishes require a great deal of preparation and only one chef (Chef Korn) oversees and cooks all the dishes. Of course, you can walk-in but it is not recommended as the menu choice is limited and you may be politely turned away if they're busy (unless you're willing to wait as all the food are freshly prepared to order).
A real gem..
When we arrived at the restaurant, we were really wowed and impressed with the beautifully decorated restaurant. The place also has a very warm and cosy feel to it. With such a lovely and striking environment, dining here was very enjoyable. Service was also impeccable; Anan, who manages the restaurant is very friendly and would answer any query we had regarding the food.
The restaurant is named after The Elephant God, Erawan so you will see many elephant decorations around the restaurant.
Simply delightful food..
The good thing about their website is that you get to see all the food photos when pre-ordering. The crab in shell appetizer (RM38) appealed to me as soon as I saw it since it looked so darn cute and I also wanted to order something non-spicy which Baby C could eat. Baby C squealed in delight as soon as it was served on our table, well, because the crab was SO darn cute.
A combination of crab meat, prawns and chicken, it is seasoned before being stuffed into the crab shell and deep fried to a beautiful golden brown. Served piping hot, the meat was flavoursome and I just love the crispy outer coating. Really delicious eaten with the homemade plum sauce.
The unanimous favorite was the Erawan's Panaeng Beef Curry (RM38). It was served in a beautiful bowl, in fact all their Benjarong Porcelain dishware were really beautiful. We couldn't help but stop and admire them for a bit before digging into our food. The Australian beef has been simmered for 3-6 hours in coconut milk until tender. And boy, was it tender! The first mouthful was delicious and so was every bite after. And we all loved the curry. The curry was so good, that you'd want to order an extra bowl or two of rice to soak it all up. It was not too spicy either, so Baby C had a piece or two too. Absolutely toothsome!
One of the dishes I have reading and seeing a lot on the internet was the Cockles Curry with Betel Leaf (RM38). Seeing we were all fans of cockles, this was a must order for us. I really love the fact that the serving bowl was laden with plump, juicy cockles. It was heavenly and a joy to savour! This red curry was very good hence we had to order yet another bowl of rice to share!
A visual delight..
Our dessert of Erawan's Pumpkin Custard (RM18) came beautifully presented, almost too pretty to eat. It has been steamed for 1 1/2 hours to obtain the right texture. The pumpkin custard with dark chocolate was rich and sinful. Paired with the vanilla sauce provided, it was heavenly!
We also tried the Thap Thim Krawp (RM8), also known as red ruby or mock pomegranate seeds in coconut ice syrup. Apparently, this dessert was created by the Thai's because pomegranate was quite expensive, hence they substituted it with water chestnuts which has been colored red and boiled before adding to the coconut milk and topped with jackfruit. It was a refreshing dessert but has to be eaten quickly before the ice melts and dilutes the syrup.