Samlor's Thai Omelette

Scored a last minute table at hip Samlor สามล้อ on Charoenkrung Road. It's pretty all right, but I'm not impressed with it. Somehow, the flavors are a tad immature, and it falls short of my expectations. But the restaurant is walking distance to the bar that we were headed to after dinner, so it made sense to check out the hype. 

The restaurant felt a tad hip. I was a bit sus about the quality of food. It didn't smell.... right. To be specific, the smells coming out of the kitchen didn't smell like they're sufficiently spiced. Samlor is also run by Chef Joe Napol Jantraget and Chef Saki Hoshino, but they're definitely not at helm in the kitchen. 

We were told that the beef isn't the star protein in this kitchen although they promoted it extensively, and we avoided that. Anyway it's wagyu, so nope. Took a slow-cooked pork krapow presented in lumps that were quite fun. This dish somehow tasted sweet. It wasn't spicy either. The roasted cabbage in fish sauce glaze was okay. It's quite hard to screw up this dish unless you roast that cabbage till the leaves are charred black. 

Decided to try the soup. BIG MISTAKE. The soup was particularly bad, to be honest. It was friggin sour, thin and ill. I didn't want to have it after three spoonfuls. I was like, 'what did you grow up having? Didn't someone teach you how to cook soup?!'  The soup of the day was presented as a clear, a tom yam naam sai with our choice of the fish of the day or tiger prawns. We opted for the fish (blue trevally) which was quite miserable. I counted six small slices. Sure, this isn't a typical clear tom yam, but it was wayyy sour till it wasn't edible. Innovation doesn't work this way, chefs. 

If their tom yam soup is this bad, I'm rather turned off already. Luckily I refused to have any of those som tam or spicy salad starters — they wouldn't be to my taste and I don't need them when I'm already having my fill of it from classic stalls. 

The grilled tiger prawns was fine. 650bht for three prawns. They weren't overcooked, served deskilled, and the garlic butter used was lovely. You can't screw up grilling prawns unless they aren't fresh or you killed them double on the grill/ When the kitchen keeps things simple, it works. 

The man wanted to try the IG-famous 'Samlor Thai Omelette'. It was done like a soufflé on a bed of rice. It was good! It went very well with fish sauce and chillies. The only thing is, this is likely the last dish, so you can't quite wait for it to have the rice and yolk with other dishes. It's a catch-22 situation. If you eat rice with the other dishes prior to the omelette's arrival, there's no way you could eat more rice. And when you see all that yolk on the rice, you'll just be tempted to quaff it all down. 

The dessert of tub tim grob (or we know it as 'red ruby', ทับทิมกรอบ) was surprisingly palatable. No shaved ice in coconut milk, but they use coconut granita. It was delicious! I didn't bother with alcohol though. That would be imbibed later on elsewhere. Opted for sparkling water to go with the meal.

Chef Napol wants to have diners taste "elevated Thai cuisine inspired by local street food with specially selected ingredients". This restaurant's menu is pretty all right, the food is okay, but whatever I tasted tonight, was a tad disappointing. My main gripe about Samlor is, the dishes aren't full of robust hints like how I expect Thai street food to be, and for those that try a tad harder, it doesn't hit the standards of fine Thai food either. This is a miss for me. To be honest, I think the chefs' other restaurant 80/20 would be better suited to my taste. Too bad that my time here is sooo short that I don't have time for a meal at 80/20. 

Said famous 'Samlor Thai Omelette'.