Rochor Thai – Flavours of Thailand in Joo Chiat

I LOVE Thailand, especially Bangkok. And one of the reasons is the food there. Obviously, I’m always on the lookout formThai food and recently, I was introduced to Rochor Thai. Founded by a passionate food enthusiast Joel, Rochor Thai has the perfect concoction of classic traditional flavours cleverly infused with modern Thai elements. Previously located at the historical Rochor Centre, Rochor Thai has now moved to the new location at Joo Chiat.

Priding themselves as the Thai bistro to deliver strictly MSG-free dishes, the restaurant wanted to do justice to the beauty of natural ingredients. Making all the pastes and sauces from scratch, spoil yourself with a good choices of Thai dishes.

Som Tum ($6.80) gave a good start to the meal because they are very generous with their spices – HOT AH! The green papaya provides a crisp texture, and blended with hot chilli and dried shrimp.

The Tom Yum Talay ($8.80) here, is a brew that turns your face brick-red with tongue-numbing chilli padi, but abit too oily for my liking.

I know this is great pork collar ($12.80) when I see it and sink my teeth into juicy strips of it. I have tried many Thai places and many of their grilled pork collar is very dry. But Rochor Thai’s pork collar is very tender. It may be slightly salty when you have it alone, but the aromatic dried chilli sauce balanced the flavour.

Clams flambe with chilli jam ($14.80) and chef’s stock is something unique in a Thai restaurant but it was slightly too salty for me.

Chef’s special green curry ($11.80) came with nice tender chicken thigh and thai eggplant. The thick and creamy gravy also had a nice balance of sweetness and spiciness that went well with the rice.

Gaeng Phet Pla Krapong Daeng ($16.80) is one of my favourite dish. The sweet and savoury of the red curry and the smooth and tender snapper fillets totally make the dish outstanding. It has a perfect balance of sour, salty, sweet and spicy flavours.

Unfortunately, their Pad Thai Talay ($7.80) disappoint me because it was too wet and soggy.

I was expecting my Stir-fried Thai ‘Drunken’ Style Prawns ($16.80) to have some alcohol in it because of the work drunken. Haha! But it does not have any alcohol lah. Apparently, the chef said this dish is supposedly known by the Thais to “drown their sorrows”. It’s stir fried in thai chilli jam and thai sweet basil.

Rochor Thai is a no-frills Thai eatery offering the perennial favourites like som tum, tom yum soup, pad thai etc. You can get a good mix of Thai dishes here and they are trying to keep the flavours as authentic. But there may be some dishes which would still need some fine tuning.

Rochor Thai
Address: 340 Joo Chiat Road
Tel: 6440 3270