Have a Heart for your Wallet at Jai Thai & The Thoughts of the Hoo-haa

9th August 2010 - National Day. Written by Xin Li.

Jai Thai is a favourite of mine because of its affordable set menus and consistent quality. For about 6-8 bucks you can get a filling Pineapple Rice Set or Olive Rice Set which comes with a few side dishes like Pandan Leaf Chicken, Green Curry etc with your main course, a choice of drink and dessert.

Jai Thai used to have an outlet located at Thomson Plaza and it was one of my favorite places to have a family meal because we love the food and it was priced reasonably. It was a pleasant surprise when I got to know that they are still around at Clover Way few months ago and my dad, my brother and I decided to have our lunch there during National Day.

We could recognize some faces and the casual Thai decorations and atmosphere we experienced still lives on in the Clover Way branch as well as the affordable value sets. I had the Pineapple Rice Set for only 7.80 SGD which includes about four side dishes, a choice of drink and dessert together with the main course.

The Pineapple Rice was quite good but not flavourful enough, it depends quite a lot on the chicken floss, and it used to be great until I have tried better pineapple rice at Bumbu where the rice was sweet even by itself. Tastes and expectations changed as one gets to try more versions.

The side dishes include Green Chicken Curry (spicy, slightly sweet with a hint of coconut), Pandan Leaf Chicken (crispy and decent), Spring Rolls (crispy but slightly oily with generous fillings) and some pieces of Fish which seemed to be lightly fried and goes well with the sweet Thai Chili Sauce provided.

The dessert was Coconut Jelly which is a very simple yet addictive jelly dessert.

Overall, the food was quite good and the set meals are really good for value. It is applicable even for dinners. The sits could be fully occupied on certain days during lunch time as it is quite popular for its Beef Noodles as well as the low prices for a set meal.

I have been terribly busy during the last few days and that will be the case for the next few months. It seems like a huge hoo-haa has been going on as I was away regarding a fellow food blogger whose posts, together with Camenberu's and Chubby Hubby's are something I enjoyed reading especially during a time when food blogs are quite rare. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people have posted about the incident but after reading through a few of them, I agree with food.recentrunes.com’s post “Fallout” the most.

While I dislike the poor behavior mentioned in the incident, I think it is pointless to brood over an overblown matter. However, I found that the incident has raised several interesting points regarding the quality of journalism to the ethics of a food blogger.

Food blogging is never a simple eat and post matter. This is because you put your views and content for the public the moment you click on the post button. An innocent post or tweet might just be the next “Breaking News”. Hence, personally, I felt that when one posts something online, you are more or less responsible for the content especially if it involved several parties in the post.

When Camenberu celebrated her 3rd birthday this year she mentioned “We're seeing lots more food blogs these days - well, "good food must share!" right? Yes, and in the words of Nigella whom I found out loves food blogs, "...it's just a bigger banquet!" .

Similar to why we enjoy food for its diversity of cuisines to methods of preparation, each food blogger is a unique individual with a different style. We may like it, we may not like it but at the end of the day, most probably did it to share the food and love. Unfortunately, like what Food.recentrunes.com mentioned in his blog that “some will fall to the dark side” after some time when they got swayed by fame etc.

Lets hope the incident has not dampen our passion for food and continue, like Harris would say, to share the love. =)

Jai Thai

Address:
7 Clover Way Singapore

Tel: +65 6258 0228

Opening Hours
Mon–Sat: 11am – 3pm, 6pm – 9pm
Sun: 6pm – 9pm