Best Tom Yung Kung (Php 240++). Hot and Sour Prawn Soup
The Thai at Silk experience started and ended with the Best Tom Yum Kung I ever tasted in any of the Thai restaurants in Manila. It is sweet and at the same time, spicy hot because of the lemongrass and the ginger that lingers and soothes your throat. As for the rest of the menu it was forgettable and I still would not compare this to People’s Palace. I must admit that they get great compliments for the interior design and the green – white motif designed by Cynthia and Ivy Almario. They put a lot of attention to detail which includes how the food is presented, how the plates and spoon/fork are selected, and even to the simple toothpick.
Thai at Silk is a Thai Fine Dining place and has been operational for less than a month at Serendra Piazza. They still need to improve a lot on the food which tasted ordinary (mostly) and it is a filipinized Thai version that is more on the sweet side. In the absence of quality premium food, you would feel that you are paying for the ambiance and presentation. In our case, cost was at P500/ person. The service we received was not at their best. Was it because they were preparing for a more important event than their customer at the moment or we were just ordinary looking folks dining at a fine dining resto? We also thought we saw the owner/ chef, Cecile Ysmael, wearing a chef attire but we could be wrong. (No photo moments with the chef and Aidan this time.) Maybe they need to learn from their neighbor across Duo on how to provide great warm service for everyone.
Net, I guess we just came at the bad time when the kitchen is already closing at 2pm in the afternoon but still, there was no excuse for that, maybe they should have closed their doors to us. I fell in love with the interiors and I do hope I can say the same thing about their food in the future. I’m sure this would get mixed reviews by the time you get to eat here so I would appreciate your dining experience with me. This would also be a gauge for me if it is time to go back and get an awesome worth of what I pay for my food and service.
Related Post:
Fash Pack Let’s eat: Thai at Silk
Som’s Noodle House – cheap authentic version of SukhoThai
Silk Interiors
You will be greeted by this warm display of vases with a green and white motif. Unfortunately, the servers were not as warm.
This is an artistic overexposed shot of the beautiful cage lanterns hanging in the ceilings.
Peaceful, seduction, and harmony.
a closer look at the caged lanterns. I can’t resist taking this shot.
My friend Luisa and Sister-in-law Clauds posing for the camera.
I loved their toothpicks and I guess I paid for these too! 🙂
The Thai at Silk Dining Experience:
Soup, Appetizers, Salads, Curries and More, Vegetables, Rice Noodles.
Vegetarian, Sweets and Desserts and Coffee Menu
Tao Hu Tod Sam Rot (P190++). Tossed brown tofu in chilies and sweet wine sauce.
We expected to have that silken tofu sinking into our teeth as we bite but instead we got the tofu squares you buy in the supermarket. How bad can this be?
Panang Pla Kapong Yang Bai Tong (P360++). Sole Fish char-grilled in a banana leaf with perfumed panaeng curry.
I’ve eaten better a Sole dish in Duo.
See Khrong Mao Yaang (P220++). Cinnamon and lemon marinated baby back ribs barbecued to perfection.
Don’t expect a soft to the bone baby back ribs but I must admit that the Cinnamon and Lemon was a nice combination to give flavor to the meat. I hate to disagree on the ” barbecued to perfection” statement since I can still see a lot of carcinogenic burned portions.
Pad Thai (P360++). Thai Style Fried Noodles.
The cheese net of the Pad Thai deserves a standing ovation for creativity! This is the best looking pad thai I have ever seen.
Stir Fried Kailan and Mushroom with Oyster Sauce (Php 240++).
This vegetable dish is OK.
Khao Khluk Kapi (P360++). Fried Rice with Shrimp Paste served with sweet pork and green mango julienne.
I missed SuhkoThai’s cheaper version called Bagoong Rice. I think I’m still even paying for the nice cool Thai names of the dishes. haha
Thai at Silk (Thai Fine Cuisine)
Cecille C. Ysmael
Unit 1C12 Little Asia G/F Serendra Piazza
26th St. Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City
Tel nos. 856-0386 to 87
Cell Phone # +63 917 822 9818
Hi anton ! My husband and I tried it about 2 weeks ago. Just got back from an overnight trip in Bangkok for a lecture so was bitin and craving for Thai food. So my standards were kinda high. You’re right the chef went around during our lunch as well but she only greeted the big time diners. Well that’s ok but some other diners may get offended as she skipped tables. The food was ok better than most thai restaurants around . The soup was great like you said . our waiter was efficient . I forgot the name of the salad i ordered but it was really good. Yes it’s quite expensive especially for lunch. Probably for special dinners. The interiors were clean and bright so it’s a nice lunch place save for the price.
will keep you posted in case i try a good affordable thai restaurant around manila. my turn 🙂
patricia
Saw this across the way when I had dinner in Duo last night (love Duo, but at those prices I’ll likely save it for special occasions in the future). Would you say it’s better than People’s Palace (my favorite trendy Thai resto-bar)?
That Pad Thai not only looks delicious, but also so cute! I love that cheese net.
Dear Wysgal : people’s palace definitely better
I like that overexposed photo.
I would have to agree that people’s palace is still a lot better.
The pad thai in a net reminded me of the best pad thai I’ve ever had…pad thai served inside a soft omelet, which no one seems to do around here. Had it in the food court of one of the high-end Bangkok malls. Not Paragon…I think Gaysorn. 😉
@patricia: You might want to try Muang Thai in QC. Compared to what we’ve had in Bangkok, this resto comes closest. Too bad Sukhothai is no longer around…
thanks to notsolillulu ! Will try that. I’m a manila-makati girl. Where in QC 🙂 ?
Yes, I too bemoan the loss of Sukothai… they were truly the best in Thai cuisine to be had in Manila! But I heard that the head chef set up this place called SOM in the Rockwell/Power Plant vicinity. Can someone please confirm this? As for the Silk vs. People’s Palace comparison: 1. Both are definitely upscale “image” restos and do not provide value for money when it comes to Thai dining. (Sukothai had their pricing formula down perfectly!) 2. People’s Palace staff has admitted that they are fusion based and therefore not authentically Thai; Silk’s kitchen on the other hand does make an honest effort to prepare bonafide Thai cuisine. 3. When it comes to dessert, the sticky rice w/ mango at People’s Palace is worth the 200 bucks they charge, it’s heavenly! 4. In any case, Anton’s estimate of P500/head at Silk is a bit on the low side; whether you dine at any of the two, expect to spend closer to 800. My humble opinion tilts towards Silk, only by just a bit.
i ate in people’s palace 3x already and not once i found the place good… i feel theres something missing in the dishes. like a certain authenticity i think.
I have not eaten at the upscale Thai restos mentioned here. When I’m craving for Thai food, I go to Som’s Noodle House at Alger St., Poblacion Makati which was only walking distance from where I used to live. It’s the street where Grilla in Rockwell is. It’s a house converted to a carinderia. The owner used to be a chef at Sukhothai and married a Filipina. You’ll see him still cooking the dishes with his wife. It’s a family-run resto. Don’t expect cozy interiors coz you’ll probably be sitting on one of their outdoor tables. They serve good home-cooked thai food. Prices are not that expensive, around P150-200/pax. Most of the dishes are only good for one though. But I love their food and the thai iced tea- a must try.
Yeah, Soms is great but for some people who is not used to the carinderia type, might not like it.
I blogged about it last year:
https://awesome.blog/awesome/2005/10/soms_noodle_hou.html
thanks for the comments!
I love Thai food and I’ve been quite frustrated because there aren’t too many restaurants that offer it locally. I miss the Thai restaurant in Shangrila Hotel Makati (the name skips me right now) and Flavors and Spices. Even Sukhothai isn’t as good as it used to be. I’ve tried Som’s in Rockwell and they’re not bad at all. I’ll definitely visit this place with my family. The pictures you took are making me hungry.
@Patricia and all those interested in trying Muang Thai resto, here are directions: From QC Circle, turn right to Kalayaan Avenue. From Kalayaan, turn right into the street where Trellis and Sulo Hotel are on. Then, turn right at the McDonald’s on that street. Muang Thai is 2 to 3 buildings from McDonald’s. It is right beside the building with a Pancake House.
Hi, had Sunday lunch at Thai at Silk 2-3 weeks ago after reading an article about it on the Philippine Star. The pictures on the newspaper were great that’s why we decided to have our family lunch there. When we got there, the place was full. A lot of “bigwigs” were there, though I didnt notice if the chef/owner went around tables. As for the service, VERY BAD!!! We had to wait for our order for about 1 hour!!! I think our waiter missed one of our orders (which was the most important!) – bagoong rice.
Wasn’t the Thai restaurant at Shangri-La Makati called Salathip? Yeah, that was a good restaurant.
Soms is ok, provides good value for money, but I find their food to be too much on the sweet or salty side. Heard the Thai restaurant at the Dusit Nikko is supposedly the best in the city. Anyone can confirm this?
i like SOMS but the service there is so bad!
NOT advisable for group dinners. once, my friends and i went there, the first one who ordered (red curry) was the last one to eat. more than 40minutes of waiting.
another time, we ordered beef tom yum (which i like very much, coz i’m allergic to shrimp). the waiters were very apologetic pero after waiting for 40+minutes, we were hungry, beyond pissed, and decided not to go back there again for a very long time.
the food is not very consistent also. the first time we ordered pork toppings wow ang dami, tapos every chance we eat there the servings get smaller and smaller. i won’t be surprised if the time comes na shredded pork nalang siya!
sayang. sana they’ll improve their services. masarap pa man din and mura.
Although People’s Palace may have admitted that they’re a fusion of cuisines, I must say that their food is really great, but isn’t really affordable to a normal-waged person. With regard to Som’s, i don’t know if my fiancee and i just ordered the wrong dishes but we certainly didn’t like anything about it except for their so-so spring rolls. The best and affordable Thai restau so far, in my opinion, is Sala Thai along Nakpil in Malate. It’s just a hole in a wall along the street that’s been there for many many years now.
I would have to agree with you on Sala Thai. In fact, I might have a post about it but still is not able to put it out… I’ll try to post this one soon…
anton
hmm. i’m just so wary to try all these “thai” resturants here in the philippines. last night alone i made a visit to som’s and, well, i’m not going back. price wise it was ok. not cheap not expensive. but food…nothing to rave about. probably the worst thing i had there was the spring rolls. which were basically slow, low-temp fried, and uber greasy lumpiang shanghai. i used approximately 2-3 sheets of tissue to blot the brown, almost rancid frying oil PER lumpia. i have never seen anything so disgusting. as for the best thai resto here, sadly you have to pay the price (as opposed to the awesome sidewalk cuisine you get in bkk, whih is my idea of a good thai meal). benjarong at dusit serves quite authentic royal thai style cuisine. some thai food selections at flavors and spices at the pen are quite nice as well. no other suggestions other than those 2 restos (and i have tried every resto suggested above). what i don’t understand is how we cant seem to get thai food right when we can find most ingredients here. now i hear silk imports key thai ingredients and even has meng kam on its menu. that alone entices me to check it out. how can one possible screw up meng kam? honestly, my expectations are low. but my search for good thai food locally will remain umwaivering…if not quixotic
Hmm, I have to agree with anonymous paul re SOM’s. Yes, it’s cheap but I was quite disappointed with a few of the dishes we tried. I suppose I expected more from the place as the owner used to be a chef at Sukhothai. I’ve been to BKK 3x, and I must say that I’ve had better street food/mall food court food there than at Som’s. Sayang.
just came from dinner at thai @ silk. your first few words about the food were spot on — great tom yum, the rest was forgettable. rather bland actually, and not worth the price. (but the tofu at least was silken.)
would probably not eat there again unless i had no choice. definitely not to fulfill a thai craving.
Hi Anton. The observations you’ve had at the beginning of the month remain true at the end of the month. It is indeed filipinized Thai because there is too much sugar in everything — the curry, the pad thai AND even the tom yum. I guess it’s all a matter of personal taste, but I don’t think tom yum should ever be that sweet. The interiors are indeed quite nice. The service also is not bad.
such a yearning and pining for good thai food! we like our thai food quite a lot at home, and at least when it comes to having a good curry, best results is just to make it ourselves with a generous helping of thai curry paste
Ate there 4 weeks ago. food was terrible. not authentic. and service was really bad. i had some spring rolls and bit into a really hard piece of crab shell!!! almost broke my tooth. complained to the waiters and they did not even apologize. it wouldnt have been so bad if the rest of the food was good which it wasnt. i really hate this resto.
Ate there 4 weeks ago. food was terrible. not authentic. and service was really bad. i had some spring rolls and bit into a really hard piece of crab shell!!! almost broke my tooth. complained to the waiters and they did not even apologize. it wouldnt have been so bad if the rest of the food was good which it wasnt. i really hate this resto.
Will be trying this restaurant this Wednesday. I’m really excited, will post my review after. I really hope it’s good!! 🙂
People’s Palace SUCKS – it’s totally Filipino: lots of salt and lots of sugar, no spice. Gross.
The Pad Kaprow there is the WORST I have ever had in my life
Not impressed at all with Silk. Overrated, I think. People’s Palace is definitely better…or better yet — Benjarong at Dusit Hotel. The cheese net of the phad thai is nothing new also. A lot of the touristy thai restaurants in Thailand do it that way. I give Silk a grade of average…a place to go to to satisfy your craving for thai food. That’s all.
first and foremost thanks you for being very kind kuya anton hehe kase sobrang nakakahiya pina delete ko un first comment ko kase may error. Anyways here is it. It’s my first time to taste the food in Thai at Silk but i heard from my friend this restaurant is delicious, beautiful ambiance but the thing is it’s pricey hehe..and that’s true but i think ganun kase talga kase nasa serendra ka. The Food: actually masarap naman siya especially un appetizer nila na shrimp na nakawrap sa wanton wrappper ata un may cucucmber na sawsawan hehe that’s yummy aside from that un pad thai and the bagoong rice and hindi ko nagustuhan sa lahat ng inorder namen un tom um soup. iba pa rin talga ang suko thai im really wondering bakit sila nagsara. i really love their food sana mag open sila ule. sayang naman. haay..so overall i rate thai at silk 8 spoons hehe..
ps.: it’s better magpareserve kayo before ging kase parati sila puno.
SOM’s is super value for money. Mura pero quality is erratic and service . . . did I just say service? In the 4 times I’ve been there, everything I’ve asked always gets served in the wrong order (on two occasions our order of rice got served last, as in 15 minutes into the meal). Thai at Silk has lovely interiors but the food leaves a lot to be desired. One of my all-time faves has always been Spices at The Pen. Sarap, generous servings, the supervisors Sonny and Maricar are super-duper sweet, all the rice you can handle plus the mint water. Then there’s their Indian menu by Chef Bairagi something. GORGEOUS Indian food.
the owners to Sukothai opened a simple Thai restaurant called Thai Pad located along Pasong Tamo, Makati City, near Makati Cinema Square. They are not fine dining type of resto but more of a fastfood type. I havent really tried dining there, you may want to try.
had dinner at silk with hubby 2 days ago — i was craving for really good thai food these past few weeks… (remember flavors and spices at gbelt?)… out of 5 stars, i give silk 2.5. service was ok that evening but the place had a funny slightly fishy smell just as we entered. the tom yum was quite ok but it wasn’t served piping hot as it should… ordered the tofu, thought it was ok; pad thai too, interesting presentation but the taste was below my expectation. oh and since it is a thai resto after all — i had to ask the server for cilantro as the tom yam and the pad thai didn’t have a single leaf. did the kitchen just forgot or it really wasn’t part of the recipe? overall, i hope the chef/owner would consider improving the taste of the food and perhaps spruce up the place a bit as it is starting to feel quite old — it no longer has the crisp, very clean feeling of a relatively new resto esp since the color motif should evoke calmness and freshness.
….there’s something wrong in this picture….has anyone said have written to the management-owners that obviously these thai’s or other restaurants has manpowers-disorganize problems that needs to be address….did you ever approached them-requested be service better just like everyone else since the amount you’ll pay will not change a bit so getting the most from it is your best choice to want to experienced…..sometimes letting managements know what’s the problem is the best way to get what you need-want the next time…..being quiet passive non chalant complacent to what you want-need-expect-assumed will not solved-deliver any answers nor your expectations coz you never told them meaning they probably did’nt know there’s a problem at all…..individuals must solve their own problems and request it’s own necessities to accomplish well deserving ‘services’desired.
that pad thai looks interesting, pad thai inside an omelet – even more interesting, haven’t tried that one, but the best pad thai i’ve had was in heidelberg!
Hi! just to share, we used to have a simple thai cuisine in west fairview, near FEU-NRMF school in Dahlia. It’s called MAEPHAP Thai Cuisine, but we closed it after almost 5 years because my mom needed rest. Yes, she is the cook, my mom is pure Thai, born and hailed from northeast of Thailand. We shop for our own ingredients and ship it directly from our province in Thailand to Manila, and we are always hands-on with the management of our restaurant. My mom personally cooks every dish we serve, since our customers know the difference if the food was not cooked by my mom. let me give you a quick background of our cuisine, we have re-opened thrice already, like other businesses we had our first trial to test the waters, back in late 1990’s we had our first restaurant but we had to close it down because of a bad location, then we re-opened again in a much bigger place, like as big as a house in fairview also. this time we focused on upscale customers since we were in a fine-dining setting. but after serveral years, we had to close again and reposition because not everyone in the area are willing to spend a little more than the usual fast food price for good food. finally, we opened MAEPHAP Thai cuisine in Dahlia street in west fairview, we started with one shop, but had to get one more shop as extension to accommodate the customers because they all come in groups and eat at the same time (lunch time) so it was really crowded. we also made deliveries within the area, to dorms and the neighboring subdivisions. i must say, my mom is a very good cook 🙂 she has a personal touch that only she knows. our main customers were med/nursing and PT students, dormers and also the resident or visiting doctors from FEU. we have concentrated on budget meals since we know that not all people would be willing to shell out loads of money just to taste an authentic thai meal. our budget meals range from 55 to 70 pesos already with rice and soup, we position our prices in an affordable manner but not compromising quality and taste. apart from the main thai meals like thai bagoong rice with sweet pork and scrambled egg, we also have our popular and best seller, thai lemon grass chicken. we also serve some typical filipino dishes like caldereta, sinigang, menudo, vegetables, etc. but mind you, these are also a big hit and a major come on of our small dinette. unfortunately we had to close it down again because my mom needed some time to rest abroad, and also because the landlady and their kids and staff were not so nice, really pain in the *ss ungrateful. 🙂 closing it down was not our loss, it was more of their loss because for sure, our simple dinette was well-loved by people and it was the main attraction of their old and unsanitary building. sorry but that’s really the reality.
so for those who live in the north (quezon city area, commonwealth, fairview) we are re-opening a very small area in a food strip beside Our Lady of Fatima University along regalado in fairview, on the way to SM Fairview it’s on the left side, inside Sitio Seville subdivision. we also accept orders in bulk but there has to be at least 3 days to 1 week lead time. you can email me or text at this number for your pa-luto 🙂 let us know first which dish you want and we’ll see if we can offer that 🙂 0917 834 82 60
Thanks!
Sawasdee kha!
Hi! We are planning to have a group dinner date, but we could not decided which restaurant to go in Serendra? But we would like to try Thai at Silk and Abe? So, which would be better for a group?In one point, we are after a resto were we can really savor the dishes. thank you.
It comes down to which type of food you want to eat: Filipino or Thai?