Pim's & the Rama, Aman Suria

22 & 22A Jalan PJU 1/43,
Aman Suria Damansara
47301 Petaling Jaya
Tel#03-7802 8386
https://www.facebook.com/pimsramathai/

 What do people think that they can fare better than their predecessor? In the case of My Elephant, they opened a joint in this neighborhood few years ago. The food was not bad, only not good enough to justify the prices. After few years, they closed down. Only to be replaced by this.

I was surprised to hear that this joint actually originated from Klang. Most of the time, the place looked quite happening and crowded that I suggested to have a long overdue catchup dinner here. Unfortunately, that was a bad choice. For starters, when the place gets filled, the noise can make conversations difficult. That wouldn't have been so bad if you're busy stuffing yourself silly with food but those came infrequently and long in between that it really spoilt our mood. Hopefully it was just our day that they didn't have the full crew so our dinner got prolonged (very unnecessarily).

As the name implies, it's actually a bar as well so there was a live band. Great if you're there to chill over a couple of beer with some music in the background. Bad if you're looking forward to dinner and some conversation.

Did the food make up for all that?

Papaya salad
Not too sour and definitely meant to be shared unless you're a sourpuss who can really take a lot of sour stuff.

Stir fry pork with basil and chili.
A staple order of jl, it wasn't too spicy and great with the hot fragrant white rice. Portion wasn't huge, just enough for our party of 5 to share.

Stir fry cucumber with egg.
When this arrived, we were dumbstruck as it wasn't quite what we thought. Actually, leafing through the menu, it didn't give much idea on what this was. We didn't know it would turn out to be so... Chinese. If you told me that this is from the local economy rice stall, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. Anyway, it was great as a comfort food, not something from a Thai restaurant.

Garlic lime steamed sotong.
They all loved this sourish soup and best of all, they all are not knocked up. I find it just too sour and squid was overcooked. We asked them if it was possible to add more soup (for free, of course). To our surprise (and delight), they do provide a free soup refill (even if it was only for 1time). Unfortunately, the soup took so long and so many reminders that we didn't bother about it.

Thai-style hotpot. No tom yum in here, so order away, ye who can't take spicy food. The soup tastes of a chicken/pork base with loads of lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves.

This is their 2pax portion. I don't know if this is how it's served in Thailand but the pork slices were rather thick so they took awhile to cook even in boiling soup. Can't tell if the taste was from the marinade or soup. I'm interested to try more Thai hotpot, if they don't all serve the meat in thick slices =\

Pandan chicken
These were done quite well though a bit dry on the inside and kinda small. You can taste the pandan flavor and a slight crispiness around the exposed part of the meat.

Would I come back? Maybe, just not on days when their crew is running at a bare minimum and live band playing.