小城泰厨 Xiao Cheng Tai Chu at Zhuhai is located at the 唐人街 Chinatown area although this is a chain restaurant with several outlets nearer the city center.

This outlet is located on the second storey of a grimy building with puddles to jump over, so there is a bit of a shocking contrast when you enter the restaurant. It is a bright, clean space with lots of green and neutral coloured furniture, giving it a garden-like atmosphere.

The menu has some standard and classic Thai dishes, indispensable at any respectable Thai restaurants. On Da Zhong Dian Ping, the Yelp of China, customers recommend the yellow curry beef tendon 黄咖喱牛腩，minced chicken with cabbage wrap 鸡肉生菜包, curry crab 咖喱蟹 🦀, and BBQ pork collar 烤猪颈肉 🐷.

The kangkong 炒通菜 here can be fried with sambal 叁巴酱 or garlic 蒜 and we opted for garlic because it is slightly cheaper and because we were having other spicy dishes and we didn’t want flavours to clash. It is a good rendition: leaves still crunchy although it could do with more garlic.

The seafood tom yom 冬阴功海鲜汤 made me pause and want to ask if they employed a Thai cook. (But I eventually forgot.) It could be sourer and spicier but there are complex flavours here that are quite authentic. It is the milky kind (personally it was too milky for me) and comes with plenty of ingredients which are quite fresh. Best of all, there is green brinjal, a mark of authentic Thai food.

In Singapore, fish is really expensive, but here, I think it is super affordable at ¥88 for one huge fish. (Can anyone identify the type of fish from the photo? I want to say it’s seabass but I’m bad at species.) You can have it deep-fried or steamed. And naturally, everyone knows that only freshest fish can be steamed so you should always order it steamed to make sure the chef uses fresh fish.

And if you have it steamed, you can have it in tom yum broth or lemon-chilli broth. Since we had the seafood tom yum, we ordered this with lemon. It comes on a hot plate with a candle beneath to keep it warm. And it is excellent. Extremely fresh with a nice clean bite. Firm and tender but not flakey. They put lemon slices in the belly but yet, the delicate sweetness of the fish is not overpowered.

We paid ¥213 for two persons. This price is similar to what most people pay on Da Zhong Dian Ping (about ¥100 per pax) and reviewers say that it is not cheap. However, a steamed fish alone in Singapore will already cost more than ¥200, so I think the price we paid here is rather affordable.

Food: 7/10
Price / Value: 7.5/10
Decor / ambience: 7/10
Service: 6.5/10

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