Baan Poonarong 普娜容.泰国客家媳妇的住家菜 @ Taman Century, Johor Bahru
Had been passing by the corner lot bungalow located at Taman Century T-junction numerous times and I was always pondering why a property at such a good strategic location was abandoned, until it was taken over and refurbished into a Thai restaurant by Baan Poonarong.
The signature board displayed outside the restaurant has successfully served its purpose by attracting passer-by's attention-- (1) the logo is very unique with the head portrait (of Mdm Poonarong?) and (2) it was written in Chinese that they offer Thai Hakka home-cooked dishes, a brand new fusion that I would like to try. However, I have not visited them until recently, after the crowd has slightly reduced since its first opening.
Baan Poonarong mainly provides homey dishes and the dining place ought to be homey as well. Thus, do not expect magnificence renovation and design, minimal refurbishment with simple set up were done over the abandoned bungalow and the dishes should be the more anticipated factor we are here. As it is situated at a traffic-busy T-junction, it may be difficult and dangerous to park the cars at the roadside, luckily there is a very spacious courtyard where the patrons can park their cars nicely within the compound.
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| Coconut 椰子 Lemon Grass 香茅水 |
Coconut juice and lemon grass tea are the typical beverages in Siamese restaurants.
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| Tom Yum Ta Lay 海鲜东炎汤 |
While most of the restaurants offer both red and clear soup tom yam, there is only one version available in Baan Poonarong. It was served in a hot pot with a candle at the base to keep the soup warm throughout the meal. The contents of the tom yam were very sumptuous and generous with assorted of seafood, mushroom and vegetables. As the colour shown in the picture, the tom yam broth was very thick and flavourful but not overly spicy. It went super well with white rice.
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| Broccoli Pad Goong 西蓝花炒虾仁 |
A portion of green for the day, which was just nicely done and nothing more to shout about.
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| Ka Moo 焖猪脚 |
The braised pork trotter was what we came for. The portion was quite decent for 2 pax during our first visit. It tasted not bad too, the trotter was off bone soft and very savoury. I also pretty like the idea of giving additional gravy, which I could "flood" my rice with the tasty gravy.
Despite the brief introduction on the signature board, we have not tried their Hakka dishes and we will leave them to the next round of visit perhaps.
Address : Baan Poonarong 普娜容.泰国客家媳妇的住家菜
109, Jalan Dato Sulaiman
Taman Century, 80250 Johor Bahru
GPS: N1 29.016 E103 45.429
Bussiness Hour : 12pm - 3pm / 5pm - 12am
Tel : 07-336 3582
