Fried Banana and Sweet Potato Balls - Long queue for Fried Banana?!

• Address: 5001 Beach Road S(199588)
• How to get there: Alight at Nicoll Highway MRT (Circle Line) and walk towards Concourse and turn right on Beach Road. Estimated walking time about 5 mins.
• Food I had: Fried Banana, Sweet Potato Balls

Golden Mile Complex main attraction including mookata (Thai-style steamboat), Thai themed pub and club, and restaurants, what I am featuring is one unusual stall that often has queues, selling Fried Banana (กล้วยแขก). Located outside Thai Supermarket on the 2nd floor. Selling three items which I'm going to feature two of the more popular snacks people are queuing for. There was long queue while I was there on Sunday, so expect to queue about half an hour if you going over on weekend. I have visited on weekdays and there was not as long queue. Take note that it get sold out pretty fast, about 8 PM will have nothing left for you to snack on.

You can smell of the fritters when you are queuing for it, makes you want to buy more.

Fried Banana, each piece is half sliced, the fried banana are dipped with hints of coconut essence and flour before they were fried and finally sprinkled with sesame seeds. It was really crispy on the outside while the banana flesh was still intact on the inside. 

Cost: 5 pieces for $2 (they might give you extra 1 or 2 pieces, depend on your luck)

The main culprit for the queues are these sweet potato balls. The size of a ping pong ball, When I take the first bite, once your teeth have bitten through the thin crispiness of the ball, next layer is the sweet potato taste to your taste buds, surprisingly it does not stick to the teeth. I will come back again for these definitely! 

Cost: 10 pieces for $2

Na Na Original Thai Food (Golden Mile Complex) 24HRS!

• Operating Hours: 24 Hours
• Operating Days: Daily
• Address: 5001 Beach Road #01-51/52/66C S(199588)
• How to get there: Alight at Nicoll Highway MRT (Circle Line) and walk towards Concourse and turn right on Beach Road. Estimated walking time about 5 mins.
• Food I had: Pad Thai (Chicken), Basil Leaves With Minced Pork and Rice, Tom Yum Soup (Seafood), Fried Shrimp Paste, Lemongrass drink.

Golden Mile Complex, also known as "Singapore's Little Thailand, is a place where you will not regret going for authentic Thai food. Ranging from mookata (Thai-style steamboat), Thai themed pubs and clubs, restaurants to Thai Supermarket, Golden Mile Complex is really the best replica of Thailand. In my opinion, Nana Original Thai food is one restaurant that I frequent most, for its generous amount of good food served.

We visited Nana Thai on a random Friday night at about 11 PM. There were still many people having their meals! We were also glad that there were many seats available for us to settle down for our supper.

Their menu placed on each table

 

The food was served almost instantaneously (after about 2 mins) after we ordered. The refreshing lemongrass drink (น้ำตะไคร์) opened up our taste bud quickly, thanks to its lemon-lime and sweet syrup taste with a hinge of mint and ginger. This drink is recommended if you like the lemongrass taste.

Cost: $1.50

We did not have to wait long before our Tom Yum soup was served. They serve their tom yum soup with either the prawn, fish or seafood option. We had the seafood tom yum soup as we wanted to eat it like a local Thai.

All soup were served in a ceramic ancient clay pot, similar to which people used in the olden days. The plus point for using the ceramic clay pot is to keep the soup warm faster and longer, with the help of the fire on candle wax at the bottom of the pot.

There were really lots of spices inside each tom yum pot! They were generous with a number of ingredients cooked in each pot (tomatoes, crab meats, squids, mushrooms, onions, prawns, and fishballs).It is definitely one of the best Tom Yum soup I had ever tasted in Singapore! We felt that the level of spiciness was more towards the mild side, and it is suitable for one who does not take too much chili. If you wish, you can even request for less spiciness to suit your taste bud. With the natural sweetness from the seafood itself, it has certainly enhanced the taste of the soup without too much MSG added. We did not feel thirsty even after we finished the whole pot of soup!

Highly recommend you to try their tom yum soup when you visit this restaurant!

Cost: $12 for seafood/prawn, $15 for fish

The next dish that was served to us is the basil leaves with Minced pork rice. The taste of the minced pork with basil leaves is surprisingly good! We realized that local Thai likes to add fish sauce (鱼露) to most of their stir fry dishes and this dish are no exception. The using of fish sauce, oyster sauce, and chili padi to cook up the right amount of sauce does not take away the natural taste of the pork, and the mixture of long bean with basil leaves further enhance the mouthfeel of this dish. The taste is heaven! Great to go with some white rice! You can also request the staff for least spicy / no spicy option. We seriously believe it will taste equally good.

Cost: $6 per plate.

We love Phad Thai so much and we had to order this everytime we visit a Thai food place. Although with mixed review, we went ahead to order this as we wanted to taste it ourselves. The bean sprout was very raw so we decided not to mix it together in the noodle. You can choose to fry the noodle with chicken or pork, together with their default diced bean curd and eggs.

Like any local Thai restaurant, they also provide condiments at almost every table (Chilli flakes, sugar & peanuts) for their customer to mix it into their pad Thai. We felt that it was a little too dry, and the taste of is similar to our Singapore Char Kway Tiao. It was quite normal overall, and the texture of the noodle was soft & chewy, which we quite like it. However, as compared to the basil minced pork rice, Na Na's Phad Thai was very slightly below average.

Cost: $6 per plate

The last dish served to us was the fried prawn cake. The condiments given with the prawn cake was the sour plum sauce which we find it quite nice. The prawn cake was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Overall this dish is nice and it's definitely recommended.

Cost: $12 for 5 pcs