An absolute gem of a Thai restaurant in Kota Damansara
Each dish was presented like a work of art, with attention paid to even the colours of the vegetables on a plate.
First, the fan-shaped Stuffed Pineapple that has the raw fruit stuffed with minced chicken, dried prawns and peanuts in a mien kam sauce. The juicy pineapple meshes beautifully with the sticky sweet and mildly hot stuffing. It’s helpful to digestion, the menu suggests, and it’s a good starter.
We went from the sweet to the savoury, in the Erawan Spring Rolls, served in beautiful Benjarong or traditional Thai porcelain in Ming dynasty design. (You can read about it in the restaurant). The only thing fusion about the rolls with melted mozzarella and spinach inside is the plum sauce you dip them in, which gives a light sweetness to them. Without it, the rolls still make good bites.
The Healthy Lemongrass Salad was presented spilling out of a large cone of red cabbage leaves. In it were shredded lemongrass, squid, prawns, peanuts, cashew nuts, shallots and fried cuttlefish strips, tossed in a tangy Thai dressing. It was a delicious assembly, with each ingredient contributing a texture, flavour and aroma that all came together.
There’s one Thai salad here I would love to eat again – the Spicy Shrimp Paste Dip with assorted vegetables. It’s got blanched cauliflower, carrot, ladies fingers, bitter gourd, four-angled bean, cabbage, a fried vegetable fritter and hardboiled egg with almost runny yolk. The dip is a lovely Thai sambal, with cooked prawns in it. Each vegetable gave a different mouth-feel and flavour with the sambal with gorgeous pong of shrimp paste. The bitter gourd tasted especially good with the hot, spicy dip.
No wonder the appetisers are so popular at Erawan. You can have an appetising and healthy meal with just these.
I kept going to the Roasted Duck Curry: I have never seen one with chunks of green apple in it, together with pineapple, red chilli, tomatoes and tiny eggplant. I could get the aroma of the roast duck even in the red curry. The tartness of apple and the sweet pineapple worked very well with the excellent duck which retained its flavour in the curry.
We had the Fried Rice with Crabmeat (from Kuala Selangor, no less) but you can also have it fried with prawns, squid and mixed seafood. Ours was lavish with crabmeat, prawns and egg, and you should eat it with lime squeezed over it. If you need a rice fix, this is it!
The Tom Yum Goong turned out really well, with a perfect balance of hot and sour. The Stirfried Seafood with Thai Basil and Chilli seemed so ordinary after all that I’d eaten. This had prawns, squid and scallops stir fried with holy basil and chilli.
No matter how full, I could not miss the Glutinous Rice with Durian. The glutinous rice from Thailand glistens with the santan cooked with it, and is tinged green with pandan. It’s pure durian on top, drizzled with coconut milk. Wow! It’s made with mau san wong durian.
If the fruit is in season, try its durian ice-cream too. Again the texture and aroma of the fruit dominated, just the way I wanted it.
Of course if you don’t like durian (why?!), have the home-made moist chocolate cake served with vanilla ice-cream.
Erawan stands out for the artwork on the walls, from the pretty painting of a tree to the mosaic piece of Marilyn Monroe. More intricate mosaic work is on the tables outside. Inside there are shelves of hand-made jewellery of semi-precious stones that are for sale.
The restaurant is run by Anan and Korn whose combined artistic talents and wizardry in the kitchen have made it a success.
Erawan is at No.22-1, Jalan PJU 5/16, Dataran Sunway Kota Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya. It’s only open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 6pm to 10.30pm, and for lunch at the weekend. Reservations are advised: call 03-6141 2393.
