The wooden panel as the wall decoration, along with the wooden dining table set is also easily my favourite. It screams "modern Thai" design very much as if we were taken to some Bangkok restaurant that evening. What a pleasure to enjoy this restaurant's interior design. Moreover, it made me even more anticipating for our food orders to be served - hoping that they were as authentic as they get.

Since my sister was craving for some Thai desserts, she ordered three different tapioca (starch extracted from cassava roots) based desserts right away. They tasted pretty nice and delicate, sweet and salty.

As more of a family oriented restaurant, which is pretty much what are usually found in Thailand restaurants, shared dishes eaten with steamed rice are the highlights of the menu. Most of the menu is written in romanized Thai with Indonesian translation. The first dish came out that evening was Phad Pak Ruamiit or we could say mixed sauteed vegetable cooked with some savoury sauce. Tasted OK.

The next dish was amazing. Named as Yam Sam Khop - which is crispy fish maw. Maw is an internal organ of a fish which is quite usual to be made as delicacy in some Asia country. It certainly smells fishy, but with the perfect seasoning they prepared, the dish tasted pretty good for me, salty, savoury, acidic and fresh. This dish is unique and flavorful! Spoiler: I finished most of this dish portion.

We also ordered a dish named Pak Bung Kroop. It was a very delicious crispy deep-fried water spinach. Even without the sauce/dressing given, this dish was proven to be quite addictive. The frying batter is well seasoned that it enhance the water spinach into some amazing finger food that you should try. The portion was also very generous if you ask me. It was more than enough for five of us.

Please don't get me started with the dressing! It was a wonderful mix of authentic Thai tasting ingredients like fish sauce, fresh shallots, sliced chilli, etc with slices of chicken meat! Yes, you read it right, a dressing that contains chicken meat - which explain the price. The dressing is heaven on earth, flavorful, addictive, and went pretty well with the crispy water spinach and went pretty well with anything else.

As a country with abundant marine produce, Thailand is very well-known for their seafood, hence the name of the restaurant. The next dish is an exceptional proof that makes this restaurant a must-try. Yes, the price is quite high for a dish consisting only several pieces of shrimp/prawn, but judging by how they prepared and cooked it into such a beautiful dish, it is all worth it. The shrimps were cleaned and cut into gorgeous pieces, and was sauteed with onion into perfection. It was juicy, tender, savoury, and flavorful! I fell in love with this perfectly-cooked dish.

An authentic Thai dinner would never leave Thai green curry out. They served this special dish amazingly. The chicken was not overcooked - it was tender, and the whole seasoning of the curry was present on every slice of the chicken. The curry itself was awesome, it gives my mouth a never-ending recollection of our dining experience back in Thailand.

Finally a dish everyone will associate with Thailand, which is no other than Tom Yum. To me the soup was too acidic to be eaten just like that. Nevertheless, I could taste the richness of the soup and how every single elements in the soup complements each other. The amount of the seafood given was generous and the freshness of the seafood - which is one of the most important aspects of the dish - is perfect.

As a confession, this was my first time dining in this amazing restaurant. I have never had any expectations that the food they serve would be as amazing and as authentic as this. Sawasdee Seafood Thai Restaurant would easily be my favourite Thai restaurant in Medan whenever I need a punch of acidic and fresh Thai food. Bravo!

SAWASDEE SEAFOOD THAI RESTAURANT

Jl. Multatuli Raya Blok FF No. 36-37, Medan, Indonesia

Everyday, 11am - 3pm, 6pm - 10pm

(061) 4570268

Enough backstory and designs, lets talks about the delicacies they provided. I really love how prompt the dishes were served in this restaurant - even though it had its drawbacks too, which was how messy all the dishes were. Despite their looks, the dishes was very enjoyable and some of them were top notch and easily memorable. For an authentic feel of Chinese-styled eating, we ordered a couple of steamed rice to go along with all the other dishes. Uniquely, the steamed rice was named "Japanese" Onion Rice. Yes, a Japanese (not really) menu in Chinese restaurant. Quite funny. The taste of the steamed rice was good, and had a hint of Hainan steamed rice flavor, fragrant, yet not overpowering the dishes that were eaten with the rice.

We ordered their most recommended menu that is responsible for the restaurant name and specialy, bak kut teh. I had the out-of-bone experience, it was fine, but still hasn't reached the perfect feeling of what I long when I eat ribs. The soup itself was very flavorful, an amazing spices combination with a subtle spiciness of pepper. The ribs were quite tender and I could really feel how all the rich flavor of the soup immersed in every bite of the ribs. You should order the Youtiao/Cakwe (deep-fried dough) as side dish eaten with the soup!

This was when I was quite disappointed with how they present their dish. If you look at how the Xiao Bai Cai was presented in their menu and how they serve this to you, you will understand how I feel. It was quite a torture for me to photograph this messy, unrecognisable array of vegetable that looks like it was served at our own home. Even though, taste-wise, it was good, the messy presentation of the dish in a "restaurant" really is a let-down for me.

Beside pork ribs soup, they also serve sliced fish soup, which tasted mild if compared to the pork ribs soup. The fish slices served was quite generous. Overall, I prefer the taste of this dish better than their specialty.

Recently, Soon Hwa restaurant do serve some new dishes, and they were likely a various fusion dishes from several Asian countries. One of the fusion dish was a mix of Chinese and Japanese dish - Buta Don (translated as bowl of pork) with runny egg. As it was served pretty hot (and still very messy for a restaurant - you should compare it to the menu picture), we stirred the runny egg and the pork slices altogether with the rice to create a very delicate, juicy, mixed rice - yes, MIX IT! so you could taste the whole bowl of goodness! The very dish surely is very recommended!

Finally, the winning dish of the night, I didn't care if this was served messy too, but the crispness, juiciness of the roasted pork belly was heavenly. This time, the dish is served/made with Indonesian approach, which I think is a HUGE success. I would have a dish of my own if I don't have to think about how unhealthy I could be. The green chilli (cabe hijau) went amazingly well with the roasted pork belly. You could also dip the "heavenly" meat into the provided andaliman sambal for an extra punch of spiciness.

Our visit was truly a good one this time, what I was disappointed the most was how the dishes were so messy. But the minuscule disappointment was really forgettable of when we enjoyed the delicious and flavorful dishes served. Moreover, the price in my opinion is somehow quite affordable compared to other Chinese restaurant in the same property. Will surely come back for more!