Sometimes you just want some old-fashioned comfort food like your gran used to make: simple, traditional dishes that are full of flavor. Sa-Nguan Sri certainly does just that; and to really make you feel nostalgic, it does so in an old-school setting. Still, you could be excused for missing the place altogether as the outside looks more like a nuclear bunker than a restaurant. The gloomy interior isn’t much better, with an ambience that’s part grannie’s crammed living room and part canteen—think plastic fold out chairs, plastic mats and, yes, even plastic tables. The (plastic) menu has also seen better days, as has much of the cutlery, but it covers all the favorites, with daily highlights featured on an even flimsier piece of paper. In keeping with the no-frills atmosphere, the servers are brisk and the food arrives with alacrity. Although the rice is rather stodgy and cold, thankfully, it doesn’t affect the flavor of the food. Neither do they skimp on the ingredients: the chicken in the spicy green curry is abundant and tender as are the hunks of fish in the equally fiery kaeng leurng (Southern Thai-style spicy yellow curry with fish and vegetables). Make sure you try the subtly balanced kao mun somtam. The sweet and sour somtum comes served with rice perfectly fragranced with coconut milk and dried shredded pork. Traditionalists will also appreciate the hor mok—the smooth curry cake is made with bai yor leaves, not cabbage—and the delicious tangy sweet and sour soy sauce that accompanies the sii krong muu (boiled pork ribs). The desserts stick to the same blueprint of family favorites from super sweet kluay cheurm (bananas with coconut milk) to the sakuu bualoy, which unusually includes crunchy water chestnuts along with the chunks of taro. Sa-Nguan Sri is never going to win any style awards but as the hordes of office workers that descend each lunchtime can testify, if you want good, affordable home style Thai food then it’s hard to beat this old school oasis hidden amid the modernity of Wireless Road. No corkage.
