Kuala Lumpur - Celdaon Royal Thai Cuisine

I'm covering a lot of the restaurants in Pavilion. I know. I'm sorry. But it's right across the road from me and the food is really pretty good most of the time! I find it such a curious culture that in Asia, a lot of people go to malls, or plan to go to a mall to go to a specific restaurant. I feel in western culture and particularly in Melbourne, that is not so much the case, of course the malls are trying to make it more so, but the emphasis in a mall is always on shopping. Not so much the food and the restaurants within. Put a couple of Nando's, Grill'd and at least a McDonalds somewhere and most customers are pretty happy pretty.

This time, per my brother's request for Thai, we found ourselves in the very plush surroundings of Celadon - Royal Thai Cuisine. Quite aptly dressed to fit it's name. There was a little private section with the gorgeous clear Philippe Starck chairs, whilst the main dining room had cushy white seats with cute little faces printed on them. And I absolutely loved the burst of colour from the rainbow cushion wall, a fun way to inject some colour. All in all, very, very chic.

The cutest named bottle water I think I have ever seen...

Cool, fresh coconut juice for me, this coconut was absolutely full to the brim! I find these so easy to drink, if they're not generously sized then I tend to finish them within a few minutes of it being placed on my table....

Mum's awesome looking blended coconut drink. Whilst nice, I feel like they shouldn't have added the sugar or sugar syrup they used, was much too sweet and I ended up enjoying my fresh coconut far more!

We started with an assortment of entrees, aren't they just darling? Included were Thai fish cakes, Thai prawn cakes, chicken money bags and a wrapped deep fried prawn. Everything was fried just gorgeously, no excess oil or anything with these guys and the money bags and prawns in particular were lovely and crisp. The Thai fish cakes were a little bit bland, but the prawn cakes made up for this with a bit of spring onion and chilli, which really packed a punch!

We got a salad to start off with, I can't remember exactly what was in it, there was clear rice noodles, prawns, onions, peanuts...chilli....lots of it. I was a bit put off by the presentation, it does kind of look like it's just been scooped from a pot and dumped on, but was pleasantly surprised it was a nice warm salad. For some reason the clear rice vermicelli led me to believe it would be cold.

Next we got a green chicken curry, there was the option to have salted fish or something else on the side...we jumped onto the fish, which was good ol' crunchy goodness. I really enjoyed the curry flavour itself, not flaming in your mouth, but a nice warm savoury bite. The chicken was sadly a bit dry, but this was definitely made up with the eggplant that was included, it was soft and tender and just absorbed all the curry gravy. I very promptly nicked them all from the bowl and left my brother with the less desirable chicken!

I insisted on a pad thai, it's one of my weaknesses when it comes to thai food. Flavour was good, but the noodles were quite gooey and sticky, more so than usual. Wouldn't have minded if they were a bit drier!

Another coconut?! Nope, this was the 'seafood souffle' which was presented completely differently to the picture in the book! (which doesn't really annoy me, but I have worked with some restaurants who do apparently have customers who make an absolute scene when they're presented with something different to what's in the picture. Isn't that silly?)

I think the idea of it was supposed to be like a Malaysian 'Otak otak', which essentially a steamed fish mousse, which is what I was somewhat expecting. Instead, it was really more like a seafood soup, with a lot of liquid and bits and pieces of fish, prawns and mussels. Whilst not bad, not memorable either.

The last time I was in Kuala Lumpur, I was taken to a really love Thai restaurant, that was owned by a group who had a couple of other Thai restaurants as well, Celadon being one of them. The entrees were pretty much the highlight of the meal with everything else being just a little bit disappointing. If only they could dress up their food as pretty as the restaurant's interior...

Celadon Royal Thai Cuisine

Pavillion

168 Jalan Bukit Bintang

55100 Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia