Thai Dara at Kapitolyo

Sept 29, 2013, +maria cessna galecio and I were coming down from Antipolo and lunch time caught us in the Kapitolyo Area.

Hungry, we decided to look around and opted to try out Thai Dara.

Collages. When you absolutely need to pack a lot of pictures into one small area.

Like most restos in Kapitolyo, the space is rather small. There's about 5 tables there that could probably sit around 16 people.

The place is clean, well lit, and simple. There's a TV with very bad reception of a Thai channel. You most likely won't notice it.

Since the place is small, conversations easily carry over from one end of the place to the other. So if you're wary of people overhearing your conversations, you should really try to keep a low voice.

There were 2 visible staffs. I'm not sure if there's another one manning the kitchen.

The menu, which had a very small selection. At least you won't have to worry about too much variety.

The ubiquitous soft drink. I should get paid for this.

We put in an order for Pad Thai (noodles) and Pork Satay. The Pork Satay doesn't come with rice, just 4 sticks of pork and a couple of dips. I'm not going to get filled with just a few grams of meat, so I ordered rice.

Chea also ordered their milk tea just to try it out as she usually just goes for water.

It's an average size glass mug. So it should be enough for the average customer.

We waited for a few minutes as the occupants of the other two tables arrived a little bit ahead of us as they were waiting for their orders as well. So Chea and I fiddled with our phones for a while.

As soon as the food arrived, we dug in as we were a bit hungry already.

Pad Thai. 

Pork Satay. A fancier pork barbecue for the average pinoy like me. :D

The Pad Thai was ok. I'm not gonna pretend that I know anything about Thai food, but for an average Pinoy like me, it's certainly not unpleasant. There's a lot of nuts, so if you're allergic, then you might want to skip this.

The Pork Satay was ok too. The cuts off the pork are different than your run-of-the-mill pork barbecues. They're squarish and trimmed. There's no fat included, so yay for the heart lovers everywhere. It tastes sweet, and isn't at all salty. And since i prefer salty food, I kept resisting the urge of asking for some soy sauce.

It came with two dips: peanut sauce and vinegar (I think) with bell peppers and onion. The peanut sauce is the typical dip for pork satay, while the vinegar dip is probably to give it a local flavor, especially for people like me, who aren't big fans of peanuts.

Both dishes cost a little more than 200 pesos each.

It's easy to compare it with SOMS, a Thai eatery in Makati that started a few years earlier. They serve good meals at inexpensive prices. But then again, SOMS is almost always full, and it's a good drive away.

So if you're willing to spend a little bit more for Thai food, I don't think you'd go wrong with this place.