THE Thai Beef Noodles stands out at Adeena Thai Cafe for its dark rich broth, generous slices of ribeye, beef balls and beef tendon. A heap of fried garlic adds punch to it; there are hints of cinnamon while Chinese celery and kangkung help bring it all together. It is a delicious bowl of beef noodles with balanced flavours that lives up to its signature dish label at Adeena’s.

The Phad Thai here deserves mention too for its well-fried noodles with prawns. They are not oily or soggy, and have all the requisite flavours of sweet, hot and sour. Toss them together with the dried chilli flakes and crushed peanuts on the side and they are noodles you would want to eat again even with other Thai dishes on your table.

We like the Tomyam with Prawns recommended to us by Hafeez, its owner, whose Laotian wife Adeena is in the kitchen turning out casual Thai dishes. The tomyam is good; it doesn’t hit you with too much chilli or the sourness of lime. It’s nicely balanced and has a fair portion of sea prawns in it.

Green Curry with Beef was also Hafeez’s recommendation. It was a great choice: the curry was well infused with fragrant basil and generous with the meat, eggplant and the baby ones, and long beans. It was a lovely curry to go with rice.

The Tom Kha Gai (with chicken) is a gentler tomyam, cooked with coconut milk. It’s mildly hot, with the fragrance of galangal, lemongrass and limau purut leaves coming through.

The Papaya Salad is hot, sour and zippy, with bits of dried shrimps and peanuts, and crushed long beans and tomato. It’s perfect if you are not inclined towards the stir fried vegetables on the menu.

We were happy with our Red Rubies or Tab Tim Krob for dessert, after having encountered an annoyingly fancy deconstructed version of this at an upmarket Thai steamboat restaurant last week. The sticky red water chestnut blobs in coconut milk with slivers of nangka were just perfect.

On another visit, we also tried the Thai Fish Cakes but would have preferred them to be thicker. I would go back for the Thai Sukiyaki which we enjoyed for its glass noodles in a spicy and a little tart broth with chicken, abalone mushrooms, kangkung and cabbage. An egg is added last into it.

The food is reasonably priced in Adeena Thai Cafe. The Beef Noodles, Phad Thai, Tom Kha Gai are RM16.90 each. Tomyam with Prawns are RM21.90, Green Curry Beef RM22.90. The portions of the dishes are large and enough for four people.

Adeena Thai Cafe is at 52 Jalan Datuk Sulaiman, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Kuala Lumpur, tel: 03-7733 3052. – October 13, 2018.

* Eu Hooi Khaw has been writing about food for the longest time, covering all aspects of it, from restaurant reviews to cooking and recipes, as well as the healthy side of it. She has written for major newspapers and magazines, published a cookbook Fresh Ingredients and also writes for her website hooikhawandsu.com.

* Eu Hooi-Khaw has been writing about food for the longest time, covering all aspects, from restaurant reviews to cooking and recipes, as well as the healthy side of it. She has written for major newspapers and magazines, published the cookbook Fresh Ingredients, and also writes for her website hooikhawandsu.com.