[Thai Vegetarian] Pepper Jade @ Bugis, Singapore

Attention spicy food lovers, this may excite you! Especially if you are also a Thai food lover! There aren’t many Vegetarian Thai Food Restaurant in Singapore. Besides Whole Earth, I can’t think of any restaurant that serves decent vegetarian Thai food but thanks to the people behind Teng Bespoke Japanese Vegetarian Restaurant, Singaporeans now have another option for tasty Thai vegetarian cuisine. 🙂

I have walked past Pepper Jade a couple of times in the past but was somehow not enticed to try out the restaurant. My initial thought was, Thai food? Tom Yam? Thai Mango/Papaya Salad? What else? So I missed out on a few opportunity to eat in this restaurant, until one recent Friday evening after work when I was meeting my brother and buddies for dinner, and had cravings for Tomyam soup that I finally decided to try out this restaurant.

Summary

Style: Thai Vegetarian

Price Range: Between $8 to $18 per dish

Ambience: Small Classy Restaurant

Target Group: Spicy Lovers + Mid-Range Diners

Restaurant Info – Pepper Jade Thai Vegetarian Cuisine

Pepper Jade was quite a small restaurant. I didn’t know it was so popular that it was impossible to get a seat without making advanced booking (especially on Friday evenings and weekends). My ignorance caused us to wait for 45mins for a empty table. Thankfully, I had a lot to catch up with my buddies, hence the wait didn’t seem that long. Otherwise, we would most likely have left for another restaurant instead. Nevertheless,the food was well worth the wait. 🙂

Contact: 6337 7030

Address: 91 Bencoolen Street, Sunshine Plaza #01-18/19/20, Singapore 189652

Business Hours: Mon to Fri 11.30am – 3pm, 5.30pm – 10pm. Sat/Sun/Public Holidays 11.30am – 10pm

 

How To Get There

Driving: It was pretty straight forward for drivers, Sunshine Plaza was situated near Bugis+, right opposite Fortune Centre and NAFA. There are quite a number of places you can park besides  Sunshine Plaza, which includes Fortune Centre, NAFA or even at Bugis+ with a 5 minutes walk (if you want shopping after food).

MRT: The restaurant was conveniently located between Bugis MRT (Green Line) and Bras Basah MRT (Circle Yellow Line). About 5 to 10 minutes of walk depending on your speed. Note: There was no sheltered walkway from either MRT stations so please bring an umbrella if it rains. 🙂

 

Map Credit: Google Map

Food You Shouldn’t Miss

Thai Fish Cakes

This was a surprising find. As I didn’t do enough research before visiting this restaurant, we had to solely rely on the menu and some recommendation from the friendly service crew. (BTW, the service crew was AMAZINGLY professional and friendly) With their recommendation, we ordered the Thai Fish Cake. What impressed me the most was the thai sweet chilli sauce which was very refreshing and tasty. Personally I felt that there was a pungent meat taste in this fish cake, but the sauce kind of help masked the “pungent” taste. If you are not a fan of mock meat, these may not be for you. Nevertheless, we loved it so much that we ordered another plate after. LOL

 

Tom Yam Soup In Claypot

A fan of Tom Yam? First, you need to know whether you prefer the Singapore style Tom Yam (red soup) or the Thai style (white soup)? Clearly there are great differences between the Tom Yam in both countries. i.e. the taste and the spiciness level are totally different. In general, Singapore style Tom Yam was less spicy but more oily, whereas the Thai Tom Yam was a lot more spicy but less oily. In a way, Thai Tom Yam is healthier. So what style of Tom Yam did Pepper Jade serve? Haha I called this a fusion! A good mix between both Tom Yam style. LOL! As you could see the Tom Yam is obviously red (Singapore style), but the taste was very spicy, a bit like the Thai style. Overall, this Tom Yam soup was quite nice and shiok! (a feeling of sheer pleasure and happiness) 🙂

 

Fried Mushroom

You can’t go wrong with fried mushroom. This was indeed one of the highly recommended must try dish. This taste really good especially with the added bits of chili in it. Delicious was an understatement. Highly recommended if you are a fried mushroom fan. 🙂

 

Other Food For Consideration

Self Made Otah

Just like many Singaporeans, spicy food is like our national taste preference and I was delighted to know that they had Thai Otah!!! A traditionally Singapore-Malaysia-Indonesia food. What makes this interesting was that the otah were self-made by Pepper Jade. It was not part of those mock meat manufactured by factories. Thus we excitedly ordered this dish, hoping it will be good. Now Pepper Jade served their Otah in an adorable manner, instead of wrapping inside a banana leaf and barbeque it, they served in a small little cup with coconut cream added on top of it. As weird as it sounds, the Otah is not bad, mixing it with coconut cream is a unique way of eating Otah. haha A different sensation of eating Otah! LOL But I think if you are a hardcore Otah fanatic, you may be disappointed.

 

The Green Curry

I was skeptical about ordering Green Curry. To be honest, I wasn’t a Green Curry fan as compared to my favourite Red Curry (my preference). One of my buddy loves Green Curry, so I chanced upon this dish and eventually it got ordered by my group. haha Surprisingly, their Green Curry is not too bad. There were mock fish and some vegetables in it. Still, I won’t order Green Curry again, but my buddy totally enjoyed it and finished the entire bowl by herself! 🙂

 

Phap Thai

I was nonchalant when my brother ordered the Phap Thai as I was not a fan of Phap Thai in Singapore. The best Phap Thai with eggs and vegetable I ever had was in Thailand a few year back. Since then, I would curiously order vegetarian Phap Thai in some restaurants in Singapore when its available on the menu, but I was never satisfied. So this time round in Pepper Jade, perhaps I was really overwhelmed with the rest of the food (all the above food), and somehow I could not appreciate their Phap Thai that much.

 

Stir Fried Kangkong (Water Spinach)

You must have the same thought as me. Stir Fried Kangkong (Water Spinach), was it a Thai food or Malay food? Anyway, I would suggest you stick to the Malay Sambal (my favourite) or Belachan. I can’t appreciate this as much maybe because I have tried better stir fried Kangkong elsewhere. It was decent, but not fantastic in my opinion. Or maybe because the rest of the dishes were simply too overwhelming for me, I don’t know. 🙂

 

Additional Tip

Remember to make advanced booking before you travel down to the Pepper Jade restaurant. The restaurant may look small, but they have another extension space within Sunshine Plaza. Their service was excellent and crew was amazingly friendly. You would be very well taken care of. 🙂

Disclaimer: The above review was solely based on my humble opinion. Taste is subjective, so please be your own judge. Happy eating guys! 🙂

If you know how the meat was raised, you wouldn’t eat it ~ Justin Timberlake