We don’t know about you, but we certainly don’t have much experience in Jakarta when it comes to Thai food. Pegged as one of the most loved Asian cuisines in the world, Thai food hasn’t put its stamp in Jakarta when compared to other cuisines, say, Japanese or Chinese. Thai restaurants are few and far between, whereas you can most definitely find at least one or two Chinese restaurants at a mall. The reason still puzzles us to this very day, as Thai and Indonesian cuisine share similarities: most dishes boast spicy, big, bold flavours. So, the big question is, are there any decent Thai restaurants in Jakarta?

In the quest of finding the answer to the aforementioned question, we decided to give a Thai chain restaurant White Elephant a shot. We had lunch at its Kota Kasablanka branch, located on the ground floor near the entrance. In Thailand, a white elephant represents sacredness and royalty, leading us to high expectations of this restaurant.

The interior of White Elephant, which we love, certainly represents the restaurant’s namesake. It incorporates elements of tradition through the use of Tegel Kunci -commonly used for flooring at royalty houses in Yogyakarta and Central Java- and modern industrial taste through the use of black hollow iron. Application of black hollow iron in interior design has become very popular in hip restaurants in Jakarta since UNION, an upscale brasserie in Plaza Senayan Jakarta, has been using it. To add a Thai feel to the interior, White Elephant decorates the space with pictures of King of Thailand and Thai writings. All in all, the room feels cozy with its use of wooden chairs and tables.

The only criticism we’d like to voice is the lack of clear border between smoking and non-smoking room. Fortunately, the exhausts seem to be in good condition as we couldn’t smell any smoke, however when we were eating there was only one table with smoking customers. What if there were lots of smoking customers? Questionable. In other words, this lack of border is bothersome for people who can’t tolerate smokers. 

For appetizer, we tried Kuay Tiew Lord (35k IDR), it is rice noodle stuffed with bean sprout, chicken and chinese pickle sauce. And we think we tasted a little bit of bamboo sprout? It was quite good and if there was indeed bamboo sprout in the dish, its taste did not overpower the whole thing. Kuay Tiew Lord instantly reminds us of lumpia basah, which one of us likes better. One of us doesn’t like lumpia basah nor this Kuay Tiew Lord. Haha! The sauce itself was okay, but honestly didn’t really add anything to the plate.

Pad Thai Kai Krob (55.5k IDR), fried noodle with prawns in sweet tamarind sauce, was our choice for the main dish. It was okay. The texture of the noodle was good and the acidity was suitable for our palate. For some reasons, it did not really make a lasting impression though. Maybe it’s because we’ve tasted better Pad Thai. Or maybe because we love its Indonesian version, kwetiau goreng, better. 

Mango and sticky rice with coconut milk, Kaoneaw Mamuang (39.5k IDR), is the dish that we try in every Thai restaurant. WE LOVE MANGO AND STICKY RICE. The one at White Elephant was average. The mango was too ripe for our liking, we like it better when the mango is firmer but still sweet. The sticky rice was great, but the coconut milk was too little. Despite that, we’ve had worse mango and sticky rice in Jakarta, we’d happily order this at White Elephant again.