Baan Kanom Jeen at Empire Damansara: Restaurant review

A welcome new entry into the Klang Valley’s Thai food landscape, Baan Kanom Jeen is dedicated to one of our favourite Thai recipes – founder Suphasan Boonratana hopes to bring wider recognition in Malaysia for kanom jeen, an addictive ensemble of thin boiled rice noodles partnered with a plethora of curries, gravies and sauces.

For the ideal experience, order the hearty Kanom Jeen Set, more than sufficient for two customers, comprising 12 slurp-worthy noodle balls with four sauces, boiled eggs, crunchy anchovies and a crisp, fresh assortment of leafy herbs and vegetables (RM39.90).

The secret of the set’s success ultimately rests in the sauces – a classic green curry with tender chunks of chicken, a southern Thai yellow sauce that’s creamy and extra-spicy, a namya pla fish sauce that’s deliciously textured and savoury, and a namphrik sauce that’s a certain crowd-pleaser with its sweetish blend of nuts and minced prawns. It’s fun to experiment with each sauce, mixing and matching to yield different dynamics of flavour – we prefer the namya pla and namphrik sauces the best.

A single serving of kanom jeen is available too for RM10.90, featuring three noodle balls with one sauce and all the other accompaniments – a fair price for a fulfilling meal. Additional noodle balls cost RM1.70 each, while extra sauces are RM6.90.

The kitchen remains capable of whipping up a diversity of other dishes, from single-plate offerings – including green curry fried rice with moist fried fish (RM15.90), the no-introduction-needed pad thai (RM14.90) and fried chicken with jaew dried chilli dip (RM9.90) – to chilled sweets such as the ruam mit mixed dessert (RM5.90) and quintessential tub tim krob (RM5.90), with possibilities like pink or green milk (RM5.90) to wash everything down.