Yhingthai Palace

Purvis Street is known for chicken rice. Its best group dinner is Thai.

Yhingthai Palace is a group restaurant: bring four to eight people, order widely and share, and a long Thai and Thai-Chinese menu starts to make sense. It holds a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 guide and sits on Purvis Street, two lanes back from Raffles Hotel, a street better known for chicken rice and Hainanese coffee shops. The compromise is that it is old-school in every sense, including how quickly weekend tables go, so book ahead for Friday and weekend dinners.

Why it has lasted

It has not tried to be anything else. Red walls, gold accents, worn timber floors and ceiling fans, three colourful Thai-style dining rooms and waitresses in traditional dress: it looks like a Thai restaurant in a restored shophouse, and is happy to. It is larger than the shopfront suggests, seating around 120, so a table for eight is a realistic ask if you call ahead.

The menu is the other reason. It is long and gives the Thai-Chinese dishes as much room as the familiar Thai ones, and that Thai-Chinese half is where to spend your appetite.

What to order

Start with som tam, the papaya salad with dried shrimp and peanuts. Then go to the Thai-Chinese side: fish maw fried with crab meat, claypot prawns with glass noodles, deboned chicken wings stuffed with asparagus, shiitake and chicken, and crab meat fried rice. Crisp rice crackers with a pork and coconut dip, a mango salad with charred salted fish and olive rice with a sambal-coated fish are also on the long list. Menus change over the years, so treat these as pointers rather than promises. If the à la carte list feels like homework, the set menus do the choosing for you. Our steer: curries, salads and the Thai-Chinese specialities, not the phad thai you could order anywhere.

How to do it well

Book ahead for Friday and weekend dinners, online through the restaurant's reservation page or by phone. Order more rice than you think you need; everyone does, eventually. It also works as a low-key date if you like your romance with a side of chilli, and it is a short walk from the Civic District's galleries and theatres, which makes it a sound pre-show dinner. Esplanade, City Hall and Bugis MRT are all within walking distance.

Good to know Open daily for lunch and dinner; times are in the hours. Book online through the restaurant's reservation page or call 6337 1161. Esplanade, City Hall and Bugis MRT are all a short walk.

Yhingthai Palace | 36 Purvis Street, #01-04, Singapore 188613 | Nearest MRT: Esplanade, City Hall, Bugis