Grab Meal Review: Che Oil Lab Ubon - "Grilled Pork Neck", "Rice Noodles", "Fried Ribs with Garlic", "Fried Chicken Wings", and "Fried Pork Belly With Fish Sauce"

Ordered from:
Che Oil Lab Ubon - Chon Buri

Price breakdown (5 items):
Grilled Pork Neck 130 Baht
Rice Noodles 15 Baht
Fried Ribs with Garlic 120 Baht
Fried Chicken Wings 120 Baht
Fried Pork Belly With Fish Sauce 150 Baht

Each item comes in a plastic container besides the Grilled Pork Neck which comes in a bag full of sauce, and the rice noodles which come in dry bags. The larger bag this all comes in also has some decorative lettuce, basil, and sliced cucumber, which tasted fine. I don't know if this means anything, but unlike every other place I have ordered from, their plastic containers were damaged on arrival. There was also 3 bags of sauce which I didn't bother to try.

The fried pork belly is the fattiest I have ever seen, having a ⅕ meat to fat ratio on the best pieces, or barely any meat at all on the worst ones. The taste of the little meat that there is pleasant, tasting like pork dry ribs with white sesame, but fried. It does not give the impression of fish sauce to me, which is disappointing as I've grown quite fond of that seasoning. If it were half the price it would be a tough maybe, but there is so little food for the price as to be simply unacceptable.

The fried chicken wings are fattier then I expected (as chicken is usually a lean meat) and tastes almost exclusively of fat and frying oil. I got only 5 wings with my order, none of which were high enough in meat or flavour to make up for how few you get. Bad in taste and worse in value.

The fried ribs with garlic are beef ribs. I did not identify they were beef from the image or description so I was quite bothered at this, as I do not eat beef; however, I did my best to review the item as neutrally as I can. The beef is very moist and moderately firm, making it like neither extreme of how I usually see ribs. It was covered in decorative fried garlic skins which reminded me of saw dust. It tasted of oyster sauce and honey to me, which was not only unexpected but almost unpleasant in combination. I personally did not at all care for it, but I can imagine someone ordering this and being fine yet unimpressed with it. I struggle to give words to how I feel about it due to my distaste for beef or this item's flavour combinations. I cannot recommend it. Had this had the taste and texture of the pork belly (without the fat) I would have given it a glowing review.

The rice noodles are perfectly good, with the right texture and the right flavour. No notes to the chef, though I imagine these were bought in a package and boiled to instructions.

Now for the part of the review I've been dreading: the pork neck. During my time in Thailand for Revision my love of pork neck has been my greatest culinary self-discovery, and my order at this restuarant was made with the exclusive intention of having more. I cannot express how disappointed I am in my order. The pork was kept in a bag of sauce, spoiling the tender texture by making it feel melted and liquified, and the sauce tasted of caramel without any of the sweetness, entirely overpowering the gentle taste. Not only that, but I have a personal longstanding hatred of the taste of caramel, which gave insult to this injury for me. Unlike every other item, I could not bring myself to finish it. This is a black mark against this restuarant.

Onto value now, the only items looking good in this category are the rice noodles, which you can likely make at home by buying a hotpot at the mall (do that instead), or maybe the garlic ribs, which I imagine someone might like, and aren't unreasonably priced.

Restuarant and item names in the title are written as provided by the Grab app with Thai to English translation on in settings.

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Attribute to review author "Nicolete Lovejoy".