If you want to eat at this late-night Thai-Chinese food institution then you best arrive early. With every Toyota Camry that drives into Silom Plaza’s carpark, another of Niyom’s tables disappears. It’s one of those restaurants which makes you feel sorry for everywhere around it as it sucks in life from the half-dozen other restaurants in the area.

You can take a seat in the atmosphere-void indoor space, but the aircon is so bad that we recommend you plump with the outdoor seating instead, where you’ll find the at-first frighteningly abrasive service does loosen up once your order’s taken.

The menu charts a very Bangkok-centric path through Chinese-influenced Thai seafood and Teochew cuisine, as well as a whole lot of fried drinking snacks. In fact, one of its best-known dishes is the moo krob (deep-fried crispy pork, B190), which chef Thitid Tassanakajohn (of Le Du and Baa Ga Din) even called the very best in town.

For our money though, Niyom’s fried dishes are so oily that they verge on inedible for all but the most-hardened stomachs. The shrimp omelet (B160) is like a sponge literally dripping with fat, while after a couple of mouthfuls the moo krob quickly turns from a sinful treat into something you’d rather not have in your field of vision.

The restaurant is on much safer territory with its seafood and vegetable stir-fries. The stir-fried sugar peas (B160) are deliciously fresh and the sauce not too gloopy, while the stir-fried crabmeat in curry powder (B200) contains bountiful chunks of fresh-tasting crabmeat—though it does need a good dose of fish sauce to awaken the flavor. The stir-fried clams in chili paste (B190) are a real highlight thanks to a liberal portion and basil-rich sauce.

We can kind of see why Niyom has a formidable reputation among Bangkok’s after-hours eaters, but for our money this one’s not quite worth the indigestion and sweet-salty-bitter aftertaste of too much MSG.

This review took place in April 2016 and is based on a visit to the restaurant without the restaurant's knowledge. For more on BK's review policy, click here.