Bangkok Brothers is one of the new restaurants located at Whitfords Mall on the cinema ‘strip’. It’s a large area with seating inside and out, and a modern twist on a traditional Thai menu. We were looking forward to our meals.
It took a while to get served, the staff seemed busy rearranging tables and settings in a restaurant that was only 10% occupied, and it was hard to catch their attention. Eventually a waitress attended the table, and she was quite pleasant. To start we chose to share some traditional Thai prawn cakes – minced pork and prawn in a crispy coating – deep fried.
They were served with a sticky plum sauce. This was a generous portion and the cakes were tasty. The sauce was quite sticky and sweet, and I would have liked a lime citrus contrast.
We drank pink lemonade, which I was expecting to be raspberry flavoured lemonade – subtle and a little sharp, but again, this was cloyingly sweet – think supermarket brand cherry soda and then double the sweetness – I found it hard to drink this.
For mains we picked the soft shell crab with som tum – two of my favourite things, and a green chicken curry with rice.
Sadly the soft shell crab did not deliver – the batter tasted strange, and the crab was soft and a little soggy. The som tum was a fairly standard papaya salad, but had some large chunks of chilli in it and was quite astringent, so it made my mouth sore. I have eaten som tum on several occasions, and sometimes it can be quite hot and sour, but this was quite extreme.
The crab was accompanied by some very sweet Thai chilli sauce. Sadly I left most of the crab because of the strange batter – I wondered if it had been cooked in the same oil as chicken wings.
When the green curry arrived, there wasn’t much room on the table, so my partner picked his plate up, and the waiter pretty much threw the curry down on the table and walked off without attempting to help rearrange the table. It seemed really rude.
The green curry was equally disappointing. It was under-seasoned and the veggies were raw. I don’t mind blanched veggies in my Thai curry, but these veggies were solid and not pleasant to eat. I was disappointed that the curry omitted eggplant, which is the traditional veg that you would see – instead there was broccoli, zucchini and mangetout.
We left most of the food. The staff didn’t ask if the meal was okay, and the service was mostly somewhere between rude and non-existent. I won’t be wasting my money in here again.
Visit Date: June 2019
Truly Scrumptious 
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