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Posts tagged ‘Thai’

Paste Thai, Applecross

We had heard good things about Paste Thai and were keen to try it, so we headed down to Applecross one Saturday evening for a nice Thai meal. The first obstacle with this venue is parking. It’s located in Kearns Crescent and the parking is chaotic, especially on a busy Saturday evening. I wasn’t sure if I had parked in a suitable space, so asked the waitress, but communication was a little difficult and she just nodded, so I left the car where it was and hoped for the best. The restaurant was equally as chaotic as the parking, busy, noisy, hot and humid, but we took this as a good sign and were looking forward to food.

We were seated near a wooden feature wall which was really quite dirty, it was covered in dust, and the crevices were full of grime and bits of rubbish. It does worry me when a restaurant does not keep the dining area scrupulously clean – it makes me curious about the state of the kitchen. Anyway, we went ahead and ordered.

The first dish to arrive was an entree of vegetarian curry puffs. There was absolutely nothing ‘curry’ about the puffs and I could not identify the vegetable inside – it may have been cabbage or potato, but either way, they were parcels of deep fried blandness. The pastry was nice, and the dip was good, but both were let down by the rest of the dish.

For our main course we ordered the chilli basil noodles with prawns and a chicken panang with steamed rice.

The panang was the best of the dishes but the chicken was small and overcooked, and there were no traditional thai eggplants in the dish, and no back flavour of thai basil, although the veggies were nice.

The noodles were okay-ish – quite hot – but not a lot of other flavours going on but we ate them anyway until the awful moment when my partner found a long black hair in the noodles. After this we both felt quite queasy and didn’t want to continue with eating.

We informed the wait staff about the hair and they apologised. On payment, the waitress gave us 10% discount which only amounted to $5 – we really should have had a full refund for the noodles. She promised that it would be better next time, but there won’t be a next time. Applecross is quite a trek for us, and not worth the time and effort to be let down by lacklustre dishes and poor hygiene.

Last visit date – March 2021

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Ginreab Thai, Broome

Ginreab Thai is in the centre of Broome on Carnarvon Street, part of the Paspaley Plaza complex. It’s a casual and friendly place, with a good range of menu items including some vegetarian and vegan options. It is also BYO, and has some picturesque dinnerware.

We started with their fish cakes and were not disappointed. They had a lovely depth of flavour and a great dipping sauce.

For mains we chose prawn pad thai and fish penang with steamed rice. I didn’t get a picture before we mixed up the pad thai and served it up, but it was a lovely pad thai. The fish penang was also very good, nicely spiced with good fresh fish.

We liked it so much that we visited again several days later. This time we chose the thai dumplings to start. They were amazingly good with a lovely sweet soy dressing.

For main we chose the pad thai again (better picture this time) and the choo chee curry (chef’s special) which we expected to have a thick sauce, but it was pretty much the same as the penang we had earlier. Everything was still very tasty, its just a shame that we didn’t really get to try something completely different.

On my next visit to Broome I will definitely come back to Ginreab. It’s good food, nice and authentic, with friendly service.

Last Visit – November 2020

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Restaurant review, Vegan/Vegetarian

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Dusit Dheva by the Sea, Hillarys

I used to go to Dusit Dheva in James Street fairly regularly and was interested to visit the new kid in town at Hillarys to see if the quality and authenticity was the same. The restaurant is near the Breakwater Tavern on Sorrento Quays boardwalk, there is plenty of parking around.

We have now been back a second time and found the quality of ingredients, choice and service to be excellent. We found plenty on the menu to suit our pescatarian/vegetarian diets, and the flavours are so good, it’s hard not to be delighted.

The first time we visited we tried one of the signature dishes of soft shell crab and watermelon. What an absolute star of a dish, crunchy crab, refreshing watermelon and a lovely umami background flavour.

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We followed this with a vegetable green curry, which had a great depth of flavour and a really authentic flavour enhanced by thai basil.

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The third plate was prawn pad thai – again authentic, tasty, plump and plentiful prawns – we loved it.

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Here are some similar but different pictures from our second visit:

Prawn and pineapple curry – amazingly good – this inspired me to make my own at home:

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Vegetable pad thai:

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We really love this place for Thai food – it is in a great location, the guys serving are friendly and helpful, and you will leave here very satisfied. Premises are licensed, however you can BYO wine for a corkage fee.

Last Visit Date – May 2020

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Restaurant review, Vegan/Vegetarian

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Sawadee, West Leederville

Sawadee is an unassuming Thai restaurant in a bit of an out of the way place on Harrogate Street in West Leederville. It’s friendly and welcoming with nice clean decor.

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The menu has many of the traditional Thai favourites, and it’s a licensed premises with some good wine choices.

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We chose the Tung Tong pork and peanut parcels to start. Lovely delicate dumplings with a great sauce and served on lettuce leaves (also great to wrap the dumplings in the leaves).

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We also had the grilled barramundi with tamarind sauce – another winner – great fresh fish and good tamarind flavour.

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The star of the meal was the green chicken curry – a beautiful thick sauce with plenty of chicken, great with simple boiled rice.

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This is a neighbourhood gem – it’s a shame that the location isn’t more prominent, but if you are seeking good traditional Thai, give Sawadee a try.

Visit Date – July 2019

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Sanook, Greenwood

Sanook is a real find – authentic, tasty, inexpensive Thai food in a relatively local area.
It’s best to get an inside table if you can – we had an outside table, which wasn’t too bad, it was a lovely warm evening and no flies, but every so often due to the location of the cafe, a little whirlwind whipped up and blew things off the table. Starters were chicken wings with chilli dipping sauce – again I forgot to photograph them before eating, so the portion size is much bigger than portrayed :

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Main course was green curry prawns:

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Larb chicken salad:

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Steamed rice in the shape of a heart:

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The whole meal was extremely tasty. The curry is the most authentic thai curry that I have tasted in ages, the larb was a delight with real thai basil, and the rice was perfectly cooked. This little cafe is open on Sundays too – I will definitely be going back – a lovely little feast for $54 – you can’t beat that.

Last Visit Date – June 2017

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Red Opium, Perth CBD

This restaurant is not right on Hay Street, it is just slightly in Hill Street, and you would probably walk past it if you didn’t know it was there. Inside it is buzzing, the colour scheme is black and red with simple clean lines and pictures of opium smoking characters on the wall. It is not licensed so you can bring your own wine.

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The menu is set out into sections where you can have smaller tapas style plates or large main course size plates. There are also some set meals, but we chose to have 6 tapas style plates and a salad.
The first dish to arrive was Kataifi King Prawns. King prawns wrapped in a shredded pastry with a tamarind and chilli jam dip. These were really delicious, cooked perfectly and the dip went really well with the prawns.

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Next up was spring rolls. These were thin and long, nice but nothing spectacular.

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Then came the star dish of the evening – spicy scallops – seared sashimi grade
scallops with tamarind and chilli. I could have eaten a whole plate of these, they were so good.

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The som tum with soft shell crab was really really nice, spicy, and quite lip tingling. The soft shell crabs were crispy and a nice contrast to the soft salad which was jam packed with papaya shreds, chilli, peanuts, onion and tomato.

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Tod Man was minced fish with thai chilli paste, herbs and minced prawns, served with a salsa.

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The salmon ceviche was really refreshing with caviar, onions, chillies, truffle oil and lemon.

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The satay was lovely, served with authentic rice cakes, cucumber relish and satay sauce.

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For dessert we chose mango with sticky rice which was thoroughly delicious.

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The food at Red Opium was really high quality, well presented, very tasty, cheffy, authentic and served by friendly staff. You couldn’t ask for more from a restaurant and I will certainly be returning.

Update – Unfortunately our second visit wasn’t as good, we found the food quite lacklustre and disappointing.

Last Visit Date – October 2017

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Long Chim, Perth CBD

Long Chim Perth Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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This is not a restaurant for the faint hearted. Owned by Aussie Thaiophile chef David Thompson, it is a fun place to go – loud, brash and unashamedly like a street style cafe. The food is authentic in looks, flavour and spice – it is HOT, you know, Silom Road hot, so if you can’t take spicy food, then maybe this is not the best choice for you.
On the Saturday night that we visited, the crowd of diners were mainly groups of young ladies, meeting up for dinner before a night out at the clubs. There is a lively bar area, and it’s okay to meet up just for drinks if you don’t want to eat here. The waitress was really friendly and explained the menu to us, starters at the top, noodles in the middle, and family style sharing dishes around the edges. There is no real uniform here, so it’s a bit difficult to tell the wait staff from everybody else, but all of the staff are lovely once you work out who’s who.
We chose to go for traditional dishes and selected fish cakes to share for a starter.

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They were plentiful, nice small-ish irregular shapes with a lovely dressing of chilli, onion, thai basil, lime and sweet fish sauce dressing. All the elements of sweet, sour, fragrant and hot that you expect from an authentic Thai dish. It did leave a tingle on my tongue though – I am used to hot food, but I couldn’t help thinking that there would be many of my friends who would find it challenging to finish the dish.

One of our mains was thai green curry. Again, very authentic, I remembered the same flavours from a cafe along the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok, very tasty, but also very hot again. Even without eating the whole chillies on top, there was a strong spicy warmth in every mouthful.

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Jasmine rice was plentiful and slightly sticky – just like you get in Thailand.

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We also chose crunchy pork – which was not hot at all. It came with a lovely sweet dipping sauce (no picture), and most pieces were delicious with the soft roast pork and the crunchy crackling. However, I did find some pieces overly fatty and I couldn’t eat the fatty part. It was nice to have this dish as a relief from the spiciness of the rest.

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We also chose a glass noodle salad. Lovely slippery thin glass noodles topped with ground pork, squid, prawns, dried shrimp, onions, coriander and herbs, and of course…. a plentiful supply of chilli.

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Everything that we ate at Long Chim was authentic, delicious, and fragrant – definitely the place to come if you are hankering after that real Bangkok flavour with the real Bangkok spice. I loved it, but some will find it challenging and may need to ask for the chillies to be toned down a bit. It wasn’t cheap at approx $130 with just two soft drinks, but it was delightful. I loved the atmosphere, and will be making a return visit.

Visit Date – June 2017

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Galangal, Mount Hawthorn

Galangal Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

I had heard nice things about Galangal, and after visiting some other establishments in Mount Hawthorn, decided to give it a try. Mount Hawthorn is a nice area with lots of good eateries, and some bars, but without the hustle and bustle of Leederville and Mount Lawley. There are plenty of side streets to park, and even some spaces right outside Galangal.

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It’s a big restaurant with a large bar area, and it was pleasing to see that it was at least 75% full on a Saturday evening.
We chose a semillon sauvignon blanc from the wine list which was nice and crisp without being too acidic. Many of the wines available were WA options.

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The menu has a great variety of Thai food but it does not try to be all things to all men. It has all of the regular options available in a menu that is not hugely extensive, but has enough variety to make for a well balanced meal.
We dithered over starters and considered having the fish cakes, spring rolls or the golden wraps (chicken and corn parcels), but after seeing the portion sizes of some main courses going past, we decided to skip starters and concentrate on a variety of mains. We chose classic green chicken curry. This was very authentic with holy basil and eggplant, and was enjoyable from the first mouthful to the last.

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We also chose the fried barramundi fillet with garlic, chilli and tamarind hot sauce. The amount of barramundi was outstanding, it was fresh and tasty, but the sauce was much sweeter than I expected and tasted more like sweet chilli sauce than tamarind. I didn’t really get the sour tamarind hit.

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We also had pad thai with prawns which was very good and fairly authentic. I would have liked more prawns though – 4 prawns seemed a bit mean for a $22 pad thai.

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All in all I enjoyed the meal and the dishes that we ordered left us very full – the amount could easily have fed three of us. I will return to Galangal – it is a nice glam atmosphere, the staff are lovely, and the food is very tasty and authentic. Besides, I need to try the pork belly dish !

There is also a good selection of vegetarian dishes.

Visit Date – January 2018

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Restaurant review, Vegan/Vegetarian

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Pure Thai Cookhouse, New York, USA

Pure Thai Cookhouse Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

We went to Pure Thai Cookhouse on a Sunday lunch time. It is on 9th Avenue between 51st and 52nd Street, a small cosy establishment. When we walked in we were greeted with a cheery ‘sawasdee’ and secured a table within 5 minutes.
The menu was traditional Thai and between three of us we chose chicken satay and beef dumplings/buns to start.
Both plates were absolutely delicious – the buns packed full of shredded beef and succulent without being too stodgy. The satays were authentic and tasty, accompanied by a dish of cucumber, onion and chilli as well as satay peanut sauce. For main course we chose pad thai with shrimp, curry paste with shrimp, chicken with holy basil and chilli, and steamed brown rice.
Wow every dish was superb, quite spicy, but so tasty that the spiciness was overtaken by the deliciousness of each mouthful.

Pad Thai with shrimp:
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Curry paste with shrimp:
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Chicken with Thai basil and chilli:
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Fresh coconut juice:
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The service was polite and efficient and the whole meal was around $60 with soft drinks. This restaurant is a neighbourhood gem and a must-try for anybody in NYC who loves authentic, delicious Thai food.

Visit Date – February 2015

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Princess Thai, Clayfield, Brisbane, QLD

Princess Thai Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

As soon as you walk into Princess Thai – it feels like you are on holiday in Thailand. Greeted by a delightful wai and sawasdee from the waitresses.
The decor is lavish, intricate, and typically Thai, and the atmosphere is warm and comfortable with families and friends gathering in this neighbourhood gem.

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The menu is extensive and contains authentic Thai dishes – a nice welcome change – so many restaurants try to be pan-Asian and I always think it is better to specialize in one cuisine rather than trying to be Chinese, Thai, Japanese and Malaysian all at once. We didn’t want to overeat, so we shared a satay starter. the chicken was succulent and flavoursome and the peanut sauce was a perfect accompaniment.

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For mains we chose fish in tamarind sauce which was really nicely cooked, lovely fresh fish in a sauce that wasn’t too sour or too sweet, with lots of nice colourful vegetables on the plate.

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We also chose a chicken panang curry – authentic, spicy but not too hot, and bursting with all of the typical Thai flavours that we love.

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We also chose steamed rice and a glass noodle salad with minced pork and prawns. Again, the salad was a very authentic and tasty dish with all the elements of sweet, sour, and hot and a nice textural crunch of peanuts.

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We were perfectly full at the end of the meal, and really pleased to have dined here. We will definitely be back.

Last Visit Date – September 2016

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