Category: Thai

Thai is a hugely popular cuisine in Sydney. Some of their staple food are Tom Yum, Som Tum, and Pad Thai. They also had other exotic dishes like durian.

Maenam Lao and Thai

Maenam Lao and Thai Review:

When we talk about Strathfield, people would associate this suburb in Sydney with the dozens of Korean restaurants in the area. However, I will talk about the only Lao and one of only 3 Thai restaurants on this week’s review, Maenam Lao and Thai.

Lao and Thai cuisines are quite alike. According to wiki, som tam, sticky rice and larb dishes that you can find in most Thai restaurants in Sydney are actually a part of Lao cuisine.

Maenam has quite a diverse range of dishes and luckily we went there with quite a lot of people. So we could order quite a few of them.

The dishes at Maenam

Massaman Beef Puffs (4 pcs) – $8.90 – Massaman beef curry encased in puff pastry served with sweet chilli dipping sauce.

It is quite interesting to have massaman beef in a puff pastry. I love how they did it.

Raw Beef Salad (Larb Dip) – $13.90 – A Lao specialty of chopped raw beef, Asian herbs, tossed in an anchovy lime dressing and grounded roasted rice.

Larb is usually presented with cooked minced beef. This raw beef version was akin to the Japanese/Korean Yukke dish minus the egg yolk. I think this is my favourite dish of the day.

Seafood Crispy Noodles – $17.90 – Crispy egg noodles immersed in a thick gravy sauce with seasonal vegetables.

Crispy noodles dish is one of the first things that the little one will look for (obviously after ice cream). Kids always love the crispy nature of the noodles and the dish usually comes with lots of vegetables and your choice of meat.

Salt and Pepper Soft Shell Crab – $16.90 – Deep fried battered soft shell crab seasoned with salt, pepper and shallots. Add $3 for mango or apple salad (seasonal)

I don’t know why they don’t just combine the soft shell crab with the salad instead of having it as an optional extra. The salad really accentuates the soft shell crab, something that people will miss if they didn’t order the salad.

Crispy Pork Belly – $16.90 – Crispy pork belly in chilli basil sauce topped with crispy Thai basil leaves.

The bite-sized portion of the pork belly looked to be a hit amongst us.

Massaman Curry Beef – $15.90 – Mild and aromatic curry of slow-cooked beef served with potatoes, onion and carrots topped with fried shallots and roasted cashew nuts.

We can’t have enough off massaman beef, so we order the full version instead of just the puff.

Desserts at Maenam

Durian sticky rice – $10.90 – Served with coconut sauce

Durian sticky rice is available in this restaurant. I know some of you will either love or hate durian… so let’s just leave it at that.

Roti by Maenam – $10.90 – Served with a choice of pandan, chocolate or condensed milk sauce and served with a side of vanilla ice cream

I was defeated in the voting between chocolate or pandan sauce. However, the chocolate sauce was also quite a good combination with the roti and vanilla ice cream.

Maenam 3 – $10.90 – A taste of Thailand with 3 scoops of coconut, salted palm sugar and lychee ice cream. Garnished with seasonal fruits.

Three massive scoops of ice creams. I don’t think we should explain it more…

The final verdict for Maenam Lao and Thai

Despite being one of only a few Thai restaurants in the area, Maenam does not disappoint. They have an above average quality of food.

Do you think I should go?
There is another good Thai restaurant nearby, but they are a lot more expensive than Maenam.

Rating for Maenam Lao and Thai:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $15 – $20 per dish

Place: 8.5 / 10

Details:

31 The Boulevarde, Strathfield 2135

+61 2 9746 5882

http://maenamlaothai.com.au/

Sep 3, 2018
Do Dee Paidang

Do Dee Paidang Review:

There are probably more than 1,000 Thai restaurants in Sydney. So, if a Thai restaurant is getting noticed, they must be doing something right. That’s how I came across Do Dee Paidang. A friend of mine at work had been raving about it for years but I didn’t manage to go as we very rarely go to Sydney CBD.

If you are walking around Chinatown, you will not miss this restaurant’s bright red signage. There were usually queues outside the restaurant as well. Fortunately, we were quite early and could get a seat without waiting (despite the restaurant being almost full at that time). The specialty at Do Dee Paidang was their soup. We couldn’t order them this time around as some of us did not eat pork.

Som Tum Thai Pu – $13.90 – Green papaya mixed with chilli, tomatoes, lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar, dried shrimps, and pickled crab.

Som Tum is the Thai green papaya salad. Traditionally they are very spicy…. and that’s what we got here! The one interesting thing about this salad is that you can add pickled crab. Pickled crab is quite an acquired taste as it can be super sour and super crunchy. It’s not actually a soft shell crab, so the shell is pretty crunchy.

Pad See Ew Chicken – $9.90

Pad see ew chicken is our personal staple as the little one ALWAYS wants to order one when we are in a Thai restaurant. Pad see ew is the Thai version of Malay’s char kwetiau. It is basically stir-fried rice noodles with sweet soy sauce. The dish was super simple, not spicy and usually loved by children.

Deep Fried Chicken Rice – $9.90

I usually love crispy, deep-fried chicken with rice. Unfortunately, their deep fried chicken was a tad too oily to my liking.

Keaw Tod – $3 / skewer

This quail egg wrapped in a deep-fried wonton on a skewer became our instant favourite. It was quite a yummy snack to have.

Pa Tong Go – $5.50

Pa tong go is my #1 favourite in a Thai restaurant. It is basically a derivative of Chinese doughnut (Youtiao) served with sweet pandan dipping sauce. I thought their pa tong go was pretty well made and not as oily as the chicken.

Nom Yen, Cha Yen – $4.50

When you are in a Thai restaurant, don’t forget to order either the Thai iced tea or the (super sweet) pink milk tea.

The final verdict for Do Dee Paidang

Do dee paidang provides a low-cost Thai restaurant without sacrificing taste.

Do you think I should go?

For years, I’ve always been a fan of one particular Thai restaurant. However, they have shifted to a more upmarket-y Thai restaurant. Do Dee is the cheap and cheerful option with same great taste!

Also, I know I didn’t write about it here, but they are famous for their soup!

Rating for Do Dee Paidang:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $10 – $20 per dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

Shop 9, 37 Ultimo Road, Chinatown 2000

+61 2 8065 3827

Jun 29, 2018
Buddha Raksa Thai

Buddha Raksa Thai Review:

We were having a group dinner one day and a friend chose a restaurant closest to his place. It was a Thai restaurant called Buddha Raksa Thai.

You can see from the menu that they are not your typical cheap and cheerful Thai (the Zomato menu listing needs to be updated). Most of the dishes are above $20.

Makua Yao Num Pik Pao (signature dish) – $31.90 – Crispy eggplant cooked with chilli jam, onion, shallot and cashew nut.

Crispy eggplant is the signature dish of Buddha Raksa Thai. It costs a whopping $31 for a ‘mere vegetables’ dish. However, this dish was worthy of the title ‘signature dish’. It was by far the best dish of the night.

If you are not a big fan of chilli, they can make it not spicy.

Basil Fried Rice Beef – $20.90 – Thai style fried rice with basil, chilli, garlic and egg

The basil fried rice is spicy. We ordered it because one of our friends loves this kind of fried rice.

Free flow rice – $3 per person

I need to talk about this because of how they serve the rice. There were a couple of people who roam around the restaurant bringing two types of rice: brown and white.

Larb Gai – $21.90 – Spicy salad of minced chicken, sprinkled with lemon juice, fish sauce, ground rice, mint, onion, chilli and shallot. Served with garden salad.

Larb gai is a dish that is a ‘must have’every time we go to a Thai restaurant. It is a very refreshing ‘salad’ dish that tasted spicy and sour.

Pad See Ew Chicken – $21.90 – stir-fried flat rice noodle with egg, bok choy and thick soy sauce

Pad see ew is another staple for us. It is one of those Can’t-go-wrong types of dish.

Gai Yang – $25.90 – Grilled marinated chicken fillet with Thai herb. Served with Nam jim kai (sweet chilli sauce).

Gai Yang is the Thai version of BBQ chicken dish. They are usually marinated with Thai herbs that made the chicken yellow-ish and served with Thai dipping sauce.

Duck curry – $26.90 – Boneless roasted duck cooked in a red curry sauce with pineapple and lychee

Duck curry is quite an unusual dish. Furthermore, it was served with pineapple and lychee. The end result is this sweet and sour curry with pre-roasted duck mixed in it.

Thai Milk Tea – $6.90

For $6.90, it is one expensive Thai Milk Tea. So far, I haven’t been able to differentiate between theirs and the other Thai Milk Teas in Sydney.

The final verdict for Buddha Raksa Thai

I love the signature dish from Buddha Raksa Thai. It is probably one of only a few vegetable dishes that I really like.

Do you think I should go?
Buddha Raksa Thai is probably not your average everyday Thai restaurant. You will also need to book if you are coming in on the weekend as it can get very crowded.

Rating for Buddha Raksa Thai:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $35 – $40 per person

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

135 – 137 Liverpool Road, Burwood 2134

+61 2 9747 5608

http://www.buddharaksa.com.au/

Apr 23, 2018
Nu Bambu

Nu Bambu Review:

I saw a few pictures of food at Nu Bambu in Sydney Food Bloggers facebook group. Considering that the restaurant is quite close to where I live, we decided to give it a go one day.

The restaurant is located in Canterbury and Hurlstone Park RSL. The menu is quite a fusion of all things Asians, from the Thai salad to Indonesian Nasi Goreng. However, I think it is probably one of the pricier RSL food in Sydney. Is the price justified by the taste?

Beef Tartare – $16 – Cape Grim grass-fed, raw Steak with lemongrass, lime leaf, quail yolk, sesame crackers

It is quite an interesting display of beef tartare. I have never seen it served with sesame crackers and fried shallots. I love the extra crunchy dimension to the dish.

Thai Salmon Ceviche – $15 – Raw salmon, fresh coconut, coriander, mint, red nahm jim

The ceviche’s combo is also something you don’t see very often. This Asian version of ceviche came with fresh coconut and spicy Thai dipping sauce.

From these two dishes, we got a sense that it was going to be quite an exciting dinner.

Beef Short Rib – $24 – Twice-coocked with sweet fish sauce, cucumber relish

I won’t tell you anything but this: You must order the beef short rib.

Grilled Champagne Lobsters – $39 – Cooked over coconut charcoal with confit sambal butter

Due to my lack of knowledge of what ‘Champagne Lobster‘ is, I was kinda surprised when it came out as 2 small-ish lobsters. The lobsters were full of flavour. Don’t worry about the sambal butter, I am sure most people would be able to handle the heat.

Whole Crispy Fried Fish – $30 – Green mango, coriander, sweet chilli, tamarind

This dish might look a little bit challenging. It was a whole fish after all. The sweet, spicy and sour taste was in line with a mild Thai green salad. I love whole fish as I could eat pretty much everything but the bones.

Asian Greens – $8

You know they make a good bowl of vegetables when your kids couldn’t stop eating it. That’s exactly what happened with this Asian Greens dish.

Thai Tea Fondant – $15 – Ginger & cacao sorbet

Unfortunately, I made a rookie mistake for this dish: I did not take a picture when the yummy, gooey Thai tea seeped out of the cake. It was also interesting to know that the ginger sorbet worked perfectly with the cake.

Crispy Choux (4) – $14 – served with pandan custard or lychee lemongrass

Again another rookie mistake… no gooey pictures… but this time it’s because I wasn’t fast enough to stop people from devouring them!

Sorbet – $12 – charcoal coconut, mango lychee, yuzu passionfruit, strawberry & raspberry

There were four different choices for the sorbet, but since the majority would want to try mango lychee, we had two scoops of them. The other one was yuzu passionfruit.

Trung Nguyen Cold Drip Coffee – $6 – condensed milk over ice

Considering that Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk was usually super sweet, that giant ice sphere actually dumbed down the sweetness considerably.

The final verdict for Nu Bambu

Nu Bambu might be one of the most expensive RSL restaurants in Sydney. However, the price was justified by the quality of food they served.

Do you think I should go?
Definitely! However, please be prepared that if you expect your usual Asian dishes, you will be disappointed.

Rating for Nu Bambu:

8.5 / 10

Taste: 8.5 / 10

Price: $200 with drinks for four people

Place: 8.0 / 10

Details:

Canterbury Hurlstone Park RSL
20-26 Canterbury Road, Hurlstone Park 2193

+61 2 9559 0088

https://nubambu.com.au/

Apr 4, 2018
Good Feeling Thai

Good Feeling Thai Restaurant Review:

Good Feeling Thai restaurant is one of the newest restaurants in the Inner West, Sydney. It is located in the Dulwich Hill shopping area. They have a few of the usual dishes you see in a typical Thai restaurant. They also have a few interesting ones. We did not get to try many dishes on this occasion.

Gang Phed Pad Yang – $18.90 – Grilled roasted duck in curry and vegetables

I love eating duck. When visiting a new restaurant, duck is the ingredient that I would try to find first. I’m not quite sure about grilled roast duck as the menu stated. To me, it looks just like a roast duck. It was quite a sweet and savoury curry.

Pad Thai Pu Nim – $18.90 – Special pad thai with egg net and soft shell crab

Pad Thai is probably the most well-known Thai dish in Sydney. It is so famous that you could even find pad thai in a non-Thai restaurant!

Good Feeling Thai tweaked the recipe a bit. Instead of serving the usual rice noodles with something, they put this elaborate display. They introduced soft shell crab to complement the dish with its crunch and savoury flavour. They also blanketed the pad thai with egg net. The Good Feeling’s Pad Thai was very nice.

Fresh Coconut Juice – $6.00

I guess they could say it is just a fresh coconut. I love coconut when you can still scrape its inner wall and enjoy the fruit!

The final verdict for Good Feeling Thai Restaurant

Good Feeling Thai Restaurant is a restaurant worth coming back to. Their price was quite decent for the area and they have nice duck and pad thai dishes.

Did you know?
Good Feeling Thai restaurant serves halal food. There are not too many halal options in Inner West. This part of Inner West is actually more known for the Vietnamese restaurants.

Rating for Good Feeling Thai Restaurant:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $14.50 – $19 per main dish

Place: 7.5 / 10

Details:

Shop 1 / 362 – 372 New Canterbury Road, Dulwich Hill

+61 2 9518 3185

Jun 15, 2017
Saab Wer Thai Esan

Saab Wer Review:

We went to have lunch in Newtown on the weekend. Our choice went to this bright pink restaurant that is closer to the University of Sydney than the Newtown station, Saab Wer Thai Esan.

Their lunch menu is super cheap (by Sydney’s standards). Most of the dishes are $7.50. You will need to pay more for seafood or duck meat. Just like most Thai lunch places, you order the dish you want with the meat of your choice.

Soft Shell Crab – $7.50

It was quite a generous portion of soft shell crab. It was also not disappointing taste-wise.

Laad Na Mee Krob – $7.50 – Crispy egg noodles, Chinese broccoli, egg and gravy sauce with chicken

This dish is known in Indonesia as Ifumie. It is a combination of thick egg soup and crispy egg noodles. It was one of my favourite dishes growing up in Indonesia. The difference in this dish was in the noodles. Instead of the usual thin egg noodles, we got a bowl of massive egg noodles.

Beef Thai fried rice – $7.50 – with eggs and vegetables.

The obvious safe option when you are trying a new restaurant. Their portion was quite big for the price.

The final verdict for Saab Wer Thai Esan

Saab Wer Thai Esan is a good place if you want to have fast and painless lunch with acceptable quality and big portion.

Did you know?

There are a lot of Thai restaurants in Newtown, especially along King Street. Most of them offered similar range of dishes. Saab Wer Thai Esan chose to compete for price-sensitive customers.

Rating for Saab Wer Thai Esan:

6.5 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $7.50 – $11 per lunch main

Place: 6.5 / 10

Details:

105 King Street, Newtown NSW 2042

+61 2 8580 1345

http://www.saabwer.com.au/

Nov 3, 2016