Been there 5 years ago and I remember we had to wait to be seated for dinner. Now returning, there’s still a line to wait for lunch? I would expect the hype to have died down. So people are definitely going / revisiting for the food!
We only waited for less than 10 minutes and was seated on a 4 people table~! I ordered a drink that I’ve never heard of: Bael Fruit. Slightly sweet but has a coffee aftertaste. Also a bit like coke, but not! Playful. It’s something different but I’d try their other drinks next time 🙂
We ordered a lot for two ladies over lunch. We were hungry but wanted to take a bird’s eye photo of all the dishes. Unfortunately service was not fast enough. We waited and waited for more dishes to come, but the pork belly dish came colder and colder.. 😦
Padt Kana Mhu Grob – stir fried chinese kale and crisp pork belly was beautiful especially being the first dish, the smell of stir fried pork belly fat scent tossed with chinese kale was amazing. Even blogging about it now brings me back to the crunchy bite of the kale and well seasoned pork belly. The only negative I’d say is that it’s all about the crisp. Not much of the pork meat itself. $14.
Pork Ribs Char grilled garlic and pepper pork ribs with nahm jim jaw, $14 This was delicious! It’s all about the sauce! There’s something about thai sauces and their “nahm jim jaw”. Chilli but I can take it as a dipping sauce! Yay! The ribs were nicely charred and juicy with garlic seasoned on top. I’m sure pepper was there, but it wasn’t strong. Perfect.
Pad Thai, Stir fry thin rice noodles with chicken, hens egg, dried shrimps, bean sprouts, garlic chives, tamarind and palm sugar. The noodles were thinly cut it was almost not the same as what I usually see as Pad Thai (in a good way). Sauce was perfect and it was the star of the savoury dishes we had. Very good for only $12!
Crying Tiger with beef tenderloin and nahm jim jaw. The beef was not tender at all. I’ve had better Crying Tigers than this one. We found it chewy and the cut was too thick for each mouthful. The dipping sauce was delicious though. A disappointing dish, if only the protein was made with better thought.
Par Tuhng Go is pillowy donuts dipped with sangkaya (pandas and condensed milk). The best dessert we tasted in Sydney. It was so satisfying peeling apart the freshly fried donut and dipping it with pandan. I hear the pandan dipping is easy to make, but I can’t make pillowy/fluffy donuts! Soft and fluffy by itself… and not too oily like chinese donuts. It’s perfect for $7.90.
We also ordered Banana Fritters – fried banana in a glutinous rice, coconut milk and sesame seed batter. This was a miss, the banana was not ripe enough to offer the sweetness of the banana. It was rather sour and bland as it didn’t get enough banana aroma after deep frying it. It was hard to eat because it was dry and not moist. When cooled down, the dessert was even harder to eat. Sorry, I will not re-order this. I’ll try their other desserts next time.
Overall, some hits and misses. There’s inconsistencies in their dishes to make every visit a wow experience. I will re-visit because of some great dishes at affordable prices. They have long trading hours which is a plus for me.
Location: 20 Campbell Street Haymarket NSW 2000
Website: http://www.chatthai.com.au/ct_branches/thaitown/
Tasteelicious Rating Service: 4/5 Ambience: 5/5 Beverage: 3/5 Entree: N/A Mains: 3.5/5 Dessert: 4/5 Overall: 19.5/25
★★★★