The Thai

Located on Chapel st in Prahran it was recommended to us by one of D's colleagues. FU and A was in town so it created the perfect opportunity to go out for a big feed. we booked in advance and lucky we did. The place was packed and buzzing.

To start we got the coconut pancakes to share, this came with 3 flavours peanut, chives and corn. These were very light and the coconut filling was just solid enough. It definitely got our taste buds moving.

The first dish was the Larb Gai. The spicy mince chicken was tossed with crushed chilli, toasted rice, red onions. Very refreshing but more on the spicy side, I won't recommend this if you can't handle the heat. Most of us struggled with it, D was the only one who was able to power through to finish it

Then we moved onto the Crying Tiger with Jim Jaw. The rump steak was well marinated and served sliced. The meat was succulent and soft, when paired with sweet and sour chilli sauce, it was the perfect texture and taste.

Next was Gatium Soft Shell Crab. The crab was battered and deep fried, and a side of spicy lime, mint sauce.

Green curry was very aromatic. We got the chicken curry and it came with string beans, capsicum, bamboo shoots and eggplant. It was just the right amount of spice and the curry sauce was perfect on the coconut rice.

Final dish was the Stir Fry Broccoli with Crispy Pork. This is my must order dish whenever we go to a Thai restaurant. I just love Chinese broccoli and I love pork belly, this dish ticks off 2 boxes for me. The Thai had crispy pork which ticked the right box. However I found the serving size to be slightly small. For $14.90 I was really hoping for a larger plate of greens and pork belly.

Overall 17/20 I found all the dishes to be very appetizing, and authentic with a modern twist. They had friendly service and helpful with menu questions.

Home Thai

I was so happy to find out that Jarjar was in Sydney the same time as me for a project. It meant I got to pig out with her again! Since it was her birthday recently, it was more the reason to celebrate. There was 3 of us for dinner (Jarajar, SJ and me) so Thai felt the most appropriate to share, nibble and have a few giggles.

We went to the Home Thai on Sussex Street on a Monday night and lucky for us, the wait wasn't that awful.

Faced with a menu full of choice, the other 2 left the ordering to me and I gladly accepted the challenge. I am someone who hate leaving a restaurant not feeling full, so anybody who ever dines with me, will know to except a food baby at the end of their meal.

To start I ordered the seafood tom yum, it was a fairly cold day, warm soup was a great way to start. This was more on the spicy side, I loved it and could take the heat fine but I could see SJ struggling with the heat. The soup has a generous amount of prawns, mushroom and corriander.

Next was the soft shell crab mango salad. This came with a generous amount of soft shell crab, green mango, coriander, onion, shallots, kaffier leaves and chilli jam. The soft shell crab was deep fried and tasted great alone, l would have happily eaten the crab alone, it didn't really need the salad.

For mains we got the green curry with chicken. Strong coconut milk flavours came through, apple eggplant, chilli and basil leaves were also in the curry to enhance the curry.

To go with the green curry we also ordered some coconut rice. This also went nicely the stir fried broccoli with crispy pork. Normally the crispy pork would not be served on the side but they were accommodating since jaryar is vegetarian. This is one of my favourite dishes to order whenever we go to a Thai restaurant. Home Thai does it well With the pork being crispybut not dry. The oyster sauce is sweet but not too overpowering.

Pad thai is always a favourite, so we couldn't pass it up. Thin flat rice noodles with chicken and the usual goodies. I liked the side of nuts but didn't' feel the same away about the sugar. l found that the padthai already had enough taste and did't need anymore.

For dessert we really wanted the mango sticky rice but it was sold out. Instead we got the deep fried bread sticks, served with pandan coconut jam. It was a very heavy dessert. l reccomend you share this one.

The other dessert we got was the egg custard with sticky rice. The egg custard sat on top of the pandan scented sticky rice and finished with condense milk. It's very typical thai flavours, a bit on the heavy side but still a good sweetness to end the meal.

Overall 16.5/20 It's home-y Thai food that hits the spot. The menu has heaps of options, all the classics are there along with plenty of other new things to try.

D'Elephant Thai - Chadstone

I was fortunate enough to be invited to D'Elephant Thai's VIP tasting event. D'Elephant Thai is a new casual Thai eatery which caters for authentic Thai at a family friendly price point. It's located at Chadstone Shopping Centre near the Paparich/Simon Johnson entrance

To start we were served 4 canapes of pla goong, toong tong, mhu bhing ans satay gai. Pla goong was a prawn salad with line leaves and lemon grass. It was light and refreshing. Toong tong was a small fried dumpling with wonton skins of corn kernels and  pork. Perfect if you come with kids.

Mhu bhing was a  grilled pork skewer and satay gai was chicken satay served with a peanut sauce.

Then we were invited to try the som tum by the owner Phoon. This was done at a salad station where there were jars of salted duck egg, prawns, crackling, bean shoots, cherry tomatoes etc. It was made for you on the spot and you can tell them exactly how spicy you want it. The salad was fresh and crisp and the dressing was the right amount of zest and heat. I didn't like the duck egg in it but D was happily chomping them down, while I went for more crackling.

For starters we picked the tom yum prawn and red curry roast duck. The red curry roast duck was a rich creamy curry that had coconut milk fragrant laced into it lightly. It's the type of sweet curry that is good for those who don't like too much heat and prefer a mild, sweet curry.

Tom yum prawn was my favourite dish of the night. The broth was perfectly sour with just the right amount of spiciness. Loved how it was generous with the vegetables too.

Next was the mains, D picked the Chinese broccoli stir fried with pork belly

 I went for the chilli jam cashew chicken. Really enjoyed the classic flavours in this one.

For dessert we were all served a mango sticky rice with coconut ice cream and cantaloupe sago with coconut milk.

D'Elephant also offers a range of Thai drinks such as Thai ice milk tea,  Nom yen (ice rose milk) and pandan lemon grass cooler. Be warned though, Thai drinks are on the sweet side.

Verdict?

I think it's a great addition to the Chadstone food scene, it makes a great local restaurant and on the likes of Paparich, it's one of those places you can bring your family and expect good classic dishes.

Nest Restaurant

Ness was back in Melbourne when this invitation came and I thought since me, (Jar Jar) was Ness' usual partner in crime for Brisbane, I was a good enough representation for the blog.
When Ness told me the event was Nest Restaurants & Bar’s launch, I immediately knew I was in for a good night. I was going to bring the boy but he was out of town so 5 mins later, J agreed to be my partner in crime and everything was set.

The location made me check the map twice, to make sure that I got it right because Nest is located in the most unusual place – right above the Roma Street Station. However, a bit of research showed that this precinct is currently being developed into Brisbane’s new food, bar & lounge destination.

As we walked through the door we were greeted with a glass of champagne and some fortune cookies which were our tickets for a competition. The space itself is very funky, with interior designer making some very bold choices – a collection of unusual down lights and gorgeous timber “nest” installation were my highlights.

However, what completely won me over was actually outside – a massive fig tree decorated with hundreds of Chinese lanterns which will surely not only increase street appeal but serve as an invitation to all the passerby.

Food was served canapé style, with canapes representing samples of the dishes on the menu. We started with some grilled Turkish bread with olive oil dukkah, house grown herb butter which was a good start, but nothing too special – I felt like there is something missing, but that might just be a factor of me eating way too much dukkah avo toast.

Vietnamese rolls didn’t just look very pretty with asparagus spears, but they were also perfectly light and tasty – definitely the dish we felt the least guilty about eating.

Next we had crispy fried vegetable dumplings with fruit chutney. The dumplings themselves were a bit bland, but fruit chutney was spicy and thus did wonders for lifting the flavour of veggies.

My personal favourite for the night came next – a duck salad with green pear, seasonal greens and a ginger, lime and coriander dressing. This dish was uncomplicated but delicious, with flavours and textures complimenting each other perfectly.

 Laksa, was the one that got away. I managed to take a photo when it was on the counter but it was all gone by the time it reached us. So didn't get to try it.

Onwards to some of the heartier dishes, I opted for nasi goreng with prawns, beef, chicken, market greens and fried egg. J went with the pad thai which came with all the usual suspects. Both very classic, no fuss dishes that we both found very satisfying.

Pad thai 

Nasi goreng

Once when our champagne glasses very empty, we were recommended a rum cocktail made with house made honey (from the roof!) and served in jars which made it look very innocent. However, as myself and rum don’t go too well together I got for vodka, cranberry and lime cocktail and didn't regret it.

Finally, we finished the evening with some crème brulee . My expectations of dessert are always high, but every box was ticked – crème brulee was perfectly creamy and crunchy on top. Good thing that waitress didn't come around with seconds because I wouldn't be able to say no! (Sorry about the blurry photos, I've had a few cocktails by this stage).

Overall 13.5/20 I definitely see myself coming back to Nest, mainly for two important reasons – one is tasty, no fuss lunch on a weekday and the other one is some after work drinks in a great atmosphere and with a view of that gorgeous fig tree.

LONgTIME

For those of you who follow my blog will know that I work in Brisbane quite frequently. So a girl has to eat look after her and eat well right? As one of our after work gathering, we ventured to the Valley for some fusion Thai. I read about LONgTIME in a few publications and was curious to see what Brissy had to offer in terms of up market fusion.

Located in Ann Street, the main entrance is off the main street anv via an alleyway lit with garden lights. It's actually a beautiful atmosphere to wait and chill with a drink. Then you enter a garage like space and greeted with loud, upbeat music. Good thing about this place is that take bookings so you don't have to worry about coming all the way to the Valley just to be told there is no table or a 2 hour wait (unlike a lot of restaurants in this category in Melbourne and Sydney these days).

We had a large group so we were seated on half of the communal table in the centre of the restaurant. It was a bit difficult to talk since we were spaced out and the background noise was very loud in the restaurant but if you are happy speaking slightly louder or in a group of 2-4 people, then you would be fine.

Some of my colleagues know I am food blogger so they were quite happy to leave the ordering up to me and I happily took upon that duty.

To start I got us a bunch of their bar snacks to share. First one off the rank was the soft shell crab bao with apple slaw ($4.50). Soft shell crab is one those those things that is usually a crowd pleaser and this time it was no different. Crisp bites of crab went well with the sweet and slightly tangy apple slices.

Second bar snack we got was the Thai chicken hot dog. These were mini bite size hot dog $4 each. Each dog had a perfectly cooked chicken frank with corridandar mayo finish. It's a good way to ease into Asian Fusion for the colleagues who were new to this concept.

Third bar snack was the taco. This has prawn laab in a cripsy taco shell with diced salad inside.

Next we moved on to the salads, since we were at a Thai fusion restaurant, the egg net salad was essential. This was a delicately constructed egg net with pork slices, cuttlefish, slaw and finished with  a caramelised sugar sauce. This was a good light salad that had a bite in it. Great for a large or small group and a fresh option to compliment the other heavier dishes to come.

My Swedish Paella boss picked the other salad which was the pomelo salad with prawns, coconut, crispy dried shallots and finished with a chilli jam dressing. This is what I would considered a 'fun' salad. All the fun elements were presemt, a seafood bite from the prawn, texture and coconut fragrant from the bites of dried coconut and the dressing was sweet with that small refined kick where it was needed.

After the salads came the soup. Given we were at a Thai restaurant it felt fitting to order a tom yum. Unlike the typical tom yum, this was served with a few pieces of giant prawn crackers and black mussels (as the hero ingredient), prawns and an assortment of sprouts and herbs. This was a lot spicy than I had anticipated. I'm normally pretty good with my spicy food tolerance, I found myself reaching for a drink a few times. Wouldn't recommend this for someone who can't take spicy. This is definitely more on the hot side. The level of sourness was good but unless you can take the heat, you won't enjoy this one.

For the meats we ordered the smoked chicken, this came with a sweet chilli sauce. This was my favourite dish of the night. The chicken fell off the bone, it juicy and the meat was tender. The basting was smoky and intense enough to pack a hit of flavour.

Out of the curries we got the morton bay bug curry. This was quite interesting, I've never had bay bugs in curry before and I was surprised with how good it tasted. The curry was a delicate and light, finished with the coconut milk, the sauce was just so good, I wanted to get more rice and just eat the curry sauce with lots of rice.

On the side we ordered a few vegetable dishes to help us feel less guilty and trick ourselves to think we were eating our greens. The greens were just an assortment of book choy, string beans, watercress tossed with sweet/spicy stir fry sauce.

For dessert we got 2 to share. First dessert was the sticky rice with fresh mango, coconut ice cram and  sesame brittle. I loved the heavy rice texture with the refreshing coconut ice cream and mango. The sesame brittle was that fun 'cherry on top' element.

Other dessert was the green apple and sour mango jelly with watermelon granita, meringue topped with lemongrass foam. This had intriguing flavours but just not enough in terms of quantity on the plate. The granita and pineapple meringue were devine and just not enough of it on the plate.

Overall 15.5/20 I really enjoyed my visit and I think most of my colleagues would agree. The food was fun and good twist on classic Thai dishes. Downside for me was the service was very average and I found the bar snacks to be overpriced for their portion sizes. The food was great but at times it felt like it was $2 per bite and that can feel a bit steep. Price aside, the food is something I would go back for and find enticing.