Archive for the ‘Thai’ Category
V Rating: VVV No matter where I’ve lived, I’ve always had an ol’ faithful local restaurant. It’s the place I suggest when we’re going out with newbie friends, or I’m in a group and want a fun, cheap dinner without politely pointless deliberation about which restaurant to try. Well, Thai Terrific in Bondi is that restaurant for me (even though it’s not quite my local). When I first moved to Bondi, Thai Terrific’s Curlewis Street setting was a little more humble. A couple of redecorations later, it’s bright swankier restaurant with a large courtyard out the back. The one constant is that whenever I go there it’s always packed. So why is that? Truthfully, I don’t think it’s the quality of the food. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not bad food, but it’s not exceptional Thai (and if anything has become a little blander over the years). I think it’s more likely because the Bondi Beach food scene has a gaping hole where some great Asian restaurants should be. There are some good small places (better suited to takeaway) and some ritzier, expensive restaurants but not so much of the variety or experience that you find in other parts of Sydney. So while inner westies might puzzle at Thai Terrific’s success, if you live in Bondi, it’s one of the best no-fuss, great fun restaurants and one of the few ways to get a Thai fix. Like most Thai restaurants, there are ostensibly loads of vegetarian choices because you can order different curries and stir-frys with your choice of sauce and vegetable and tofu. I didn’t do the ordering so I’m not sure if there was fish sauces in any of the eight veggie entrees, or around 30 mains - I recommend you ask.
We tried the entree deep fried tofu with sweet chili and peanut satay sauce, green curry with vegetables and tofu, Pad Thai, and the pumpkin and snow pea stir fry. These last two dishes were my favourites. In particular, the sweetness of the pumpkin and snow peas worked nicely with the soy based stir fry sauce and soft and oily egg. Like every visit to Thai Terrific, the food was just one part of the experience. Combined with the fun, lively atmosphere and flowing wine, we had a typically great night.
V Rating: VVV This post is all about celebration. On Monday August 8, we went to Longrain for the lovely K’s birthday. Coincidentally, Longrain had celebrated its sixth birthday two nights before. To top it off, this review marks the 100th post for Veggie Friendly. Here’s cheers. Longrain epitomises cool, minimalist design. The open plan, converted warehouse holds a cocktail bar at one end and a restaurant at the other. The polished wooden banquette conjures up Hollywood glam, while large flatscreen televisions with rotating images add a vaguely cyberpunk vibe.
We turned up at 8pm after I’d confidently predicted Longrain would be quiet and we wouldn’t have to wait for a table. Apparently inner-suburbanites didn’t get the memo about rising interest rates and petrol prices. Longrain was jumping and we had to cool our heels at the cocktail bar. Half an hour later a waiter fetched us for dinner. In keeping with the Asian focus, the restaurant has long, noisy communal tables evoking banquet style meals. We steadied ourselves on our high stools and deliberated over the vegetarian section of the menu.
One of the main reasons why we chose Longrain was their salt and pepper tofu. This is one of my favourite dishes and Longrain makes the best version I’ve ever tasted. The soft tofu is served in large cubes and absorbs the flavours of the light, slightly sticky salt and pepper batter. The amazing thing about this dish is that the batter is so light that it doesn’t taste oily or fried, but it still gives the tofu some structure - I’m convinced that this is only possible because chef Martin Boetz has struck a Faustian pact. We also tried the vegetarian eggnet with pomelo, bean sprouts, peanuts, coriander and sweet vinegar. This is a beautifully presented cold asian salad with a refreshing sweet dressing. Andrew could have eaten this whole dish by himself.
The remaining vegetarian dishes are stir fried Asian greens (good accompaniement) and a red curry with crisp fried tofu, baby corn, snow peas and Thai basil, which we didn’t try. Longrain is one of the few upmarket retaurants in Sydney that makes a real effort to cater for vegetarians. It gets a VVV rating on the basis that a party of 3 vegetarians could come here and enjoy a beautiful meal.
V Rating: VVVVV One of the embarrassing things about getting a Google map was that it proved how Eastern Suburbs centric my blog is. The really shameful thing is that I’m sure there are more vegetarian and vegetarian friendly restaurants in Sydney’s West.
Hungry and down at heel we wandered disconsolately down King Street, only to discover that the strip’s second vegetarian restaurant was doing a roaring trade (again, Inner West, very vegetarian friendly).
We hurriedly took our seat and scanned the menu. As we waited abut half an hour for our food to come we were struck by the amount of people who’d ordered a dish that came served in half a pineapple. For mains, we ordered the Pad Prik Heang, a soy-sauce stiry-fry with vegetarian chicken, capsicum, onion, carrot, stir-fried with dried chilli and cashew nuts. We choose this dish because I wanted something with vegetables after a weekend of not-so-healthy eating. I found the soy sauce a bit over-powering and so the dish wasn’t as refreshing as I’d hoped.
Green Palace is a Buddhist restaurant, like most vegetarian place in Sydney. However, the fact that it is run by Thai Buddhists, as opposed to the more usual Chinese or Vietnamese Buddhists restaurants, makes Green Palace unique and means that you can find food here that isn’t available elsewhere in Sydney. It was certainly a lovely change to be able to order Thai food without worrying about fish sauce. Also unusually for a Buddhist restaurant, Green Palace is BYO.
V Rating: VVV After our food extravaganza at Ravesi’s, Andy and I were keen on a quiet Saturday night. So, we decided to try the new Red Room DVD store in Bondi Junction. Being in the mood for a night of sloth, we planned to get a quick dinner at Thai Brown Rice on the way home. There was a touch of anxiety to the night because we only had our parking spot for 50 minutes. Figuring out Red Room’s new-fangled system (there are no endless rows of DVD cases - you just choose a movie on an electronic screen, press a button, and an anonymous looking CD case is dispensed with your movie), and then actually deciding on what DVD to hire, took a good 20 minutes.
Thai Brown Rice provides a decent vegetarian choice. There are three vegetarian entrees, and each of the main sauces can be served with vegetables and tofu. The menu shows a hint of health consciousness – the tofu is organic, and you can order a laksa light which comes without coconut milk. Thai Brown Rice’s forte is ‘speed’ food with a healthy twist, not haute cuisine. The food tastes fine, but is unmemorable. The tofu came smothered in peanut satay sauce and was a little too rich for our tastes. The Phad Thai and chilli basil with vegetables and tofu made a good meal, but were undistinguished. I was prepared for a spicy meal, but thought both dishes were mild. The best part of the night was that we were home in enough time to watch both the incredible Howl’s Moving Castle followed by the Iron Chef tofu (pronounced TOOOOOOOOOOOO-fw) battle. Ahh yes, the perfect evening.
V Rating: VVV There is a well known man at the Fyshwick fruit and vegetable markets in Canberra who sells his wares with the slogan ‘yummy, yummy in my tummy.’ This pretty much sums up my attitude towards Nitan Work Station.
There are around 70 dishes on the Nitan Wok Station menu. I’m in the process of conducting an extensive quality assurance review of most of them and am yet to be disappointed. I can particularly recommend the Beautiful Chiang Mai (pumpkin, snow peas, egg and coriander). Like many Thai restaurants, Nitan Wok Station offers a lot of different sauces which you can combine with vegetables and tofu (or your choice of meat - but let’s not go there). This means that at face value vegans and vegetarians have a huge range of choice. Because I wanted to give Nitan Wok Station at least a VVV rating, last time I ate there I checked whether the dishes included oyster or fish sauce. The person serving me confirmed that some did, but happily explained to the kitchen that I was vegetarian and these needed to be left out. They also checked unprompted whether I ate egg. This gave me some confidence that they had a good awareness of vegetarian and vegan diets and could accommodate our needs. All in all, the multitude of inventive, modern Thai dishes that can easily be made veggie friendly and the $7.50 lunch special, make Nitan Wok Station my favourite eatery in the Pyrmont / Darling Harbour area. |
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