Original Thai

Okay, let's see if I can type a coherent post in a record time of 15 minutes (about the time I have before going out to dinner)! Just because there are a couple of food posts piling up and I really want to get things up and running before we get backlogged. :(

Anyway! The girls went to Original Thai on Lygon last Monday - planned to have Korean but the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed (story of our lives, WHY). So we stumbled around Lygon Street and randomly barged into a restaurant after one of us suggested Thai. The interior of Original Thai is pretty nice, me thinks.

Pretty Elephant candle!

We were pretty hungry, so we ordered quite some stuff to munch on. First up we had the Mixed Entree ($13.90) which consisted of two Thai fishcakes, two spring rolls, two prawn rolls and two curry puffs.

Food in a boat!

An artistic shot by Sis.

Everything was pretty good but nothing exceptional or out of ordinary - except the Thai fishcakes in which me and San REALLY liked. Sis felt that it was too "herby/lemon-grassy" for her taste though, but I really like it. It was tangy and spicy and really yummy! The prawn spring rolls were actually whole prawns wrapped and fried in pastry - it tasted quite nice. :)

Everyone wanted Tom Yum, so we ordered a Prawn Tom Yum Soup ($15.90) to share.

Hot and spicy looking - check out that huge ass chili.

Delish! There were a total of nine prawns - VERY generous! And lots of mushrooms and tomatoes to round of the dish. I really like it and so do the girls. The soup was spicy and sour and I think it's really good and authentic tom yum. Recommended indeed, especially nice on a cold winter's day.

I really wanted a curry, preferably green, but the girls opted for red curry as we sort of ALWAYS had green curry, so we had the Chicken Red Curry ($11.90).

Nice little pot of curry.

Obligatory close-up of the yummies.

Like this one as well, coconut-y enough and curry-ish enough. Plenty of chicken to go around. It's not too hot which suits me fine but Sis and San would prefer it to be hotter, definitely. Those two are like some Chili Spicy Queens or something, where else I'm the Spicy Chicken. Not literally a chicken, yeah.

For our other fish, we had the Beef Pad Prig Gang ($11.90).

Spicy beef and rose carrot.

Wow, this one definitely suited San! It was REALLY spicy me thinks. I do like it but I had to have lke two glasses of water to go with it. The sauce was sharp and spicy with nice basil overtones. Also I like the beans stir-fried with the fish, that was in our dose of veggies! I would have preferred the beef to be a little more tender, but nothing to really complain about.

Definitely one of the more successful Thai restaurants! And we're happy with the location too, which is a lot nearer than our favourite Thai restaurant. Hahaha. Will go back there with the other guys, some other time!

And oh, post-script, my parents are here for the week (YAY YAY) so I will be eating out quite a bit and hopefully will have a lot of posts. At the same time I am in a dilemma cos I won't have time to blog as much and I really DON'T like to backlog. HOOOW.

I'll sort this out myself.../rambly - enjoy reading the Thai restaurant post. Ignore me, really. :D AND I finished this post in 15 minutes! Yay! Although I'll admit that I cheated cos the photos were edited before then.

- Mouse

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Original Thai
122 Lygon Street
Carlton South 3053
Phone: (03) 9663 0493

Gin Khao Thai Food (#2)

Mostly picture less words post! Went to Gin Khao Thai Food (was reviewed once here) again for pad thai last week as Sis and San had enormous cravings for their pad thai. I was more than happy to go since I just got back to Melbourne but those two crazies had apparently had it two days ago or something. Oh well, if they want to.

Sis and San both had the Seafood and Chicken Pad Thai respectively. I wanted to go for maybe the Soft Shell Crab Curry but seeing the Chiang Mai noodles on the menu, I just could not resist. I love those noodles (and they are cheaper, too. HAHAHA.)! The only new thing we tried were the Son-In-Law Eggs.

Son-In-Law Eggs, cos daughters-in-law don't eat 'em.

The eggs were boiled and layered with fried coating, served with lettuce, mince prawns and tamarind. I really like them! They were yummy and tangy and I just love eggs on the whole. The minced prawn and tamarind mixture were tops.

And the rest of the food, you know we love. :D

My darling Chiang Mai Noooodles! I'm BACK and so are you! *weeps with joy* (that's how much I love it)

San's Chicken Pad Thai with Duck Chicken!

Sis's Seafood Pad Thai with big-ass prawns.

- Mouse

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Gin Khao Thai Food
242 Swanston Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9663 3345

Gin Khao Thai Food

We had Thai food again today for lunch. When Turtle suggested Thai food, I initially wanted something else, but decided what the heck. I don't know about San and my sis, but for me I just want like GOOD Thai Basil Chicken. The five of us (plus Sis' visiting best friend HW) went to a Thai restaurant on Swanston St., a relatively new place called Gin Khao Thai Food. Not the first time we've been there, we like the place a lot, hence going back for the...fourth time I think, this year.

Me, San and Sis are both big fans of their Pad Thai, so HW decided to order that, and Sis, too - Pad Thai with Chicken ($11.90).

Wooo at the extremely long spring onion! (no one ate that)

Sis as I had mentioned loves it, so thumbs up from her. HW seemed to like it as well. My own personal opinion on it (as I have had it before) that it's really one of the better pad thai I have tasted. The noodles used especially are special and so suitable. There's lots of chicken and chunky bits of peanuts, along with dried prawns (xia mi) to round off everything. The spices and spiciness all adds up in the dish. It's really great.

I wanted Thai Basil Chicken but there's something called Chiang Mai Noodles ($10.50) on the June Specials and it looked really tasty so I couldn't resist!

Even the picture looks good enough to eat. Either that or I am just overly greedy.

It was great! The coconut-based soup was tasty and fragrant without being overly coconut-y or overly spiced with chilli, the amount of chilli was just right for a cold winter's day. The chicken pieces were plentiful and generous and went really well with the curry soup. The noodles were the best part - soaked thoroughly with the curry at the bottom and crispy at the top. The contrasting textures when I bit into a mouthful of noodles, chicken and soup was wow. What a great combination! I really hope they'll make it a permanant item on the menu, I will definitely go back for that.

San had the Chicken with Cashew Nuts ($10.90).

San's chicken with nuts.

Artistic San's artistic chicken with artistic nuts.

She was really satisfied with it. The sauce was good - although some people might find it salty by itself, hence it had to go with rice, and went really well indeed. She found the chicken tasty with the sauce, and the vegetables were fresh and really crunchy, adding the bite to the dish. She loved it, and would go back for that as well.

Turtle had the Red Duck Curry ($14.90).

Even the rice is shaped like the curry bowl.

He enjoyed his meal as well - loving the tender duck meat that was cooked just right to his tastebuds. Vegetables were a good compliment and the curry sauce, according to him, was yummy and hot. He even found a lychee in the curry and was really amused by that. I had a taste of that and it was definitely more successful than Lemon Bistro's version - by far.

Turtle didn't have enough cos he was greedy so we ordered dessert to share. First, we had the Banana and Sticky Rice ($4.90).

The banana is in the rice and I just feel the need to say that.

That's a favourite of San's - she really liked that one. Turtle found it so-so though, and thought the banana in the rice rather resembled salmon (he's weird, yes). I liked it myself - the spiced banana was a good compliment with the sticky rice.

All of us liked the other dessert, Coconut Dessert ($4.90).

So small and cute and so not enough for five!

It's a really really small portion - but so so so yummy! It was wonderfully fragrant and the coconut pudding texture on the top went really well with the bottom layer of...I think it was something similar to sticky rice but I couldn't be sure. Let's just say it went really well together and Turtle would've polished off the whole thing in 2 seconds if the little blue plate didn't burn him (go plate go!!).

Overall - a wonderful food experience. None of us were disappointed with the food - everything was tasty and yummy and just right. The dining environment wasn't bad either, it was a nicely furnished cafe-like place. It's good for a quick lunch AND a long lunch if you plan to stay there and chat. :D

(And no, this still isn't the favourite Thai place of ours that I mentioned in the Lemon Bistro post. That is yet to come, but we do like Gin Khao a lot!)

- Mouse

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Gin Khao Thai Food
242 Swanston Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9663 3345

Lemon Bistro Thai Restaurant Cafe & Bar

Friday nights are always horrible to find a place for dinner when you don't have a booking. Fortunately, trusty Chinatown always has something for us, even when it's not our first choice restaurant. :D

On the recommendation of my sister's course mate, we tried a Thai restaurant on Little Bourke Street yesterday - Lemon Bistro.

Presenting...the MENU!

We ordered three dishes to share, with rice. I also ordered a green tea and actually took a picture of that, but as I was editing the pictures, I realised it was...well...green tea. There's nothing remarkable about green tea. It's not like it's Thai Curry Green Tea, it's just green tea.

The veggies came first - we ordered Vegetables With Home-made Peanut Sauce ($10.80).

Chunky veggies in sort of chunky sauce.

It was rather ordinary veggies, I supposed. The peanut sauce did have a nice nutty taste that did not taste like it was made from peanut butter, but it was mild to taste and nothing like Satay Sauce, if you were looking to make that comparison. Also, I also have to complain that the bok choy they used was way too big - they should've chopped it to make it easier to eat.

And then our first meat dish - Thai Basil Chicken ($15.80).

Chicken's buried under there somewhere. It's there, trust me.

I rather like the sauce, the thai basil was quite fragrant and tangy to taste. A little bit too salty, but it was okay with rice. However we all three (me, my sis and San) agreed that we have tasted better thai basil - the basil could be stronger. Sis and San weren't particularly impressed, actually. And the dish was nothing really special, to be honest - just chicken slices and lots of veggies (we could've made do with the veggies from the chicken!).

The last one we ordered was the best of the lot, Red Duck Curry ($16.80).

*inserts some joke about duck*

It was really yummy; I love the curry, it suited to me as it wasn't too hot. Of course, for sis and San it could be hotter. :D The bamboo shoots were a nice compliment to the dish, and the duck meat was good, too, cooked just right. There's also enough duck meat to go around for everyone.

Rather decent place, but I noticed that it catered more towards Aussies than the Asians - and I think it's also because of that that the food was not very spicy. I would've expected Thai food to be a lot more spicy than the ones we had yesterday. Not the best Thai restaurant ever (we do have a favourite and I'll review it when we do go there, it's a bit out of the way), but the food's quite okay.

Yeah, I'm picky.

- Mouse (who hasn't been writing as much as she should but she had exams PLUS she is sick)

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Lemon Bistro Thai Restaurant Cafe & Bar
Shop 2, 178-190 Little Bourke Street
Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9663 3001