Spice Gourmet Thai..

Christmas is in the air peeps! I'm excited! It's the time to share some love. I don't mind to receive more presents but I'm getting headache with christmas shopping. Anyways back to the post. After reading a post in Chocolatesuze, I was eager to go try out Spice Gourmet Thai in Parramatta. Love Thai cruisine and always in search of a good one. So off I went there with Jen and M for dinner. We decided to enjoy a seafood dinner that night and we've ordered all seafood dishes.

 For entree, we had the salt and pepper squid. *slurps* It was just mouth-watering, the squid was fried perfectly, absolutely crispy! For my personal preference, I would like to have stronger salt and pepper flavour.

 Next we've also had the fried soft shell crab. Yum! The sauce made it really flavoursome, a little spicy, sweet and sourly taste. Delicious is the only adjective I can think of. I can't help it but to have more. 

We were slightly greedy that night and also ordered steamed barramundi.  We all enjoyed it alot. It was absolutely fresh, fragrant and appetizing. The spices with lemon that they used really brought up the flavour of the fish. Although we've waited for quite a while for the dishes to be served, we definately agreed that the food there was awesome, worth the visit. Thanks Suze for the recommendation. Our total bill for the dinner was about $70 for the three dishes. 

Ratings: 8/10
Address: Shop 1, 71 George Street, Parramatta NSW 2150

Chat Thai..

Whenever my dear sister come over to Sydney, it must be all about food. Her very first time to Syd, it was totally something like food festival for me. Also it was a nice opportunity to explore new places with her. Anyway this time I'm going to share about our new found place, Chat Thai at Haymarket. It's a thai restaurant with a hint of modern looking interior design. The very moment I stepped into the restaurant, I can see a few large frying woks at the front counter, along with boxes of different desserts. I definately have to mention about the huge crowd of people, we waited for one hour for a table for five. I was starving and wondering if it was really worth it or not. It better be. When we finally got a table and have a look at menu, it was huge decision time. Lots of selections to choose from. 

 

Due to the varieties, we ordered for quite a few dishes to share around.

Chilli fried rice. If you're a huge fan of spicyness like my sister, you're definately going to love this. The fried rice was so fragrant, spicy and mouth-watering. Totally can't stop myself from eating it even though it's spicy for me. There's chicken, holy basil and lots of chilli in there. $13.90 

Thai classic, Pad thai with chicken. It was sweet, and salty thin fried thin noodles with bean sprouts, chicken, eggs, shrimps and ground peanuts. Love the peanuts part, adding some crunchy texture. Nice way to chill down my tummy from the spicyness. $12

Dtom yum tuna. My old time favourite when I have Thai food, something like "tom yum" that we normally have. Anyway this one is the best one I can find so far. The flavour is the closest that can match the ones that I eat in my hometown. Creamy, strong, soury, spicy, appetizing and full of different ingredients in the soup. Totally love it! $20

Honestly I don't quite remember what is this dish, I actually had to check it online. Obviously I got quite carried away trying the soup instead. Anyway it's suki with pork. It's glass noodles stir fried with fermented tofu, chinese cabbage, chinese celery and water spinach. Quite average for this dish, probably cause I didn't like the combination and the fermented tofu was a bit overpowering in the dish. $12

Grilled marinated chicken wing with house speciality sauce. It was from the special menu. Some of my friends think that it was a little too salty for this. I normally like stronger flavour of cooking, so I was fine with the dish. The sauce was sweet and salty, very nice to have it with rice. $10

Glutinous rice with durian pudding on top. It was bit too sweet for me. But the nice, sweet durian flavour is just irresistable. $7

Super delicious and interesting dessert that we had, Par Tuhng Go for about $7. It's a must try! Totally love it. It's fried dough sticks with sangkaya which is made of coconut milk custard and pandan leaves. That mouth-watering sauce is the highlight for the dessert. I just couldn't describe it in words. I had this "i'm flying in the air" kind of feeling when I ate it. And one thing to note is this dessert is only on the menu after 9.30pm. Was it worthwhile for the one hour wait? Hell yes! But I'll definately try to go during other time for my next visit to escape the crowd.  It's open from 10am to 2am. They actually have different branches at other places as well, at Randwick, Manly and Galeries Victoria in the city.

Ratings:  9/10

Address: 20 Campbell Street, Haymarket Sydney CBD

Red Elephant Thai Restaurant..

the other day i had a girls night out to a thai restaurant, it's called red elephant thai restaurant at 332 burwood road, hawthorn, 3122. the atmosphere of the restaurant is great, red/orange colour background. it was packed with people when we arrived, maybe cause it was a weekend night. price range from $15 to $30 per dish. serving is not really huge, but it was fine for a few girls to share. there's quite a varieties of dishes to choose from on the menu. from spicy to non spicy ones.

we've ordered the stir fried chicken with vegetables and cashew nuts. it was pretty good, great home cooked style of dish.

i love this one! it's the spicy soft shell crab. it tasted really delicious, the crab was slightly deep fried and then stir fried with vegetables and some sauces. absolutely awesome.

we've also ordered the beef salad. authentic salad dish in thai restaurant. there was bit of sourness and spicyness added, and it went well together with rice.

this is the chicken yellow curry. classic dish and it was pretty good. not too spicy but it was just right. it was awesome to have it together with rice. we've also ordered the green curry. i'm a huge fan of green curry and i enjoyed myself eating it. i should say the price was bit expensive and personally prefer to have other vegetables added into the dishes apart from carrots and capsicums. then again, it was a nice meal.

Reaun Thai Restaurant..

a couple weeks ago i went try out a thai restaurant at Mount Waverley, it's called Reaun Thai Restaurant at 323 Stephensons Road, Mount Waverley. it's a small restaurant, rather quiet atmosphere. looking through the menu, i was tempted to order the usuals. however, we did end up with some interesting ones. yet, the servings was quite small. most of the main dishes are around $20 per plate. it's considered as slightly pricey thai restaurant.

something to start out with. fried won tons with sweet chilli sauce. nice presentation.

my favourite! tom yum soup with chicken. it was pretty delicious. the flavour was concentrated and strong sour taste but not spicy enough.

green curry with chicken. very nice to eat together with the rice. the coconut milk made it really creamy and smooth.

sweet and spicy prawns. it would be great if they used fresh prawns.

fried barammundi fish with in house sweet and spicy sauce. i enjoyed eating this one. the sauce just added on the flavour of the fish. even though it was fried, you can't really tell the oilyness.

Me Dee Thai Restaurant..

i went to me dee thai restaurant as recommended by friends. it is a surprisingly authentic small thai restaurant at 1/1 3 st john's avenue, springvale, 3171. there are alot of thais going there. and the food was really delicious! my mum and i ordered two mains, one seafood tom yum, $10 and a chicken pad thai, $10 and also a glass of coconut ice blended, $3.

it was all packed when we arrived there.

you would want to try this hot chilli spices if you're into spicy stuff

one of my favourites, seafood tom yum noodle soup. there's mushrooms, mussels, prawns, squid, fish balls, lemon grass, shallots, chilli, coriander, some chinese cabbage and something like lime leaves. it was really sour and with mild spicyness even though it might look like clear soup. two thumbs up!

pad thai with chicken, bean sprouts, fish cakes, spring onions, coriander, and peanuts. i like this one, it was mild and bit of sweetness. i like the noodles that they used. its chewy texture is so nice for stir fry like this and also evenly good in the tom yum noodle soup.

it was a big meal for two of us but yet i finished all of them. it was delicious! with a chilled coconut ice blended during the hot days, awesome!

okay i was trying to be adventurous and tried adding some dried chilli into the tom yum soup, it became too spicy for me! haha!

we were greedy enough to have desserts too! it was so tempting as they were selling some authentic desserts at the counter inside the shop. and so we picked this, something like 'ondeh-ondeh' in malaysia, a dessert made of flour and coconut flakes. it was really sweet!

the inner part of it looked like this. with caramelised cocnut flakes inside. $4 for a pack of 8.

and this, this, this!!!! we were so excited to see this, banana fritters like what we have in malaysia. we even waited for extra 20 minutes for the kitchen to fry these. seriously it might not be anything special, but for us that came here for so long and haven't been eating this for ages since we left malaysia, this is so huge for us to know that there is such authentic banana fritters selling around here!! my last time eating this was like more than 2 years ago. it tasted exactly the same and with some sesame flavour as well, it was heavenly good! like the highlight of my day.. it was $4 for a pack of 5 pieces. oh it was so good!

Sawasdee thai restaurant..

yesterday i went out dinner with a few friends and headed to sawasdee thai restaurant at 1/139 little bourke street. the atmosphere is really nice and quiet, with classy interior design yet keeping some authentic feel of thai. there were four of us, and we ended up ordering a vegetarian pad thai, chicken green curry, tom yum soup and rice. you get to choose the spicyness of the spicy dishes and also the ingredients to go with it, varieties of selections depending how you like it to be. i think the food was pretty yummy and love my favourite tom yum soup. it was rather pricey restuarant though, we paid for about $75 for the meal. the main dishes range $20ish per plate and the soup was $9.80 per serving.

the pad thai was really nice. with a hint taste of lemon, spices and peanuts. nice presentation too.

the in-house famous green curry and i ordered it with chicken. ordered mild for this one but it turned out to be bit spicy too. but it tasted delicious with the jasmine rice.

my favourite tom yum soup. it was really yummy, definately a mouth watering dish. would love it to have more ingredients, there was only mushrooms, tomato and a slice of prawn in there. but i still love it alot, it tasted great! i had an enjoyable night with great food and great company.