Is it just me or have you noticed, that nearly every suburb you pass, there is a local Thai Restaurant available for local punters to dine in or take away?

Australian’s really do love their Thai food, and both the Boy and I are equally as fond and smitten with the wonderful balances of sweet, sour, salty and spice to the array of Thai cuisines.

So much so, we have explored three Thai restaurants in our local and adjoining suburbs and compiled this round up, just for YOU!

Aren’t we amazing?

First up, we head over to Malvern East. We quietly stumbled upon Shallot Thai one quiet evening as we were driving around aimlessly in our pursuit for food. Highly recommended by the contributors on Urbanspoon, we decided to try our luck and take the plunge.

Shallot Thai Restaurant (Malvern East)

We got there pretty early (about 6.30pm) and so didn’t have much trouble finding a spot to sit. However not long after, it started to pick up.

There were a few tables reserved for parties and gatherings from what we could see. All positive signs 🙂

I ordered the rather tasty Tom Yum ($6.50) and the Boy ordered the crispy Por Pia ($5.90).

For our mains, we decided to play it safe and order a serve of the Pla Sam Rod ($15.50) and Gaeng Keow Warn – Green Curry with Chicken ($12.90).

We were quite astonished when the Pla Sam Rod was placed on our table. We were so used to the usual deep fried fish drizzled with sweet chilli sauce, we couldn’t comprehend at first that we may have been eating the rather westernised version of the dish all these years.

The taste of the sauce was richer and sweeter but from tamarind as opposed to sugar (from the sweet chilli sauce).

I quite liked the Green Curry as well and remember it being smooth, creamy and almost velvety.

When we were there, locals kept coming in to pick up their take away orders.

Huge takeaway boxes were also packed up for deliveries at a never-ending cycle.

A sure sign that the locals around the area love their favourite Thai restaurant.

We caved in 2 weeks ago, when the weather was rainy and cold and placed a delivery order. The food arrived (within 45 minutes) with garnishing, fresh and hot from its containers.

This time, we decided to order completely different dishes and had the rather enjoyable Moo Yang – BBQ Grilled Pork ($11.90), Goong Hom Par ($6.90) – Prawn Spring Rolls, Gaeng Dang – Red Curry with Chicken ($12.90), and Pad Preow Warn – Chicken in Sweet Sour Sauce ($12.90).

Shallot Thai caters well in its home cooked styled Thai cuisine and does a pretty good job taste-wise.

It’s not the best Thai I’ve had or the most authentic (that will still go to iSpicy in Hawthorn), but it is decent and very popular, and is definitely here to stay.

*Disclaimer: All food ratings & review are purely based on my own experiences and how I feel about the service, food and quality at the time of visit

Food/ Cuisine: Thai Cuisine
Dining Style: Restaurant
Overall Food Rating (Based on the Dining style): 7.25/10
Restaurant ambiance: 7/10
Service/ Attitude: 7/10
Value for money: 7.5/10 (servings are quite largely portioned, and the both of us had enough leftovers for lunch the next day)

Opening Hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday; 5:30pm – 10:30pm
Wednesday, Saturday & Sunday; 6:00pm – 10:30pm

Address:
181 Waverley Road
Malvern East VIC 3145

Tel: (03) 9571 9140

Website: http://www.shallotthai.com.au/

How to get there:

 

At Siam (Caulfield North)

We actually discovered @Siam by accident. The Boy bought a couple of “group-buying” vouchers for them when he saw that they were located in a neighbouring suburb and wouldn’t take us long to get to.

If you’re closing your eyes and inwardly groaning with horror stories of restaurants that fail badly with the vouchers drama, then you’d be disappointed with what I would have to tell you.

We had really good times (we came here twice) and enjoyed the meals we had. The service was good and definitely not lacking when we visited.

What we did experience however, was a completely different menu.

It was quite amazing. As we walked in and brought up our booking, the waitress smiled and brought us two menus which were designed specially for those with vouchers.

Now that, my friends is how you run a proper meal deal. Provide good service, and a dedicated snapshot of the real menu. I won’t go into detail of each course we had, but from the pictures below, you should be able to conclude that we had a pretty decent and very filling meal (both times!) 🙂

We started with a Mix Entree of Chicken Spring Roll, Prawn Roll, Curry Puff, Fish Cake and Satay Beef.

Soup: I had the Tom Yum with Chicken and The Boy had the Tom Kha with Chicken.

Salads (out of 3 choices): Chicken Salad (Grilled chicken with salad) on our first visit and Egg Salad (Salad topped with boiled egg slices, cashew nuts and peanut sauce) on the second visit.

Stir Fried (out of 8 choices): Stir Fried Chicken with Cashew Nuts, Mixed Vegetables, Oyster Sauce & Chilli Paste on the first visit and Sweet & Sour Seafood with Mixed Vegetables, Pineapple & Tomato on the second visit.

Curries (out of 6 choices): Massaman Curry with Chicken, Potato, Carrot & Cashew Nuts on the first visit and Green Curry with Chicken, Bamboo Shoots and Mixed Vegetables on our second visit.

We finished with refreshing ice-creams of Mango Ice Cream, Coconut Ice Cream and Taro Ice Cream (combination from both visits).

*Disclaimer: All food ratings & review are purely based on my own experiences and how I feel about the service, food and quality at the time of visit

Food/ Cuisine: Thai Cuisine
Dining Style: Restaurant
Overall Food Rating (Based on the Dining style): 7/10
Restaurant ambiance: 8/10
Service/ Attitude: 7/10
Value for money: N/A (we had “group-buy” vouchers)

Opening Hours:
Monday to Sunday, 5:00pm – 10:00pm (Kitchen closes 9:30pm)

Address:
67A Kooyong Road
Caulfield North VIC 3161

Tel: (03) 9576 1300

Website: http://www.atsiamthai.com.au/

How to get there:

 

Paradai Thai 2 (Carnegie)

The last one in this list, is our local favourite Thai joint. Like the other two, it does have its dedicated clientele.

The difference is that Paradai Thai 2 gets completely packed out on weekends (and some weeknights) and bookings for larger groups are highly recommended.

They also do take aways, so if you can’t be bothered fighting with their repeat customers (or spillovers from Auntie’s Dumplings next door), I would suggest ordering take away. We have been turned away before, so am speaking from experience.

Paradai does pretty decent (what I have come to know as) westernised Thai food. We have tried their green curries, red curries, stir-fries as well as other dishes.

The Boy and I love their version of Pla Sam Rod which is deep fried fish and sweet and sour chilli sauce drizzled generously over it. I love sauces!

Sometimes, we do feel that ordering dishes are a bit too full on. So there are days when we just have stir-fry rice or noodles instead.

At our last visit, we ordered an entree of Goong Sabai – Deep Fried Prawn Spring Rolls with Sweet Chilli Sauce and we each had a Pad Thai and Thai Fried Rice.

The Boy inhaled his fried rice, whilst I ate half and packed the other half for my lunch at work the next day 🙂 Yayy!

*Disclaimer: All food ratings & review are purely based on my own experiences and how I feel about the service, food and quality at the time of visit

Food/ Cuisine: Thai Cuisine
Dining Style: Restaurant
Overall Food Rating (Based on the Dining style): 7.5/10
Restaurant ambiance: 7.5/10
Service/ Attitude: 7.5/10
Value for money: 7/10

Opening Hours:
Monday to Sunday, open for dinner

Address:
62 Koornang Road
Carnegie VIC 3163

Tel: (03) 9569 0001

How to get there:

So tell me my dear readers, do you have a favourite local Thai restaurant?