Soi 38

Thai food - so often reduced to what Phil Lees once memorably termed "traffic light curries".  Well, ignore the lights, put your foot down and take off on a tour of Thai noodle soups with Soi 38.

Noodle cart Soi 38 began life in Andy Buchan's backyard where he slowly perfected his Thai 'boat noodles' (very loosely comparable to Vietnamese pho).  He's now teamed up with Top (left), formerly of Tidlom Thai Antique.  Their mission is to introduce folks to popular, authentic Thai dishes that are under-represented in Aussie Thai restaurants.

To this end, the lovely Huda (above) from Sketch and Tulip in North Melbourne is hosting our noodle soup crusading duo for the next six Friday nights.

Andy and Top had a "family and friends" night which I popped into to try a couple of freebie bowls of boat noodles.  They are wickedly good, with a dark, smoky broth just covering a pile of rice vermicelli, water spinach, slow-cooked beef chunks, pork crackling and just-cooked rare beef.  Each table has a caddy of fish sauce, white sugar, pickled chilli and dried chilli.  Even though the broth is so tasty and balanced, give it a sprinkle with the toppings as they really send the flavour profile into hyperdrive.

Noodles are a most excellent $5 a bowl (they're just small, so you'll probably need two or even possibly three to fill you up).  There's also Doss Blockos beer for $7.50 a pop.

Check out the full itinerary below, plus Soi 38's website and Facebook page.  First stop is boat noodles this Friday night, July 19, from 5 pm, then come back each Friday until August 23 for a different authentic Thai taste each time.

The West's first food truck - 'White Guy Cooks Thai'!

Things we love:  Pork belly, banh mis and sliders.

Things we love more:  Pork belly banh mi sliders!

Things we love most:  A food truck that sells pork belly banh mi sliders!!!

Things that make our head explode:  A food truck that sells pork belly banh mi sliders, IN THE WESTERN SUBURBS!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Yes, westies, we're not Melbourne food trucks' forsaken faithful anymore.  Big thanks to Simon, David and Rachel of brand new food truck "White Guy Cooks Thai" who have chosen to bring their blend of funked-up, fresh Thai to Footscray, Yarraville and surrounds right off the bat.

Side of gyoza, $4

There are mains like curries (that changes daily) or vegan sweet corn cakes, and you can mix and match with sides like these gyoza with soy n' lime dipping sauce.  These were crisp, non-greasy, punchy parcels of flavour - one chicken and water chestnut, the other water chestnut and shiitake mushroom.

Pork belly banh mi slider, $4

I had brought some magazines, intending to nibble daintily while turning pages.  I didn't even open the front cover though until I'd completely devoured this fantastic specimen.  The pork belly was thick, juicy, and crisp and soft in all the right places.  The juices mingled with creamy mayo and tangy chilli sauce, set off by gorgeous Asian slaw.  I would love an even crispier bun though (I know Nhu Lan make a mini bread roll similar to this one, and theirs have that real banh mi crackle and crunch).

You can read more about owner Simon and his CV in Meld Magazine here, but suffice to say he knows his tom yum from his yum som.  Today's curry was green prawn, while yesterday Kenny really dug White Guy's beef massaman.

White Guy will be touring Wednesday to Sunday, so keep track of the truck via their Facebook and Twitter to see where it'll be next.  It's a brilliant set up for families - just set up in whatever park's nearby, wander over and the kids can play and run about with no worries about mess.  One $4 slider (minus chilli) from the "sides" menu would be perfect for a child.  If building a meal for an adult from the sides alone, I'd say get three.

So I don't know about you, but summer just got even more exciting!

Thank you so much Andy of Krapow for the tip.

Jantra - new Thai in Braybrook

It's somewhat true that in Melbourne, the more hidden a bar or restaurant, the better it is.  Sometimes I think this is our greatest failing - if you go for a wander about looking for something to eat or drink, you'll most likely end up in a mediocre spot on the main drag because you didn't know all you had to do was lift a manhole and do a secret knock before being admitted to the latest brew bar just beneath your feet.  Now Braybrook's getting in on the "secret restaraunt" action with a new Thai place tucked away in the business park behind Central West Plaza.

There was a Nepalese restaurant here for a while, and it's a tough gig - the place is enormous and a bit devoid of atmosphere...

Spicy mince chicken and ground sticky rice, $10.80

...but sparks start flying when the food starts arriving.  This chicken larb was awesome!  Minced chicken, mixed with a little nutty ground rice, tossed with high notes of spicy red onion and fresh mint while ample chilli provided thumping bass.  Wicked.

Soya stir-fried noodle (lunch special), $9.80

Also delicious were these sweet soy rice noodles, curling around some simple cabbage, carrot and tofu and with proper, tantalisingly charred wok hei flavour.  Some of the regular menu items seem on the dear side - $16.80 for a pad Thai with chicken, or $20.80 for seafood curry - but maybe the serves are extra large.

Soft shell crab with patty-style fruit salad, $12.80

Yes, I am that predictable.  If there is soft shell crab, I must have it.  Golden kiwifruit, red grapes and apples were mixed with slivers of red onion and a pungent fish sauce-based dressing.  Fresh (albeit small) crab with silky yellow roe worked perfectly with the fresh, crunchy, sweet yet sour salad.

We were cheeky and ordered dessert from the dinner menu, despite it being lunch.  Loved this banana rolled in sticky rice, steamed in a banana leaf and served with cool coconut ice cream.

And if it wasn't already too good to be true, a short black was tip top.

No secret knock required.  Go go go!

Jantra Thai (Facebook) - see menu here

9 Ashley Street, Central Business Park, Braybrook (turn into park and then quickly turn right, before the security gate)

Phone:  9396 1400

Hours:  Mon-Fri 8am-2pm; Mon-Sun 5-10pm (kitchen closes half hour before closing time)

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Sweet Rice

BIG HAPPY FACE!  This is pretty much how I feel, having finally finished the final part of medical transcription (MT) course, my certificate IV in business administration.  Remind me not to study anything again for a while...


...except a menu!


Come on, you didn't think I would grow out of my bad jokes while I was away?  I think they are genetic.  Anyway, Richard R kindly stopped by the Facebook page while I was on the break to give Sweet Rice a big thumbs up - "the yummiest, fresher best value Thai on this side of the Maribyrnong!"

This strip of shops is normally just a fly-by for us on the way to the beach.  Sweet Rice is a little Thai takeaway that has a small eat-in area.  It's a bit lonely at first but the staff were really friendly, bringing us chilled water and little paper cups for the kids and turning on gentle, percussive Thai tunes.

Green mango fish

It's cheap as chips with nothing on the menu over $12.90.  On a small whiteboard are the specials including this fish with green mango salad.  It was great - super-crispy battered pieces of really fresh fish with a fabulous, sweet salad of tangy shredded green mango, delicious whole dried prawns, red onion and lots of herbs.

Soft shell crab, $11.90

A Baklover family must-have - these are baby crabs which have a tender shell you can eat in their entirety.  This was great, the crab chopped into two-bite sized pieces with crunchy, curly batter that was not at all greasy.  It had a tasty sprinkle of onion and garlic.

Beef Masaman curry, $8.50

Massaman curries are from Southern Thailand and are apparently Muslim in origin (the name is thought to be a corruption of the word 'Muslim').  I wonder if they are Malaysian-inspired as they feature coconut milk and curry spices, not unlike a curry laksa.  This was delicious - very sweet and mild with gorgeous creamy coconut, the beef slow-cooked to lusciousness and the potatoes and carrots totally tender.  Ostensibly for the kids but they had to fight the adults for it.

Seafood pad cha, $11.90

This was a stir-fry of super-duper fresh seafood including proper fresh prawns, very tender pineapple-cut squid and more fresh, battered fish.  The vegies were delicious, again very fresh - check out the authentic pickled green peppercorns too!  The ingredients spoke for themselves, just accented by a little soy and chilli.  My only quibble is there was a faint taste of gas that can happen when there is a LOT of flame used in cooking - I get it sometimes if I put too much oil on vegies or meat and then the BBQ flames up.  Still, we finished the lot.

Jasmine rice, $2

Yes, I know this is a plate of rice, but it was so fragrant I had to mention it!

Sweet rice ice cream, $5.90

The eponymous sweet rice - glutinous rice wrapped around a purple preserved banana and steamed.  Served here hot for eating with mango and coconut ice cream, oh my!  The sticky rice was delicious, comforting and sweet like rice pudding.  The ice creams were great, quite closely textured, the coconut tasting of rich coconut milk rather than the more grated coconut flavour you get in coconut gelati.  Loved the contrast of the roasted peanuts and, at the bottom, slippery white syrupy fruits.

I will definitely be back here for Thai takeaway - it only takes a minute to get to straight down Geelong Road.  Everything was quite mild and sweet which perhaps reflects its suburban market, but it was all very fresh, well-made and unbelievably cheap.  There are lots of interesting things to explore on the menu like "king prawn chu chee" and "three flavour fish".  I am pretty sure the couple who run it are Thai and they are delightful.

"The yummiest, fresher best value Thai on this side of the Maribyrnong!" - Richard, I think you may be en-Thai-rly right!

For Thai ingredients, check out Nathan Thai Video & Grocery, a dedicated Thai grocer in Footscray.

Sweet Rice

102 Millers Road, Altona North (map)

Phone:  9315 3691

Hours:  Wed - Mon 11am-9pm (Tuesday closed)

Ghin Khao

We want to go on a road trip, but where to go?  For someone who really just wants to go on holiday to eat, touring Cunnamulla or Humpty Doo for the best plastic cheese sandwich is really not my idea of fun.  Maybe we will go to Cabramatta and do a pilgrimage through all the favourite haunts of Thang Ngo of Noodlies, gentle soul and a-phở-ciado extraordinaire.  I am so envious of Sydney's vibrant Thai food scene in particular - we really have nothing like it in Melbourne.

Ghin Khao came highly recommended for authentic Thai food.  It's in the Swanston Street strip jammed with cheap, student-y and somewhat tasty food joints.  I have had more noodle soups at Yoyogi and Gigi over the years than I care to remember.  Does that older guy with the shock of fluoro orange hair still work at Yoyogi?

Now, we had gone from being unable to get a booking at Hu Tong to Ghin Khao so it was already on the back foot.  For some reason I pictured a very different place than this quick snacky student bar.  No music was a bit of a downer.  It definitely has a real Thai presence though, from the handwritten note in Thai in the window to the gorgeous automatic prayer-like gesture of thanks the waitress did when she took our beer order.  There's a room upstairs but it's a bit lacking in ambiance.

Vegetarian curry puff (kari puff pak), $6.50

These were good - very soft, delicate pastry but still with good crispy bite filled with a sweet vegetable filling.  Swiped through creamy peanut sauce and gobbled up with a swig of Chang's beer - yum.

Chicken with fresh basil and chilli (gai phad bai kaprow), $10.90

I love Thai basil and chilli dishes - like the Vietnamese use of turmeric and dill, I found this at first such an odd combination for an Asian dish.  It is fantastic, though.  This was nice with very tender chicken but nothing on, say, Thaila Thai's.

Soft shell crab & spicy green papaya salad (pu nhim som tum), $15.90

Soft shell crab is a crab that has recently shed its harder exoskeleton and only has a very thin skin that is edible.  Now that I have totally turned you off your breakfast, trust me, I am an offal wuss and I looove these.  This was good but the batter was quite heavy.  I much prefer the very light, salt & pepper-style batter in Vietnamese restaurants, maybe so I can kid myself I'm not eating something deep-fried.  The green papaya had been prepared ahead, shredded and soaked for a while in a sweet, vinegary, hot chilli dressing.  The other component of the salad was undressed standard baby lettuce mix.  It was good but not great.

It may be Thai but Ghin Khao just reminds me of the other student joints along this strip - perfectly serviceable in terms of food but not a special destination or worth seeking out unless you were in the area.  That trip up the Hume is looking more and more enticing...

Ghin Khao

242 Swanston St, Melbourne (map)

Phone:  9663 3345

Hours:  Mon-Thu 11.30am-9.45pm, Fri-Sun 11.30am-10pm

Wheelchair Access

Very long, skinny and cramped

Shelf Gleaning - Thai sausage from Nathan's Thai Grocery

I really dislike terms like "Asian grocer" and "Indian shop," although I do use them.  My family think I am oversensitive, but I don't like referring to the supermarket as the supermarket, the fish shop as the fish shop, while the place we buy our fish sauce and noodles from, and the other place we buy our lentils and spices from have ethnic tags, like they are somehow separate to us.  I also grate at lazy, catch-all terms like "Asian" and "Indian," but the fact is, I can't detect the difference between a Chinese grocer and a Vietnamese one like I can an Eastern European-run deli and an Italian-run deli.  *Sigh*...  As my husband often says to me, I'm probably overthinking it.

Nathan Thai Video & Grocery has made it easy for me - it's very clear that it's a specialty Thai grocer.  All your favourite spice pastes are there, plus interesting pickled ingredients like tiny pea eggplants.

It's a fun shop to poke around in, and reminds me of expat Aussie shops overseas, with lots of beauty products and junk food from the homeland.  There are interesting teas:

The freezer is full of interesting goodies, like Thai sausages.  They don't always have the brand below in stock, but do often have a homemade one in a ziplock bag, which is more of a sour style.  On Saturdays, they may have the sour sausages on the counter, ready for you to take home and leave to mature on the bench.  My sister has tried these and said they were just great, very garlicky, and that they could have easily stood in for continental sausages.

This Thai sausage is just delicious, "Thai-hot" and so flavoursome with big bursts of lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf.  It's nice to have as an accompaniment to other Thai dishes with plenty of white rice, as it's very rich.

Quiz for the day: What is this?  Look closely - it's a sort of rope encased in a hard, fragrant coating, somewhat like clay or very stale biscuit perhaps.  Is it A. a chew toy for the police dog on the tea canister; B. part of some sort of brutal colonic cleansing regime; or C. something else?  Leave a guess in the comments section!

Nathan Thai Video & Grocery
9 Paisley St, Footscray (map)
Phone: 9687 8588

Recipe: Pad Thai

Last post, we learned how to make our own tamarind "water" or purée.  This can be used to make tangy tamarind chutney, accented with ground cumin, perfect for dipping samosas, or any number of curries, from Ayam Sioh to Dhansak.  My #1 thing to use it for, though, is Pad Thai.  I have been using this recipe for years, although since having children, many of the ingredients have gone out the window.  A word about Pad Thai.  I have heard many unkind things about this dish over the years - that it's not "real Thai food", that it's just Chinese noodles with Thai seasonings, that it's use as a "yardstick dish" to judge a Thai restaurant is unfair.  All of this may be at least partly true - but it tastes so good, I don't care!

 

Hate prep?  Have children, and make them do it for you!

Although you may need to factor snacks into your quantities...

"Bare Bones" Pad Thai

Serves 4

1 pkt wide rice noodles (200g)

3 Tb tamarind purée

3 Tb fish sauce

2 Tb palm sugar, grated

Oil e.g. peanut, rice bran
Prawns (about 12)

Garlic - to taste

Vegetables (one large bowlful)

2-3 eggs

Chopped peanuts, perhaps 1/3 cup?

 

Soak noodles in hot water until al dente.  Drain and set aside.  Mix tamarind, fish sauce and palm sugar in a small bowl.

Heat a wok to smoking point.  Add oil, drizzling around the sides.  Add prawns and cook over high heat until just pink.  Remove and set aside.

 

Add another splash of oil and stir-fry garlic for 30 seconds.

 

Add veg and cook until just tender.  (Note: These should really be julienned, but the kids' knife skills have a way to go.)

Add noodles.  Mix well.

Push noodles up one side of the wok.  Add a little oil in the base, crack the eggs in and scramble lightly.  When just set, mix into the noodles and vegetables.

 

Add your sauce with your lovely home-made tamarind purée.  Stir-fry until well combined.  Very important: taste a noodle.  There should be a balance between sweet, sour and salty flavours.  If one predominates, correct with a little more of the others, to create a harmonious taste.  If it needs more sweetness, I just add a bit of white sugar, rather than pausing to grate palm sugar.  If you can't taste anything: add more of all three sauce elements.

Add prawns and most of chopped peanuts (reserving a little for garnish).

 

Serve, topped with peanuts (plus chopped coriander and a lime wedge if you have).  Despite all the cut corners, the home-made tamarind really lifts the whole dish.  If you rely on Thai restaurants to get your fix, or if you buy those "Pad Thai kits" from the supermarket, please give this a try - you won't look back!