Veggie Bites

We weren’t sure that we were going to be able to eat in Nelson Bay, but we figured Thai had to be a good option. They did have a reasonable selection of veggie dishes on the menu and from those we chose spring rolls, green curry and tofu with cashew nuts. Martin loved the green curry – which surprised me a little because it was incredibly creamy. The tofu with cashew nuts was just great – a great blend of flavours and turned out to be quite a large serving… The Cockfighters Ghost chardonnay that we drank with the meal was also fantastic and complimented all the food wonderfully… We were so full we couldn’t fit in any dessert – not a bad sign!

We were a little wary of a Thai restaurant called Rose Garden, but as we were eating the restaurant filled up and we overheard people commenting that they knew the food was good and that is why they were eating there. We ordered our food, but hadn’t been given a wine list, so had to wait quite a while to order wine. They only had house wine by the glass, but when we asked what type of wine the house white was, we were told it was a merlot, and when we enquired about the house red, we were told that was a merlot too and that both were Italian… Since we both kind of doubted that the house white was a merlot, we opted for a glass of the red each despite the fact that we would have preferred a nice chardonnay with our curry! For our entree we ordered fresh veggie spring rolls, and fairly quickly some deep fried spring rolls appeared at the table – I enquired as to whether these were the fresh ones and the waitress muttered something about the wrong table and took them away. She returned a few minutes later with the fresh variety and apologised, saying the kitchen made a mistake… Following this we had ordered a red veggie curry and a veggie pad thai. Both were delicious. The red curry was nice and flavoursome without being too hot, and the pad thai is one of the best pad thai dishes I think I have ever eaten! Given the trouble we had ordering wine and the trouble the ladies at the next table had ordering dessert, we decided to skip dessert and head back to the hotel. The food was good, and there was a good variety of veggie dishes and by the time we had finished the restaurant was half full – on a Thursday night… definitely a sign of something good!

This was a take away experience, and it was every bit as good as the experience we had when we ate in a couple of weeks ago! We skipped an entree this time and ordered 3 main dishes instead, a red veggie curry, tofu with basil and chilli and a vegetarian pad thai (which was not on the menu, but they were happy to make it up for us). The food was great! I think the tofu with basil and chilli was one of the best versions if this I have ever eaten! I commented to Martin that I could eat a whole serve of that by myself! The red curry was also good, not too hot and full of veggies. The veggie pad thai was also good, not too many extra veggies (as I have commented before that I am not a fan of that), but sadly they were a little heavy handed on the bean sprouts and the sauce was the smallest bit bland… It would be nice if they had a couple of vegetarian noodle dishes on the menu, instead of having to ask them to adapt a meat based one, but the food is great and we will definitely go back!!

We have been going to try this place a few times, but I have always held back because I thought it was run by the same people who run Two Sisters. However, Martin told me that he thinks they are run by different people, so we decided to try it before we saw Tap Dogs. And I am so glad we did – the food was great. I can’t wait to go back and try some more dishes from their enormous vegetarian selection… This restaurant might just be my new favourite Thai place! The only disappointment is that there is only one vegetarian entrée on the menu – Tawhu Tord (deep fried tofu with satay sauce). It was pretty good, but I do like Thai veggie spring rolls and curry puffs. There are almost 30 vegetarian main meals on the menu, so we had a bit of trouble deciding what the second dish would be. Of course the first choice was always going to be Gaeng Mussamum Mun (Mussamun potato curry) which was really good and very tasty. I am keen to try a different curry next time – maybe a red or green – because no matter how good a veggie mussamun curry is, it always reminds me a bit of the meat version! While there is a lot of fairly standard veggie dishes on the menu, we decided to try something that is probably not authentically Thai – Paad Ped Ka Chai Tawhu (spicy fried beancurd with beans, zucchini, capsicum, basil and ka chai). And it tasted really, really good. The other thing that impressed us was the presentation of the food. The minute it hit the table, it looked so good on the plates that my mouth started watering! We considered dessert, but the only thing they had was ‘Iced shape’ (pineapples, water chestnuts, black jelly and palm seeds in syrup and crushed ice) – sticky rice was off the menu because mangoes are not in season. What I really wanted though was bananas in coconut milk – sadly not even on the menu… If only they could expand the entrée and dessert sections to be as varied as the vegetarian main meals, then I would be very happy indeed! The other thing I wanted to comment on was the service – the food was obviously cooked freshly and quickly and it was on our table within minutes… Also there was only one waitress and the restaurant was more than half full, and she did an excellent job of seating people, taking orders, bringing food out, clearing tables and accepting bill payments… We’ll definitely be going back!

We have eaten from here a few times, this time it was takeaway to remind ourselves of what they are like. Martin ordered and picked it up, so what we were actually eating was a bit of a surprise, but it was nothing too out of the ordinary! We had a green curry, a stir fry and a pad thai. The green curry was great, nice and spicy but not too hot, the stir fry was good, but not incredibly memorable. The pad thai was good, but it had a lot of extra veggies in it, I prefer pad thai’s to be simple and full of lots of noodles and flavour. All in all, pretty good food, but I am not sure this is the new favourite Thai restaurant… the search continues!

We normally only get food from here when we simply cannot be bothered to go out and pick something up. However, we discovered last night that they no longer home deliver. We ordered from them anyway because going out to get it was less work than deciding where else to order from. In the past their food has been extremely inconsistent – one of their curries was once so hot that Martin simply couldn’t eat it, other times they have been particularly mild. Last night was no exception. The red curry was quite spicy and hot and also quite oily, the Pad Thai was average, when in the past it has been quite good. The tofu and veggies with cashew nuts were pretty good as were the spring rolls (although Martin thought they had a funny flavour). Since they no longer home deliver, I doubt that we will be ordering from them in the future… However, this food did help me to decide that we now must go on a quest to find the best and reasonably priced Thai food in Canberra… Watch this space for the results!

Having been away from home for just over a week and eating a whole lot of “modern Australian” type food, I was absolutely craving some Thai food and luckily just down the road from where we ended up staying in Griffith was a Thai restaurant (although it did have a pizza place in the same restaurant). Since we were exhausted we decided to get take away and eat in our hotel room, which meant that we needed plastic cutlery and some form of plates. Luckily the restaurant was quite obliging and gave us an empty container and some plastic forks and spoons. Martin was left to order by himself and opted for curry puffs (yes, they had peas!), a veggie pad thai and a veggie stir fry – in which he asked them to add chilli as it didn’t seem to be listed in the sauce. The food was pretty good. The stir fry was very saucy, so it was kind of a cross between a stir fry and a curry (which is what I actually felt like, but Martin said they didn’t really have any on the menu) and the pad thai was one of the better ones that I have eaten. I can’t really comment on the rest of the menu since I didn’t see it, but they seem to be happy to oblige by adding or removing things from dishes. The blurb in the Griffith tourist book mentions a karaoke machine that anyone can use any time – if you are not into karaoke, you might like to check it out and decide whether to eat in or get take away when you get there!

This was a take away experience – there has been some debate as to whether take away experiences should appear in these reviews, but I am of the opinion that if it is a restaurant, then I should probably comment! This is about food dammit not about service or how pretty the restaurant is… So – food… We have eaten in and got take away from Thai Chiang Rai a number of times and the food is good. It is not the cheapest Thai food in town, but you do get a decent amount of food for your money, even for take away (unlike some other places!). We had the veggie curry puffs (nice but had peas!), followed by a red veggie curry, tofu with dried chilli and cashews and veggies with peanut sauce. Their curries are always good, the sauce is spicy and the veggies are not mushy and overcooked. The tofu with dried chilli and cashews was also a winner – it is one of their dishes we haven’t tried before, but I think we will be ordering it again in the future! The veggies and peanut sauce was a little disappointing… the peanut sauce could have been a lot more peanut-y! I have to say, that I think I can make a better peanut/satay sauce than this one… not to worry though, there are plenty of other veggie dishes on the menu to eat, including a rarely seen in Thai restaurants, vegetarian fried rice – which is something we have ordered in the past and is very yummy!

This was the second time we have been here… and really we only went here because it was close to home and actually open on a public holiday… although more on that later! The veggie range is pretty good as I have mentioned before, but the food was not as good as I remembered. It was in fact a little ordinary, certainly not going to be my new favourite Thai restaurant as I mentioned it might become previously. After we paid and were walking to the car I commented to Martin that I hoped he hadn’t tipped them too much considering the somewhat large public holiday surcharge they had added to the bill – $4 each. But hey, they gave us one nice set of chopsticks – not sure they are worth $8 though!

Dropped in here for yet another quick meal after a movie, and this time, it was literally QUICK! We were in and out within 35-40 minutes… but the food was pretty good, and there is a good selection of veggie options… Curry puffs for our entrée were great because there were NO peas, so I didn’t have to sift through the hot filling and pull them out. We had a veggie massaman curry and a tofu stir fry for the main. The curry was a bit odd as it had a variety of beans (kidney beans etc) in it, as well as pumpkin and nowhere near as much potato as I would have liked (but I am a potato head!). The stir fry was good, but had large chunks of tofu which were hard to eat and the flavours were just a little subtle for my tastes… I am sure chilli was mentioned in the description, and I think I saw some, but couldn’t really taste it… However the food was pretty good, it is just sad (for them) that they are right next door to Kopi Tiem which, unless I was particularly in the mood for Thai food, I would rather go to.