Only 4 of us were able to make dinner at Joe’s Thai restaurant in Wanniassa (Kim, John, Ron and Karen). Aparticular shame given that the new look menu was more extensive than we remembered and there were a number of interesting dishes we wanted to try. In the end (heaven forbid) we had to forgo a duck dish to fit in our first choices.
For entrée, we ordered fresh rice paper rolls (with prawns). While these weren’t quite up to the Kinh Do standard, they were still very nice and a healthy way to start the meal. For mains, we ordered lamb shank Massaman, stuffed eggplant (with chicken and seafood), seafood steamed custard (HorMokTalay) and grilled pork salad (Yum Moo Krob).
Each dish was very tasty and beautifully presented.Parts of the pork salad were perhaps a little hot for our taste – small pieces of (very hot) chilli lurked in the dish and caught us unawares. Despite this, the meat was beautifully cooked and the dish well-constructed.
Stuffed eggplant is one of our long-time favourite Asian dishes. The eggplant imparts a lovely richness to the dish and we love the contrasting texture of eggplant with mince. This particular version was very nice although we wondered whether the black bean sauce complemented (or distracted from)the other elements in the dish.
We were intrigued by the seafood custard dish on the menu which we’d never seen before. When the dish arrived, it wasn’t particularly interesting but it was still light and tasty. The seafood was fresh and beautifully cooked and the mild red curry sauce added a delicate flavour to the dish. While the sauce (more the consistency of a paste) could have been a little more liquid, it was really nice to be served a dish where the seafood stood on its own and wasn’t swimming in sauce.
The Massaman lamb was our final main dish. This is one of Ron’s favourite Thai dishes and he never passes up the opportunity to order it when available. The meat was very tender and the sauce quite tasty although Kim found it a little sweet for her taste and Ron thought it was a little salty (go figure!!).
The four dishes and entrée were more than enough food for us but apparently we also had room for dessert and so ordered a couple of serves of the mango with black sticky rice. Everyone enjoyed this dish which (according to Ron) was the “usual delightful combination of the two ingredients”. Much to his surprise, what seemed to be a relatively small serving would have been enough for him to share. Despite this, he still managed to make his way through the entire thing. Apparently it was just to make sure it was all of consistent quality!
The final bill worked out at $35 per person. It wasn’t cheap for a suburban Thai restaurant but still reasonable value for the quality (and quantity!) of food we ordered. Given how busy the restaurant was on a cold weeknight in Wanniassa, other people obviously agree.
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