Home Thai is one of the many Thai eateries in town that offer an eclectic mix of Thai favourites, spanning the whole gamut of food offerings found in the Kingdom of Thailand - grilled fermented sausages from Chiangmai/Northeast region, to the spicy, crunchy som tum of Eastern Isaan province, and the steamed dumplings of Bangkok/Central region. It also happens to be one of the hardest-to-get-in eateries in Sydney - a no-reservations, first-come-first-served place with a queue of (mainly Thai) customers during the entire time itâs open.
If one doesnât know what it feels like to sit cheek-by-jowl in a restaurant, come here. Somehow, I felt being crammed into a tight corner table and assailed on all sides by noise and chatter cramped our ability to order the food properly. So, our dinner spread this evening turned out to be as chaotic and disordered as how we felt.
Steamed pork dumplings (kanom jeeb muu) - this is really a Thai take on Chinese âsiu maiâ pork dumplings. They come drizzled with garlic oil and golden-fried chopped garlic, giving the dumplings a more Thai rather than Cantonese-Chinese appearance.
Tom yum goong - this is probably Thailandâs most famous food export, and Home Thai produced a pretty respectable version. It was surprisingly not too spicy (considering the fact that 90% of their clientele are Thai) so I did not end up looking like the Red Skull after having it.
Steamed pork-peanut dumplings (khao kriab pak mor) these were delicate, little steamed rice flour dumplings filled with caramelised pork & crushed peanuts, and were more sweet than savoury from the use of palm sugar for the filling. Half of the dumplings were tinted blue using the natural colours of the butterfly pea flower.
Stir-fried chicken with holy basil & chilis (pad kaprao gai) - stir-fried minced chicken with holy basil and birdâs eye chilis. This is a very popular street food in Bangkok, or anywhere in Thailand for that matter. The dish is usually robustly flavoured with lots of garlic, and seasoned with generous lashings of soy sauce, oyster sauce and the ubiquitous fish sauce (ânam plaâ). Big handfuls of holy basil gives the dish its distinct aroma and taste, whilst the tiny, explosive birdâs eye chilis (âprik kee nooâ) provided the heat. The Thais would add more chilis into the dish during the cooking phase in the colder monsoon months to âwarm up their bodiesâ as they partake the dish.
Prawn cakes (tom mun goong) - these crisp, flavoursome prawn cakes get their flavour from the addition of red curry paste and coconut milk to chopped shrimp-meat. The ones here are crisp, but pretty greasy.
Stir-fried mixed vegetables (phad pak ruam mit) - one of those vegetarian dishes that appeals more to non-Thais/farang (as Thais would only eat this on religious occasions which require them to go vegetarian): a mix of long beans, baby corn, gai lan, white cabbage, black wood-ear fungus and glass noodles, topped with crisp golden-fried garlic.
Mango with sticky rice (khao niew ma muang) - tri-coloured sticky rice were served here, mainly for presentation purposes as they all tasted the same: blue (butterfly-pea flower), green (pandanus) and plain white. The sticky rice had been steamed with sweetened and slightly salted coconut milk - then topped with more coconut milk which had been thickened with cornflour, and sprinkled with crisp, pan-toasted yellow lentils. The fresh mangoes here werenât especially sweet.
I do understand the attraction of Home Thai - it offers a wide plethora of Thai snacks, street food options, and casual eats, many dishes which one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere in Sydney. Its cooking is robust and quick, and the kitchen works with an industrial line efficiency. Flavours are quite authentic on the most part, which is not surprising, as Sydney does have a sizeable Thai community, and Thai food has been an indelible part of Sydneyâs dining scene for nearly 3 decades now, ever since David Thompson opened Darley Street Thai in Newtown back in 1991.
Address
Home Thai
Shop 1/2, 299 Sussex Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
Tel: +61 2 9261 5058
Operating hours: 11am - 10.30pm
Yum! Thanks for the write up. Curious about butterfly pea flower, does it add a flavour, or is it just for the colouring?
I feel the vegetable dish is less exciting compared with the other dishes shown, you can find similar and kind of generic dish in Chinese restaurants in the west as well. As most dishes are very much protein based, you need some veggies anyway.
Only colour - the South-east Asian Chinese loved the shade as itâs similar to the Ming porcelain blue, and weâd colour our desserts as such. One of Nyonya cuisineâs most popular dessert is the âpulut tai taiâ, as it is called in Penang. The same dessert is called âpulut tekanâ in Malacca and Singapore - compressed block of glutinous rice flavoured with coconut milk, and served with âkayaâ, an egg-coconut milk custard. The glutinous rice will be tinted blue using the flower.
Traditionally, Baba-Nyonyas (Straits-born Chinese) of Singapore, Penang & Malacca love vibrant colours in their dress forms, and this love extends to their dinnerware and even food. This 400-year-old culture, where Ming Dynasty Chinese culture fused with Southeast Asian ones, like the Malacca sultanate to create a hybrid, unique culture which appreciates everything beautiful, and where vibrant colours are an integral part of their life.
Just sharing a couple of photos by a friend of mine whoâs a Penang-Nyonya. These women are all 60-year-olds and they were all schoolmates at St Georgeâs Girls School in Penang back in the 1960s. They decided to get-together in their traditional Nyonya outfits: embroidered âkebayaâ blouses and âbatik sarongsâ and took photos to commemorate their long friendship.
I had some friends over to my place a while back for a Nyonya afternoon tea - served them a selection of Nyonya cakes, and some Nyonya savoury snacks. My dinnerware here are family heirloom - 300-year-old ones inherited from my great-great-greatfatherâs household.
Incredible how recipes pass from generation to generation and served on 300-year old china. Beautiful pieces!
I donât know if the similar style dinnerware can be found easily in SE Asia. Your dishes reminded me of this place with hand painted ceramics, that I would like to visit and probably get a few stuff.
Baba men normally wear âBaju LokChuanâ, traditional Chinese silk tops which originated in Imperial China, pre-Communist era. Both Nyonyas and Babas nowadays don their traditional-wear on special occasions only - celebratory dinners, weddings, etc.
These dinnerware tend to be pretty expensive nowadays. There is a large market which deals with antique Ming & Qing dynasty dinnerware in Singapore and Malaysia. Prices can be pretty high sometimes.
