Le Bangkok / Melbourne

Le Bangkok, a mid-range Thai restaurant with attentive, friendly staff and authentic Thai Food, in Melbourne CBD.

Clean and modern, but not too fancy. Soft light and low noise makes this place pleasantly intimate, even for four gay boys.

Not taking a photo of the dish before it gets attacked will be the death of me. Thai Green Curry with Chicken, flavoursome, aromatic. A “mild” amount of spice, perfect for Caucasian tastebuds.

Beef Panang Curry - great flavour, aromatic, with Coconut Rice - lusciously fragrant, with the perfect accompaniment - Singha Beer. A Riesling would have been nice too, but we needed to prove we are real men.

A unique way of serving Pad Thai, beautiful and quirky. Egg nest kind of shell thing.  Despite the cool presentation, the dish had an overpowering tomato flavour.

Guilty for ordering the ‘mainstream’ dishes. They do have a great variety of authentic thai dishes including specialty thai salads, sausage, grilled fish, and more. Banquets also available. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. 

Le Bangkok
03 9663 0360
195 Lonsdale St   
Melbourne, VIC 3000

Thai Chicken Salad Recipe

A simple healthy dish that is easy to prepare. The most important part is getting the dressing right and having fun.

Serves: Hungry 22 year old male with leftovers for lunch. (3 people)

Ingredients (Salad):
1 red onion
1 red pepper
1 continental cucumber
1 bunch cilantro coriander  
1 bunch of mint leaves
4 tbsp thai sweet chilli sauce
4 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp cornflour 
1 chicken breast 
A few lettuce leaves (optional) 

Method:
     1. Cut chicken into cubes and mix in bowl with soysauce and sweet chilli sauce.
     2. Coat with cornflour and continue mixing. 
     3. Cook chicken. Put in bowl to let cool. Cover and refrigerate if desired.
     4. Chop the red pepper, onion and cucumber into whatever shape you desire.
     5. Cut the herbs into leaves.
     6. Add your favorite lettuce leaves to bulk up, I used baby cos.
     7. Mix all the veggies and herbs into salad vessel.
     8. Place chicken on top of salad.

Ingredients (Dressing):
1 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp fresh chopped ginger
2 lime/lemon juice (fresh)
2 tsp sweet chilli sauce
4 tbsp fish sauce
4 tbsp water 
1 tsp sesame oil

Method:
     1. Mix all ingredients into a small bowl.
     2. Taste it until you like it.
     3. You’re done.

Pretty hard to stuff up. If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again.

Na Siam / Melbourne

After saving up a few dollars by skipping a couple of meals, I could finally afford a cheap dinner out. So Luke and I headed across the road to the local Thai takeaway restaurant. I know it’s takeaway restaurants aren’t amazing, but it beats the effort of budgeting $5 cooked meals at home with missing ingredients, risking dissatisfaction and or depression. Na Siam’s menu is simple, you can choose a dish quickly and get it over and done with.

The owners were friendly. They don’t seem to get a whole lot of business so, this made it comfortable for a quick and casual after work dinner, not being surrounded by dumb people (after long hours of dealing with people at work.) Stark takeaway ambience, almost like a waiting room, but thank god I don’t have to do the dishes.

Thai Red Curry, I didn’t get food poisoning and it was only $8.90. Who can complain with that? They also went to the extra effort to dish it up in proper plates and bowls this time, (It was plastic last time,) perhaps it’s because they saw me taking photos of the whole place - or maybe they are just nice people. Oh and the curry was pretty tasty too, creamy, and flavoursome. Value for money.

Na Siam
Somewhere on King Street 

4/10 

Ginger Leaf / Melbourne

Ginger Leaf thai restaurant is a restaurant in Docklands, Melbourne. I was impressed with their logo embroided on their menu.

The restaurant had a warm and exotic ambience to it. The staff were friendly. Asian.

The Ginger Entree platter had a all the entrees in one plate. Prawn crackers, chicken satay skewer, fishcake, spring roll, curry puff, prawn twist, and 2 pumpkin fritters. All quite tasty, but like a bunch of emo’s loitering outside Flinders Station, nothing in particular stood out.

Kyle got your typical white man/woman dish, thai green curry. It had a rich aromatic flavour and spice. After he was finished with his meal, he decided to play with the candle on our table… nek minnit… burnt his thumb.

I got the panang curry, beef. This was also very aromatic and had great flavour. The texture of the curry was a bit pasty and oily at parts. It didn’t have that smooth texture I was looking for. The beef was a bit too chewy too. We both got coconut rice with our meals. This coconut rice was delicious! Very fragrant, soft and flavoursome.

Ginger Leaf
2/763 Bourke St
Docklands, VIC 3008

Nine Elephants / Docklands

Nine Elephants is a gorgeous Thai restaurant we found at random, thanks to the Urbanspoon iPhone App. It is located down Village Street in Docklands. The area was like a ghost town, not a person in sight. 

Despite the street and area being dead, this restaurant was lively and practically full. The ambience is warm and peaceful. There were a lot of authentic and interesting dishes to choose from on the menu.

The decor was contemporary, and classy. They had nice furnishings and crockery, however, the disposable paper tablecloths were a let down. The service was very friendly and welcoming, but a bit slow. We had to wait at least 50 minutes before our main meals arrived.

Our entrées were fresh and tasty, a great way to warm up our taste buds. The curry puffs came with a yoghurt tzatziki style sauce, which went surprisingly well with the curry puffs.

Lexie got the basil chilli stir fry (vegetarian.) It was delectable, fresh and vibrant flavours. A dish full of delicious fresh herbs and veggies, a kick of spicy chillies, accompanied with garlic rice, surely made this meal exciting all the way through.

Apologies I don’t have any more photos. My camera had just stopped working as soon as my gorgeous red curry prawn dish came out. It was beautifully presented, had strong flavoursome aromas and tasted great. The medium level spiciness gave it that little extra excitement and pushed it to the next level. I had it with coconut rice which I think is perfect to cool down your palate when enjoying a hot curry dish. Lauren got the classic green curry, which was also crafted to an excellent standard. Tasty and no boring flavours.

This was a pleasant experience and I will definitely be visiting this restaurant again.  Make sure you are not in a hurry, or have a lot to talk about when you bring your hot date. 

Nine Elephants
67 Village Street
Docklands 

8/10

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Ghin Khao is a Thai restaurant located on busy Swanston Street in Melbourne CBD. I went there for lunch with Ben this week and we got some spring rolls, fish cakes, green curry and a beer of course.

The spring rolls were very basic, small and crispy, similar to the ones you get pre-packaged in the supermarket. The fish cakes were flavoursome. The curry was a little bland for my liking, could have had some more spices and a thicker sauce. The beer was great. We got Chang beer, which is a delicious Thai beer.

Not the best Thai restaurant in Melbourne, but it’s very convenient and cheap. The food looks and taste a little bland and boring. Acceptable when you are on a tight budget, or when you have just had a night out on Friday or Saturday night. (They are open until 4am on those busy nights.)

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Ghin Khao
242 Swanston Street

5/10