Home Thai Restaurant

Good restaurant choice Matt, did your research? No, not really.

Source: Home Thai Restaurant website

I decided to drop by this place to see what the fuss was about, as this restaurant was always crowded outside with people whenever I pass by after my weekly dance lessons ( popping is cool ). Atmosphere was blazing the moment I walked in, as it was jam packed in here.

 Note:
To people who may have an interest in visiting this restaurant after reading this: The restaurant has a "booking" system just outside the entrance where basically you have to "book" to get in by writing your name on the paper and how many guests there are. This is essential if you want to get in, I had the unfortunate chance to see this couple who sat at this short bench that was at the door of the restaurant, who didn't "book" themselves in and ended up waiting for a table longer than they hoped for.

Getting off-track. The waitress brought me to this nice looking table just next to the entrance and handed me a menu, as you would expect in all restaurants. Your usual sight of the waitress filling up your glass with water and heads off. Flipping through the menu, there was a variety of dishes to choose from entrees to salads and main course dishes. Being budget limited and finding out that minimum to pay by card is $30, I only sampled one dish and one small bowl of soup.

The restaurant was quite busy so that meant getting a waitress' attention was not the easiest jobs of all. Luckily, I managed to get one before my arms got sore waving. I ordered a dish called 'Grilled marinated pork neck served with nam jim jiew and fresh vegetable' and one spicy prawn soup with mushroom and Thai herbs. Oh, and one bowl of white rice.

I should point out that white rice does not come included with any of the dishes (unless you ordered fried rice of course) so prepared to fork out an extra $2.50 for each bowl. However I would add that the rice itself was of a big serving for that price so that compensates a bit. It came in a plate, which in my opinion, wasn't really a good thing to do because the rice just fit the plate nicely and that meant it was easy to have rice falling off the plate if eating carelessly.

Waiting wasn't too long as my food came shortly after. While waiting though, it was interesting to observe how they had the kitchen located right to the side of the entrance and how transparent the kitchen was in that one could see everything going on by just observing from the window outside.

I first started the soup and two words can describe the soup: SUPER SPICYNESS. I had to gush down the whole glass of water the first time I tasted it. It wasn't as bad after that but the spiciness was there the entire time. That's what expected of a Thai dish though I suppose. Content in the soup didn't disappoint as I got what I paid for.....I think. Nice portions of mushrooms and prawns in there. When I tasted the prawn, all it yelled out was the spiciness so there wasn't really any flavors contained within the prawn so was a tad disappointing. My tip is unless you can handle really spicy stuff, don't order this soup as it will just make you feel as if your mouth is on fire. Good thing water refilling was done pretty quickly by the waitresses there as I needed to refill quite a lot of times for obvious reasons.

Spicy!!!

Honestly, at first glance, I was a bit disappointed when what came out for my main dish wasn't what I was really expecting. I had doubts at the start on how good it would be at the start but I was proven wrong quickly as it was quite a nice dish. The meat was tender and just fine, unlike in some restaurants where they cook it too dry or tough. It was a delicious dish and the dipping sauce that came with it matched the grilled marinated pork neck meat nicely and accompany that with my side dish of rice; I would say the mean was enjoyable and pleasant. The presentation was clean and made the dish appealing in a way.

Wish I could have tried more dishes but my budgeted student life stopped me. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience from what I could see, not somewhere students like me would go on a regular basis, but coming here once in a blue moon or so is good. Wish they had dessert or cold drinks to their menu, as that would really have helped me conquering the spicy prawn soup, hopefully that will be added to the menu in the future. Price was decent, what you would expect from a restaurant like that, the grilled marinated pork neck cost $ 11.90, spicy prawn soup (small size) $ 6.90 and the side bowl of rice, $ 2.50. All in total $ 21.30. A decent price I would say.

Bill.

I definitely would go again in the future because it is quite a good place to dine at and it is just next to my dance school so why not. :)

Oh, and if you want to know more about this restaurant, they have their own website: Home Thai Restaurant

Matt. Out.