House Thai Restaurant

It's been an unusable long time since I have written something related to the food scene in Sydney. For this very post, I would like to stick to my roots and stay within my comfort zone, so that only means that we will be talking about Thai food! One of the most common Asian cuisines in the city, Sydney siders are seriously spoiled for Thai food options. Other than the famous Thai Town on Campbell Street, you get a few places scattered around the city. With so many different choices, let me make it easier and share with you another fantastic place with great outdoor dining ambience, called House Surry Hills. 

If you're into Thai food, you may also be interested in looking deeper into the bigger brand that owns House as well as the famous Spice I am, a more upper scale Thai dining experience. Let me first go off track a little bit and talk about the sister property of house located Darlinghurst. The Spice I am here is really good. I would recommend booking a table here if you have some time to plan your outing, but if not, you can also walk in, but the line and the wait time is really dependable. Like I said, it's more for the up market so you should do well to dress appropriately for the evening. The menu is quite self explanatory if you've had Thai food before, but it's just that you're paying that extra bit more for thecreativity in food presentation, a slightly more premium range of products, as well as the awesome, romantic, dimmed lights, atmosphere. 

Let's jump back to the topic that we're bound to discuss, House. So, House restaurant specialises in a cuisine that originates from the Northeastern part of the country. The very region known to us Thais as Isaan has a unique twist to the usual dishes you would recognise as Thai food. Some of my favourite dishes are actually from this part of the country, but that only thing about them is that they're quite hard to find if you're not in Thailand. So this goes out to those who understand exactly what I mean and to those that would like to step out from the ordinary and try something new, House is the really place to go to. 

To kick off your Isaan experience, I would recommend that you check out this place for lunch. Like all Thai restaurants in the area, they also have a lunch special menu for less if not slightly above $10.00. You get to choose from a strong list of dishes here. They will have the regular faces of Thai food as well as such specials that would rotate throughout the different periods depending on what they have that's fresh. 

I personally absolutely love their choices for lunch. Unlike other places, I don't have one or two favourites from the list, because just looking at it makes me have to think twice, even three times or four times for some occasions. I love their take on simple Thai food that you could order on the street side and served in a take away box in Bangkok. They have the most authentic dishes on the menu that us Thais would have on a regular basis. If you think that Thai food is all about the spices in the chilli and the green curries are the main stars, this place will give you a lesson or two!

Moving on from their lunch menu, you will find what I think is the best appetiser menu in Sydney for a Thai place. You will find the items I'm referring to in their grilled section, in which are all local favourites. Hmm, what else. The salads here are also very good and you could modify your spice/sourness levels by informing the staff. If you're like my mom and love strong flavours, you could ask the team member to tell the kitchen for a kick in spiciness and a strong sourness level that will make your squint your face, and I say this in a good way! 

I feel like I'm being a bit too general, so let me start off by suggesting three dishes that we had:

1. Khao Mun Gai Tord, which is basically chicken rice with a side of soup. Now, the sound of 'chicken rice' is very boring and this dish is far from boring. The rice is flavoured and cooked with oil, ginger and garlic to name a few. This gives you the perfect rice that's a level above the normal jasmine rice. Not only does the rice smell amazing, the texture and the slight oiliness also makes this dish something to crave for. Then, the chicken. You could either have the chicken steamed (very similar to the Singaporean version but somewhat different) or deep fried. I don't like steamed chicken so I always get deep fried chicken. I have to point out though, that there is a major different in the dining experience depending on your choice of how the chicken should be cooked. Ultimately, this dish came from the Hainan region in China so it's closest to those served in Singapore and nearby. Oh, and the soup is also really good. It's made from a beautiful stock, usually of either chicken or pork with vegetables.

2. Ba Mee Moo Daeng, the name is really as fun as eating it. This is a noodle dish, consisting on yellow, egg noodles. This bed of noodles is topped up with the usual suspects namely choy sum, mushrooms, and spring onions. For the meat component of the dish, you will get slices of BBQ pork, Chinese version and red in appearance of course! But for the factor that really brings this dish to live, is the sauce. It's a soy sauce-based dressing, and every vendor and restaurant will have their own recipe. This dish is either eaten with the soup or without the soup, so they do a good job here by putting the soup in a separate bowl in case you change your mind half way through enjoying the noodles. There's really nothing else to say, but that it was delicious - and this is only available for lunch, but if you really crave it and happen to miss the lunch period, head over to Chat Thai on Thai Town's Campbell Street. 

3. Okay just one more, Khao Nar Ped. For those that have been to Thailand and picked up a word or two, Ped in this case refers to Duck, and not Phed, which means spicy! This dish is not at all spicy and can be enjoyed by everyone, but me, since I don't really like duck. It seems like I'm missing out on the goodness of this dish since my parents really enjoyed it. So you get grilled duck, sliced and served on top of rice. As always you get some cucumbers on the side as well as a bowl of soup, just like that of the number 1. You get two different sauces with this dish, one that's already drizzled over your duck and rice and the other in a small saucer. Against like the egg noodle dish, the sauces used here are different from vendor to vendor, but I assume that it was good since the dish was pretty much wiped clean at the end of the meal.

Such a good meal and what's left is a good dessert. They don't have a good dessert here, but they have a great dessert! Let me walk you through the greatness of the dessert that have, which goes by an inappropriate name turned appropriate thanks to censorship called BTS. You may guess, but what's so inappropriate about BTS, it stands for Bangkok Transit System, like you know, the awesome sky trains in Bangkok. Umm, no, that's what I thought too since I'm not at all dirty minded. The kitchen team creativity named the BTS in reference to Better Than Sex. 

I'm not gonna go on to discuss the claim since that's a conversation for another day, but the dessert is unbelievably good. There's really nothing Thai about it, but you could see the Thai innovation behind the dish. Alright, you get a thick slight of brioche in which has been toasted to what is probably perfection. The brioche bread is your base, then building on from it you get pandan ice cream, and that's the green part that makes the dessert look a bit lively. The scoop is a generous size too. Just to add another element of deliciousness, they drizzle the dessert with home made Thai caramel. I have clueless as to what a Thai caramel is or whether it exists, but apparently it's quite good. It's not competition to French caramel or other similar counterparts, but it does the job just fine. The chef then finished off BTS with sprinkles of black and white sesame seeds, adding on to another level of well-thought of texture and taste. Like I said, this dessert is not at all Thai, but it's just so good that I allow it to qualify in the Thai dessert category. 

House is open every single day of the week, and is ready to serve you delicious meals for lunch and dinner. I actually like how simple they keep their operating hours here. So, just remember that they don't close, and they start from 11:30am until late. Depending on what your definition of late is, there should be something for you have here! For more information, check out their link just down below, whereby you can also find their phone number!

As I said, House is a fantastic place for Thai food and you really cannot go wrong with their super authentic, straight from the streets of Thailand menu. You could eat at this place for lunch and dinner every day for two weeks still get different things on the menu. There's really not a lot more to be said after showing you some of the photos I took for their meals here. Bon appetit would be appropriate!

House Thai Isaan Restaurant - Ratings 

Accessibility - 8/10

Price - 9/10

Selection - 9/10

Staff Friendliness - 8/10

Cleanliness - 9/10

Overall - 8.5/10

Spice I am Darlinghurst - http://www.spiceiam.com/spice-i-am-darlinghurst

House Surry Hills - http://www.spiceiam.com/house-surry-hills

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