Samosorn by Chat Thai – Thai for food hall

The Asian concepts of street food and hawker stalls are yet to develop in Australia but with the opening of Samosorn Thai Local Food Hall in the Myer food court in Pitt Street Mall last Saturday, we're a step closer.

Entry sign at Samosorn Thai Local Food Hall at Sydney Central Plaza food court
(beneath Myer), Pitt Street Mall, Sydney

The latest venue from the people behind Chat Thai, Samosorn – Thai for 'food hall' – brings a Thai street food vibe to one of the city's busiest food courts; or at least as much of that vibe as Sydney's relatively strict food safety regulations allow.

Seating in Samosorn

Display cabinets filled with vintage Thai packaging

But don't expect your average food court experience – Samosorn has gone all-out on recreating a Bangkok streetside styled with hawker stall signage, authentic wooden stools, vintage decorations and even a mock roadside sewer.

Mock sewer

Samosorn "food stalls"

Designed to take the rat racer out of the Sydney CBD, if only for an hour lunch break, Samosorn offers atmospheric, escape-from-a-food-court, in-restaurant seating that really is worlds away from the fluorescence of the rest of the food court, which seems to be slowly picking up its game.

Seating in Samosorn

The food hall concept focuses on fast, fresh Thai food prepared from a number of stations. Diners order from the front register, find a table and wait for food to be delivered to their upright spatula table numbers.

Noodle station

There are plenty of dishes that will be familiar to Chat Thai diners – there's no escaping from our national favourites of padt thai and chicken satay skewers, and Chat Thai crowd-pleasers like grapao mhu grob stir fried crisp pork belly with rice.

Items for the grill

Pork skewers on the grill

But with dedicated grill and salad sections in Samosorn's open kitchen, it's hard to go past dishes like the tender mhu bing grilled pork skewers or the north-east Thai Issan-style som dtum taardt; a Samosorn signature dish that you're unlikely to find anywhere else in Sydney at the moment.

Shredded green papaya

Som dtum salad station

A variation of the som dtum green papaya salad that the Thais like so fiery hot, the som dtum taardt is served to share, "family style" on a colourful round platter.

It features a freshly mortar-and-pestle mixed som dtum variety – ours a Thai favourite of som dtum thai-bpu with pungently pickled and fermented small whole black crabs – surrounded by an array of sides to be eaten with the salad.

Som dtum taardt

The pickled crab papaya salad comes with house made pork and fish skin crackling, thin rice noodles, a hard-boiled egg, blanched choy sum, raw cabbage, Thai basil, bean sprouts, peanuts and firm tofu.

It becomes a DIY salad that never loses interest, with the spicy, fishy som dtum thai-bpu playing star to a cast of supporting and contrasting ingredients, most of them pretty healthy.

Som dtum thai

We also had the normal som dtum thai salad, served without the fishy crabs and plenty of green beans, cherry tomatoes, peanuts, dried shrimp and fresh chilli in what was probably considered a "medium" level of heat for Thai diners, but a little painful for me.

The accompanying woven basket of warm sticky rice is ideal to temper the chilli heat of the som dtum.

Gai yaang - Char grilled marinated chicken

After the som dtum there was tender, moist relief in the whole char grilled chicken, served with a sweet dipping sauce of smoked chilli and tamarind.

The chopped pieces of the whole chicken had a delectable smokiness from the char grill and sweetly marinated, crisp caramelised skin.

Lodt Shong Singapore drink

Also helping me cope with the spice was a dessert-like drink of coconut milk and chewy green pandan noodles – much like Malaysian cendol – and some jackfruit or mango, I think, cooled down with loads of crushed ice in a giant glass mug.

There's also a range of quite traditional crushed ice drinks and herbal teas on offer, including the nahm buoy sweet pickled plum iced tea and the nahm krachiap iced hibiscus drink.

Condiments and seasonings

Deep fry station

With a pretty extensive menu of noodles – stir fried and in soup – grilled items, spicy salads and one-plate-rice dishes predominantly sub $14, food court lunches are taking on new meaning at Samosorn, which is taking on the streets of Bangkok in the heart of Sydney CBD.

Disclosure: Food, booze and shoes dined as a guest of Samosorn, and is acquainted with staff and owners of Samosorn and Chat Thai.

Two nights left for Crave Night Noodle Markets

Crave Night Noodle Markets, Hyde Park, Sydney

The Night Noodle Markets are a quintessential Sydney event and one of my yearly traditions as part of the Crave Sydney International Food Festival.

Running for another two nights in Hyde Park north (near St James station) to conclude their extended run this year, the Noodle Markets continue to grow in size, taking over more and more of the park with new sponsor areas, more food stalls and more seating (with a variety of improved quality chair settings!).

Citibank VIP area

I think the growth of themed sponsor areas is a fantastic addition, with Citibank, Brown Brothers, Coopers and Rekordelig all taking advantage of the outdoor space. The Noodle Lounge by Chinta Ria is also a good addition for those not up for the queues and seat hunting.

Eat Art Truck at the Night Noodle Markets

Two food trucks also made an appearance - the shiny red bus of Agape and arty Eat Art Truck - the latter which had run out of their amazing shichimi chicken wings just as I walked past.

Chat Thai stall

An easy favourite of the Noodle Markets is Chat Thai; their dual stall handling the crowds and queues much better than the likes of Mamak and Din Tai Fung - also perennial crowd favourites.

Mu bhing and sticky rice from Chat Thai

The mu bhing grilled pork skewers are easily my favourite dish of the night. Served with a sweet and lightly spicy dipping sauce, the pork was charred for a caramelly exterior and had a tender chew that was perfect with a ball of sticky rice - eaten with the fingers, of course.

Fresh young coconut juice from Chat Thai

Even on a cooler evening, a thirst-quenching fresh young coconut is irresistible, especially when the gelatinous inner flesh has already been shaved off the sides, ready for immediate consumption.

Som tum from Chat Thai

We're also gifted with a som tum green papaya salad from Amy Chanta of Chat Thai. Knowing all too well the Thai chilli heat scale ('medium' blows my head off), we elected a "not very spicy" version, bashed out fresh and to order from a huge mortar and pestle.

The papaya shreds, green beans, peanuts and cherry tomatoes form a refreshing, yet still spicy salad, with thanks to a fresh, red birdseye chilli. The sticky rice also worked well to temper the heat of the som tum.

Barbequed corn from Kinn Dining

I'd not heard of Kinn Dining before but was keen to sample their wares which had a modern Thai feel to it; although not so much the barbequed corn with butter.

Soft shell crab and chicken satay from Kinn Dining

The soft shell crab had unfortunately cooled by the time I returned to our patch of grass, although the flavours were fabulous and the batter stayed very crisp. It was even nicer dipped into the leftover dressing of Chat Thai's som tum.

Kinn Dining also had some of the most generously-sized chicken satay I've ever seen - huge cuts of chicken breast that made the bamboo skewers bend under its weight. These were served with a creamy, coconut-ty satay sauce, in the same dish as the soft shell crab for my carrying convenience.

One of The Morrison bars

The Brown Brothers bean bag seats looked incredibly comfortable in front of The Morrison bar. I was just a little envious as I sat on the grass sipping an icy cold Coopers Pale Ale.

Roti making at Mamak Village

Leaving space for another annual tradition - the mango with sticky rice dessert at Chat Thai - we ventured to the southern end of the Noodle Markets where there were a few new and interesting faces.

It was impossible to not join the queue at Mamak Village, watching the incredible roti making show. How the roti chef flings and swings the uber-thin dough, even boomerang-ing the round flat dough in the air, is a wonder.

However, the end result roti canai and curry sauce weren't the best I've tried while the airy otak otak fish cake was singular and minute.

Food stalls at Night Noodle Markets

Rekordelig Cider Bar

Crave Night Noodle Markets

So, you've got two more nights to mosey on down to the Night Noodle Markets for 2012. Indeed, a second or third visit might be in order too. See more photos of the Crave Night Noodle Markets 2012 at my Facebook page.

Cheers at Chat Thai, Westfield Sydney

My regular clinking of glasses tends to be a drinking gesture rather than a celebratory motion. Cheers are regularly made to Tuesdays, Thursdays and relief-toned Fridays, as well as to not hating jobs, to new shoes, to being indoors from cold weather and indeed, to drinking itself.

There was definitely some clinking, then, at the newest Chat Thai restaurant in the CBD's Westfield Sydney. It was probably cheers to now having some decent and well-priced Thai dinner options in the city, and the availability of alcoholic beverages on this Chat Thai's menu.

Mai Thai cocktail at Chat Thai, Westfield Sydney

Cocktails featuring Thai ingredients, wines and beer have made it to the upscaled Westfield-ed restaurant, next to Xanthi, Spiedo further down and Chinta Ria: Mood for Love to open opposite soon.

The Mai Thai is a popular choice that incites other nearby orders and inner pyromaniacs. The dark rum in the lime half cup packs the expected mai thai punch along with shaken white rum, triple sec, pineapple and lime.

BS 101 cocktail

I can't help but order the basil seed dotted BS 101, just because I'm a bit of a child. I adore eating the slippery membranes of the black seeds - even more than tapioca pearls and flying fish roe. Thai basil, lime, vodka and vanilla liqueur round out the fun in this glass.

Sour monkey cocktail

One for whiskey lovers, and even quite drinkable for a non whiskey lover. The Sour Monkey is a play on a whiskey sour, featuring Monkey Shoulder whiskey in the egg white foam topped drink. The lime and sugar make it a lot easier to drink; perhaps a covert way to sneak whiskey into my drinking repertoire.

Longan Island Iced Tea cocktail

A little more familiar is the longan cocktail with four different liquors, but familiar in a better way than my memories of Long Islands. This is highly drinkable, and simultaneously sweet and lethal - and to think I'd left those days behind me.

Aside from cocktails, there's the difficult task of electing dishes to share from the extensive menu. A beautifully photographed book, the menu is daunting and tempting with full page photos. I find it incredibly difficult not to just order the few photographed dishes.

Todt mun goong gaeng keaw -
Fried green curried prawn mousseline, drizzled with pickled plum sauce

I cannot get enough of this starter. Though I haven't nearly tried all the starters on the Chat Thai menu, this is undoubtedly a star; leagues away from same-old, machine-manufactured Thai fish cakes, moneybags or spring rolls that are passed off as starters elsewhere.

Go past the golden crumbs into the bouncy-textured prawn mousseline with subtle curry flavours, to find large prawns cooked within. The plum sauce is just the icing on the cake, while the crisp, deep fried basil leaves are endlessly delightful.

Khor mhu yaang -
Char grilled pork neck with smoked chilli and tamarind relish

There's an entire page dedicated to grilled meats, and after trying the pork neck, I'm not sure I will be tempted away from ordering it again and again.

The small pieces of pork neck have an addictive char flavour and are surprisingly tender whilst being fairly lean. The dipping sauce of chilli and tamarind adds a nice, balanced sour and sweet component.

Beak gai nahm prik pao -
Fried de-boned chicken wings sauteed in smoked chilli jam sauce

The idea is spot on - I think I'd like all my chicken wings de-boned from here on, thanks. There can be some pleasure from picking every bit of meat off the thin chicken bones, but in a restaurant setting, the de-boned option is a winner.

Here, the battered and deep fried wings soak up a smokey, sweet sauce of chilli jam; and while it would be nice if the wings stayed nice and juicy inside, this Thai play on buffalo wings is just too much fun.

Ship & Shore -
Chicken, pork, prawn and fried egg salad dressed in smoked chilli jam

Another playful dish is the Ship & Shore "salad" - more a surf 'n' turf meat salad than one of vegetables. A melange of marinated chicken and pork prop up gorgeous prawns atop a golden fried egg, with Spanish onions and chilli jam thrown in for good, salad-like measure.

Yum ma kruea -
Char roasted eggplant salad with ground chicken and prawns

Yet another pictured item in the menu is a modern styled salad of roasted eggplant, prawn and chicken mince. The eggplant stack with prawns looks like something from a Mod Oz menu while the sawtooth herb seems to be signalling to someone or something.

The silky cooked eggplant is actually quite subtle, and with onion, herbs and a light saucy dressing, the clean flavours of this salad make it a standout.

Gaeng daeng gai -
Red curry of chicken with apple eggplants, kaffir lime leaves and basil

At this point I think I should mention that dining with a group is the best way to try a lot of dishes, though a hungry couple could easily have a two starters and two bigger dishes, I think (with potential takeaways for tomorrow's even tastier lunch).

The red curry of chicken is a people pleaser - not too hot, not too creamy, a little sweet, and with loads of chicken pieces, cute and slightly bitter apple eggplants, and lots of herbaceous goodness.

Mhu grob padt prik khing -
Stir fried crisp pork belly and wild ginger in red curry paste

Pork belly is an automatic order with a lot of people I dine out with. When it's stir fried with beans and ginger in a red curry paste, I can totally understand. The warning here, though, is that it's pretty hot on the chilli meter (not sure if you can request a milder version) and that it's not always as crispy as it could be.

Bpla choo chee
Crisp whole snapper in red curry

The whole fish on the seafood menu is pretty decent value for a large and impressive dish. There's a choice of five different sauces and we again veer towards red curry. It's just easy and predictably good.

There's quite a bit of flesh on the well cooked fish, although you need to be a little careful with fish bones. Ideally, eat with caution and while not too un-sober.

I seem to stuff myself to the gills everytime I eat at Chat Thai, and while I'm happy to pass on dessert more often than not, others aren't. There is an entire front kitchen dedicated to Thai desserts at the Westfield Sydney Chat Thai (much bigger than the one at Haymarket), and the creations are nothing short of spectacular.

Khanom buaing - 
Sweet thin wafers filled with meringue, candied dried shrimp and herbs

I've watched in wonder the creation of the truly unique wafer and meringue desserts many a time in that front kitchen. A thick batter forms the crispy, thin, round wafer - the whole process reminding me of fortune cookies.

A dollop of glossy white meringue is topped with diced candied dried shrimp and coriander. That's right - dried shrimp in a dessert.

I don't like dried shrimp generally, but I find it a little less challenging when candied and served with sweet meringue; taking the salty-sweet combination to another level.

Steamed layer cake (back) and young coconut jelly

The young coconut jelly is more my thing. I can't resist having it at yum cha but this version blows the others out of the water. Not too sweet and filled with pieces of soft, young coconut, the firm jelly is just the thing after a filling meal.

The green and white steamed layer cakes are small but heavier nonetheless. They're almost cloyingly sweet, and flavoured with coconut and pandan for those attractive footy team stripes.

Fresh mango with sticky rice

And for those with a bit more room in the stomach (or really, those who haven't over-gorged on the savouries), there are the reliable Thai sticky rice desserts. I was pretty impressed to be having gorgeously ripe mangoes in winter (sourced from Queensland) and could easily wolf down the fruit part of this dessert.

The sticky rices were expectedly sweet and filling, with a touch of coconut milk for added richness. The purple-hued rice had an unusal floral taste; the colour and flavour of which I think comes from a particular blue flower used in Southeast Asian cooking.

In the end, absolutely stuffed with a fair few cocktails under the belt, it's three cheers to Chat Thai opening in the CBD.

Disclosure: Food, booze and shoes is acquainted with staff at Chat Thai Westfield Sydney and has previously dined complimentarily.

Three days left for oodles of Thai

The Noodle Markets in Hyde Park, Sydney

It’s that time again when the increasingly precarious Sydney spring weather wreaks havoc with outdoor festivals – namely the Crave Sydney International Food Festival Noodle Markets. I think in its first week, the Noodle Markets have endured, or been threatened with, rain on four out of five nights, and we still had to contend with muddy grounds on the non rainy Thursday I went.

Fingers crossed that the weather is blue-sky beautiful for the 20th anniversary of the Sydney Food & Wine Fair – one of my favourite annual events.

Seating in Hyde Park

I’m impressed with the organisers’ ability to expand the Noodle Markets so significantly – stalls are spaced over a larger area of Hyde Park North and there are tables and chairs sprouting all over the grass – although that doesn’t mean that you won’t have to rush for empty tables and share too. But it’s all a part of the Noodle Markets atmosphere. It’s busy and quickly gets packed as we arrive, with growing queues at almost every stall.

Dim sum at the East Ocean stall

I’m still not one for the yum cha style dumplings for dinner, but the vibrant yellow salt & pepper squid at East Ocean was very tempting, especially seeing person after person with generously sized trays of it.

Jackie M Malaysian had ever-long queues waiting for satay chicken skewers, otak otak and other Malaysian fare, while the prices at Turkish Gozleme King were a little eyebrow-raising, though stall rental probably isn’t cheap. There’s the first of many Thai stores and also a dumpling stand that I recognised from other festivals.

The Coopers sustainable beer garden

As in prior years, Bungalow 8 and Sugar Mill (both of the Keystone Hospitality Group) have bar setups with minimal queuing – bottles of wine appeared popular. The Coopers sustainable beer garden is quite the rustically pretty sight, eco-friendly and supposedly representing the average Aussie backyard, providing plenty of seating for imbibers of Coopers beer.

The Coopers beer garden

Queues at the stalls

We hit off to first base at Iron Chef Chinese Restaurant, all the way from Cabramatta to the CBD, and positioned next to the flowing Din Tai Fung queue. I don’t think it is humanly possible to pass on Peking duck. And with a variety of combo packs for value seekers, we got a good taste of everything with Combo C.

Peking duck pancake from Iron Chef Chinese Restaurant

The two serves of Peking duck were freshly wrapped in their pancake skins, with juices flowing out as I bit into it. The duck was warm and fatty, sweetened with a touch of hoisin sauce with the stick of cucumber and spring onion providing some crunch and contrast. Simply delectable, I imagine I could eat 10 of these as a meal in itself.

With so many Peking duck wraps flying out of the stall, I wonder what would become of the leftover duck meat – and what the pile of roast duck carcasses would look like. A great deal of duck stock, perhaps.

Rose wine pork ribs and vegetarian fried noodles from
Iron Chef Chinese Restaurant

The rose wine pork spare ribs are heavily deep fried, small pieces of rib interleafed with layers of fat: not at all healthy but tasty in its marinade and salt & pepper coating. They were just a little chewy and had small bones, and so turned into a savoury, finger-licking exercise.

The vegetarian fried noodles were indeed vegetarian, but had sparse few vegetables aside from a bit of cabbage. The thick, soy covered noodles were a little starchy in its thickened sauce, but were helped along with chilli sauce.

Noodle Markets seating and stalls

Further along, Mizuya was doing kushiyaki that little resembled proper yakitori, Zilver also had the vivid yellow salt & pepper squid, and there were another couple of Thai stalls. The next section had more dim sum and Thai, Japanese okonomiyaki, an Indian food stall and Chinatown’s St.Honore Cake Shop.

And so it goes on with poffertjes, seafood, Himalayan and another Thai, while yet another section had Efendy, doing smoky lamb kofte wraps and baklava. The added Middle Eastern theme to the Noodle Markets was really just a couple of gozleme stalls and Efendy – nothing to get too excited about.

Lanterns in the trees at Hyde Park

Serendipity ice cream was a dessert option, but the crowds were lining up at the dedicated Chat Thai desserts stall. This was in probably the most interesting section of stalls, along with a Chat Thai stall proper, New Shanghai, something called SpanThai, gozleme, Malaysian and another Thai. Rather than fusion as the name might suggest, SpanThai had a giant paella pan each of saffron chicken rice (paella?) and char kway teow – downright odd if you ask me.

Fish ball skewers from Chat Thai

We decided to get some Chat Thai nibblies and then consume them while waiting in line for New Shanghai. The perfectly spherical fish balls on skewers are a popular sight, drowning in a red sweet chilli sauce. A golden batter forms the impossibly perfect outer layers; thin and not maintaining much crispness beneath the particularly spicy chilli sauce. The white fish balls within have a nice, firm texture with subtle flavour that’s rather mute against the chilli sauce.

New Shanghai dumpling makers at work

The New Shanghai queue moves at a reasonable pace with those at the front of the line able to watch dumplings being made there and then. The pungent smell of the vinegar sauce encircles all those waiting and the nearby DJ does good with his bare setup, with pause for the lion dancers and associated noise.

Lion dancers entertain the crowds

After the fish balls and intentions for dessert, we decide to have just one order at New Shanghai – the pan fried buns, rather than the xiao long bao. I’d had the buns only four days earlier, which I think proves my inability to tire of dumplings and their relatives.

Pan fried pork buns from New Shanghai

These guys arrive stunningly hot, even after a few minutes of seat searching and table sharing. They’re pretty much fraught with danger, especially as not everyone has yet mastered the art of eating soup filled buns and dumplings. If squirting or leaking juices don’t get you, the burning hot soup probably will.

The buns are half golden with their pan fried skirts, not quite making the soft fluffy dough crispy but not far off either. The soup in these buns is full of flavour and completely scrummy, with a ratio of dough to pork mince filling that don’t have me bloated with carbs. They disappear in moments; the only evidence of their presence being leftover black vinegar sauce and some sticky, soupy fingers.

Sticky rice and mago from Chat Thai

Dessert was cleverly acquired with our earlier Chat Thai purchase so we needn’t lose our seats again. The sticky rice with mango presented a tropical sight and an even for tropical flavour. I don’t know where Chat Thai get these mangoes from but I want more. The mango was quite oddly perfect, if not a little pale in colour, with soft but not mushy texture and just ripe flavour.

Paired with just slightly sweetened glutinous rice, coconut cream and a sprinkle of crispy rice puffs, this was quite simply divine and the epitome of great Asian desserts: subtle but fragrant with the capacity to eat large serves of it.

The Sydney International Food Festival Noodle Markets run until Friday, 22 October at Hyde Park North - three days left to try as much as you can from 40 stalls.

Hyde Park North - all decked out