Colonel Tan's

Colonel Tan's in Prahran is located up a very long flight of stairs. Quite an interesting venue with quirky furnishing. It is the sister restaurant of Cookie (city). We had been to Cookie many times and so had quite high expectations of this place. We weren't disappointed. It was lovely and we had:

Pork and prawn donuts, chilli jam (AU$12.50)- Very springy and delicious morsels. Perfect for sharing or as a little snack, you get two skewers and they go so well with the chilli jam.

Betel leaf salad, snapper, peanuts, ginger, chilli and lime (AU$11.50)- A very tasty DIY salad. The small snapper bites were crispy and well seasoned.

Soft shell crab and green papaya salad, lemongrass, little fish and peanuts (AU$16.50)- Perfect little salad with wonderful texture contrasts and flavour.

Sour orange fish curry, acacia omelette, rice and tomato relish (AU$18.50)- Great to order if you are after something a little different. Loved the texture of the omelette cakes and the tomato relish can be added to make the curry less spicy.

Service: :star :star :star :star ½
Quality of food: :star :star :star :star ½
Value for money: :star :star :star :star ½

Type of venue: Thai.

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 229 Chapel Street, Prahran VIC 3181

Jinda Thai Restaurant

We are delighted to announce that we have found, in our opinion at least, the best Thai restaurant in Melbourne. Jinda Thai in Abbotsford serves up some of the best Thai food we have ever had and they make a mean iced milk tea as well. We always wished for Home Thai or Chat Thai to branch out from Sydney but thankfully, we now have an authentic place of our own here in Melbourne. We ordered from their regular menu(they have a lunch menu) and had:

Fish cake - Jinda Thai's own recipe (AU$8.90) - Springy and full of flavour, it also has a slight kick to it. Wonderful little entree and good for sharing.

Tom yum - spicy and sour soup with lemongrass and lime leaf. A signature Thai dish with prawns (AU$16.9) - Not very spicy, a little sweet and the generous serving of prawns was cooked well. Large enough to share between two or even three.

Deep fried soft shell crab with pepper and garlic sauce (AU$17.9) - Perfectly fried, the crabs(two pieces) were crispy and juicy with just the right balance of pepper and garlic.

Roasted duck in red curry (AU$17.9) - Thinly sliced pieces of duck in a slightly sweet red curry. Loved the other ingredients(lychee, pumpkin etc) in the curry as they really made this a complete dish.

Ice cream grati - coconut ice cream, coconut flavoured sticky rice, crunchy peanuts  and palm fruit (AU$8.5) - Lovely end to a beautiful lunch. It had good texture contrasts and a nice light flavour; not too sweet.

Service: :star :star :star :star :star
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Value for money: :star :star :star :star ½

Type of venue: Thai

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 1-7 Ferguson Street, Abbotsford VIC 3067