Chat Thai Westfield
Level 6, Westfield Sydney, 188 Pitt St Mall Sydney
When I’m away for work and I’ve finished for the day, there isn’t really that much to do afterwards. There is no rushing home for a hug from a loved one, or tinkering for hours on your life-size models of The Velvet Underground in clay. Luckily, I’ve found a way to pass the tedium between evening emails and morning emails with something other than sleep, and that’s queuing for restaurants.
Chat Thai is a chain of authentic Thai restaurants with “street food flavours” dotted around Sydney. Originally opened in Haymarket, it has now birthed another five restaurants, with the latest one being in the new Pitt Street Westfield. After a particularly perilous day at work one of my colleagues, who wil now be referred to as Ryan Attwood, and I decided to queue/hit up this particular Chat Thai after a rather good Thai experience the week before at a similarly named place called Home Thai.
The queue was probably around a 40 minutes when we arrived, but it was very orderly and everyone seemed nice and relaxed. There were plenty of seats to queue in, which was a nice touch, and the design of the restauraunt allowed us to eye off parts of the kitchen whilst simultaneously giving dirty looks to those people who hadn’t vacated their tables.
We ate
Travel allowance usually means throwing frugality to the wind. We started with a couple of Blended Juices ($5) which I can only assume contained a questionably amount of sugar because they were dangerously delicious. And a good thing too, as we had quite a while to wait for our food to come out.
First up was the gai satay (chicken skewers) ($3 each), which were deliciously covered in peanut sauce. I’d probably get a couple each if I went again, as the single one was over just a bit too fast.
Following up the skewers were the grilled pork ball dumplings (louk chin bhing) ($3 each) which were also unexpectedly on a skewer. They sort of had the texture, and unfortunately taste, of plain supermarket sausages that you’d buy for your BBQ. Although I generally applaud any food in the shape of a ball, these were a bit of a miss.
Onto the larger dishes, we started with the roasted duck breast in caramelised tamarind sauce (bped mar kham) ($18). The duck was a little salty, but I loved the crispiness of the skin and the thinness of the cut.
The final main was the stir-fried crisp pork belly and wild ginger in red curry paste (mhu grob padt prik khing) ($15). The dish, although a little cold in parts, was otherwise the standout. The pork belly was tender inside, and the sauce was not too spicy.
To Conclude
Chat Thai adheres to the fine traditions of the Sydney Thai Food scene. I’ll definitely be back to check out more of the menu, and the queue.
