Saturday, July 29, 2006

A girls night out gorging

I got wind of a really good Thai place hidden in some deserted corner near Central station called "Spice I am". So I got together with another chilli loving freak of a Cookiez and headed on over after work.

Knowing that there is usually a line, I gave my number to them and headed across the road for a quick drink. (Well...Cookiez needed to catch up after I drank an entire bottle of wine at work...) Less than 3mins after we walked across the road and ordered our drinks, I got a call on my mobile saying our table was ready!! Crap!! SCULL!! We looked like 2 lunatics standing in a deserted pub sculling alcohol like alcoholics we are. We cross the road and immediately get seated. We had a quick scan of the menu and knew immediately what we wanted.

Green Papaya Salad (Som Tum) - $7.90

MmmMmm this was good! We requested a medium hot version of this and found the salad slighty sweet, slightly sour, slightly salty and a nice well balanced heat to it (The essence to all good thai food!). The salad was refreshing and the additional roasted peanuts on the side added a really good crunch to the salad. That and the few slices of raw cabbage really helped to refresh the palate and cool down the mouth. (Something I didn't know that I would need!!)

Jungle Curry (Chicken) - $10.90

I've heard so many people rave about the Jungle Curry, I just had to order it. It was hot. Not "OMG PULL MY TONGUE OUT!!" HOT, but just hot. We got warned by the waiter about how hot it is before ordering it, but we were still disappointed. There was something not right about this dish. Maybe because it was slightly bitter because of the types of herbs and spices used, or maybe because its a coconut milk-less curry, or maybe it was just...hot. I don't like food being hot for the sake of being hot. A dish needs to be spicy for a reason. Its like people lopping spoonfuls of chilli into a dish just to make it hot, not because the dish tastes better hot (e.g. my dad putting chilli sauce on a cabonara pasta). This was the case for this dish. There was no proper underlying taste. I didn't know what I was eating. There was bamboo shoots, but I couldn't really taste it. There was some type of curry leaves, but I couldn't taste it. It was just.....hot.

Nam Khao Tod - $13.90
Crispy Rice Salad with Thai Pork Sausage

When I ordered this dish, I wanted to make sure that we had a good balance of really hot (The jungle curry) and medium hot (Papaya salad), so I asked the waiter if this dish is spicy or not. His reply "Its a little spicy". Perfect! We've got 3 degrees of hotness. The dish arrives and I did the little photo thing whilst poor Cookiez sat there salivating over the dish. The minute the camera was put away, we pick up our forks and shovelled some into our mouths. My response? "MmMmm YUMMMMM!! MMmMmm OMG HOTTTTT!!!!!!!".

For something that was supposedly "Mildly spicy", I felt like my entire mouth was getting burned with sulphuric acid. Tears started welling in my eyes, beads of sweat broke out across my forehead and my nose started running. This was after ONE bite! Oh but it was good! The rice was indeed crispy, there was a nice salty and chilli balance to the dish. Again, the peanuts add another dimension of crunchy texture to the dish. The only problem was that it was so hot! I know water doesn't help, not that it stopped me! I tried the old have some rice/carb to absorb the chilli oil burning the tongue, only it made it worse so I had more water. We were barely 1/3 of the way through our meal when I had drank and entire litre of water by myself. The waiter must've seen that I was in pain and quickly ran over with another bottle of water which we quickly polished off. That and another huge steaming bowl of rice!!

The servings weren't big...and considering 2 of the dishes were salads, I was surprised how much pain I was in when I put the last forkful of food into my mouth. It felt like my stomache was about to split open and everything is going to fall out and spontaneously combust right infront of my eyes. We really didn't eat that much!! So why does it feel like I swallowed a whole cow?? Maybe it was the 1.5L of water I had!!!

Dinner cost us less than $20 per person and I felt like I've eaten 3 buffets. We decided to walk it off as I couldn't handle sitting down again. We did nothing more strenuous than a casual stroll around Chinatown. About 40mins later, we were both feeling much better. The tearing pain in our stomache was gone and out whole overeating debacle was behind us. So we did what anyone else would do in such a situation..... ICE CREAM!!! (We don't learn ok??)

5mins later we're standing at the French Riviera looking at their huge arrays of ice cream. The French Riviera moved from Double Bay sometime last year and I never bothered to track it down since I'm not a huge fan of ice cream. I used to visit the old French Riviera when it was in Double Bay as a kid. I first got introduced to the place when I was in primary school (Probably atleast 15years now!!!). My now brother in law bought me along on a date with my sister. I think he was trying to earn brownie points by interacting with the annoying little baby sister!

We actually visited this place last Saturday, but since I was sick as a anything, there would be no ice cream for me. This time, cough or not cough, deathbed or no deathbed, nothing is going to stop me! However, we got seated next to the dessert counter which made it so much harder to decide what we want!!!


MmMmm...Tiramisu...
MMMMMM Cheesecake!

In the end, we settled for #14 (I can't even pronounce let alone remember how to spell it). Basically it was a SINGLE serve of mixed ice cream, choc orange cognac sauce, whipped cream and nuts. They usually come with slices of banana as well..... considering I could feel my stomache doubling over at the though of eating something as dense as banana, we decided to leave it out. As for the mixed ice cream, for a single serve, you get to choose your 3 scoops. For us, it was walnut, irish creme and rum and raisin. Don't be mislead by their use of the word "scoops". If you order 1 scoop of ice cream to eat in, you actually get the equivalent of 3 scoops! And our single serve turned out to be this:


Want a close up??

MmMmm Fudgy.....

Oh YUMM!!! Oh god my stomache is going to explode!! But...OH YUMM!! I'm not a huge fan of Rum and Raisin, and usually I would ask for it to be left out if we're ordering their rainbow bowl. But boy....I'm glad we ordered it! This is truely a rum and raisin ice cream as everything mouthful had some plump juicy raisins to munch on. The walnut was really nutty and added a nice texture to the ice cream. The Irish cream was nice, but I'd much prefer to drink a glass of baileys over ice....but then I am an alcoholic so you can ignore that comment. The whole bowl was drenched in their choc orange cognac sauce and omg! It tasted like molten jaffa lava! The whole thing was topped in whipped cream and crunchy toasted nuts. Not wanting to overeat and feel sick again, we scrapped the whipped cream off after eating all the nuts on top. We made a good effort and go through about 1/2 of it. Let me remind you, this is a serving for ONE. And SOMEONE wanted to order the Rainbow bowl for 2-3 people!! hehehe

Again, we walked out of the place clutching our stomaches trying to suck it in...but it was no use. I think I'm done eating out for awhile...actually...I think I'm done eating fullstop. I'm going to need a break from anything more filling than soup and salad...never again! But then I say that everytime.....but this time I'm serious!!

Spice I am
90 Wentworth Ave
Surry Hills

French Riviera
Liverpool St (Near Sussex St)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

R U trying to be a foodie blogger because it's not very good.

SoRMuiJAi said...

Are you trying to be sarcastic because you're not really good either

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