Lalor Thai has been the sole food retailer in a small group of 5-6 shops in Lalor Park for as long as I can remember. It’s not near other amenities like a larger shopping complex or the train station, and for as long as it’s been there I have always wondered when it would close, simply because how does a lone restaurant survive in the middle of nowhere? Turns out you survive by serving up good quality food (duh…) as we discovered after spotting them rated at 3.8/5.0 on Zomato.
I’m partial to sweet curries so this is the Mussaman Beef Curry ($15.90).
This is a ‘mild and sweet curry with coconut milk, potatoes, peanut, crisp red onion and Thai herbs’.
This wasn’t a particularly memorable curry with the overall flavour being too sweet. This seems to be the case with many musssaman curries and detracts from it being a savoury dinner item. The medallions of beef were a tad overcooked with a slightly chewy texture, although the giant hunks of potato (think half a large potato) was tender and fluffy.
The very lacklustre first experience with pad thai in my first year of uni left me reluctant to try it again, but D’s had many tasty ones in the interim, so I trust his tastebuds with the Pad Thai Noodle ($12.90)
This is ‘beef and traditional Thai fried rice noodle with bean sprout, ground peanut and egg’.
D tells me this pad thai tastes delicious like most other pad thai he’s eaten. And as D assured me, this dish delivered on all the flavours with sweet, the sour, the savoury, and all the textures with the good bite in the noodles, the tender beef, the crunchy peanuts and the crisp carrots and capsicum. By the end of the plate though, I did feel the sweetness built up a bit too much.
While Thai food may not always be to our taste, it’s clear why Lalor Thai has survived for so long in such an isolated location. We don’t frequent the area anymore, but if we did we’d be happy to return to try other dishes.
Lalor Thai is located at 6/36-40 Johnson Ave, Lalor Park NSW 2147.