Our plans to eat out and then see a movie have just stopped with the food lately. It’s not for lack of trying — there’s either some unforeseen restriction to the movie tickets or change to the showing times on the day. And so it was the case with our visit to Red Spoon Thai Restaurant & Bar in Top Ryde Shopping Centre.
With positive reviews from D’s mother and the internet in general, we were anticipating another Thai restaurant to rotate with our favourite Khao Pla in nearby Macquarie Park.
The restaurant is located on the Piazza and makes for a rather uncomfortable experience during the daytime when the bright exterior streams into the wide front of the restaurant and contrasts with the dark interior. Poor first (or second?) impression aside —
This is the Duck Lychee Spicy Salad ($21.00), ‘a salad of roasted duck, lychee, lime juice, coconut cream, drizzled with chilli jam dressing’.
The duck was crispy and decently portioned with a moreish char-grilled flavour. The measly four lychees, though, were a big disappointment because not only were lychees featured in the name of the dish, but they were using canned (and hence cheap) rather than fresh lychees despite it being in season. The rest of the salad consisted of similarly inexpensive ingredients — lettuce, celery, carrot and apple — leaving me wondering what efforts they were putting into the salad to earn its price. That aside, the dressing was overly salty and sweet, not at all spicy and tasted much like sweet chilli sauce with coconut cream and lime juice.
This is the Phad Thai ($15.50) with Chicken Breast Fillet (+$3.00), ‘traditional Thai style fried thin rice noodles, peanuts, tofu, egg and bean sprouts’.
The highlight of this dish was the noodles, which had a good bite much like the one we enjoy at Khao Pla. But the flavour was heavy, without any acidity from the usual slice of lime or lemon to cut through the saltiness and sweetness of the sauce. It also contained a whole heap of onion and capsicum with a side of sugar that looked pretty and added colour but were neither here nor there. This is another dish that didn’t live up to the price it commanded, which is higher than what is usually charged for pad thai at Thai restaurants.
With our favourite Khao Pla so close by, we’d rather travel that extra distance for Thai food with flavour and ingredients that earn its price than return to Red Spoon. The flavours here taste much too subdued and sweetened for the Western palate.
Red Spoon Thai Restaurant & Bar is located at R3002, La Piazza, Top Ryde Shopping Centre, 109-129 Blaxland Road, Ryde NSW 2112.