Ghin Khao

Ghin Khao

242 Swanston St, Melbourne

(Ph) 9663 3345

☆☆

P had his uni awards night which I went to watch, and at first we were planning on eating there - as in eat a dinner's worth of canapes =P But the canapes were not very nice and most were cold, and P wanted to go celebrate, so we decided to go get some proper food =P 

Since this was very spur of the moment, I hadn't planned anywhere to go. P wanted to go to one of the Vietnamese restaurants on Swanston St but I refused to eat Pho yet again =P Then I remembered seeing Ghin Khao in the Cheap Eats Guide with ☆☆s. I hadn't tried this restaurant either the past 5 years I've been a student, funnily enough it's another Thai restaurant (see Your Thai).

I told P we shouldn't have Pad Thai again, but of course, he wouldn't listen to me =P We decided to get one entree, a main and a dessert and since I was choosing the entree and dessert, I let P choose the main. 

They gave us fancy cutlery, which looks nice but is actually very heavy! And since the cup is metal as well, it made the water very icily cold! I don't remember cutlery being like this in Thailand hmm =P

I ordered the Son-in-Law Eggs because it had 2 stars next to it and it sounded very interesting - Deep fried" boiled eggs garnished with minced prawns and tamarind sauce - $7.50.

Son-in-Law Eggs

It wasn't what I expected - I didn't know what I expected actually, but not really a salad. Nonetheless, it was very tasty! The eggs were slightly crispy on the outside but not fully deep fried, and went very well with the tamarind sauce. I didn't realise the little bits were prawns because they were sweetly marinated and deep fried as well. The only downside was there wasn't enough salad leaves - well, P ate most of it and I still had half an egg to go, which I ate with the main...

For the main, we were tossing between the Duck curry or the Thai Calamari stirfry, but P decided to go for the typical Pad Thai, and chose prawns 'cause it had 2 stars against it, even though I don't like prawns.

Pad Thai with Seafood

Don't know why but the last 2 pad thai's we've had, the bean sprouts are not cooked and are just placed next to the noodles (re Your Thai). This pad thai wasn't that spectacular - well in my opinion anyway. The noodles were really thin - I like thick rice noodles, makes each bite more substantial. And maybe 'cause it was prawns =P It came with 5 large prawns which I thought was pretty decent given the dish was only $12.90. Even though I say it's not "spectacular", I still liked it very much, dunno why but we really like the pad thai sauce - I guess 'cause it was such a fail when we tried to make it at home =P


To end the night, we had the Set of Three Desserts. They sell a fourth dessert here (Black sticky rice with longan & coconut milk) but they had sold out of it =(

Set of Three Desserts

So the set comes with a Toddy Palm Cake, a Coconut Dessert and a Banana, Sticky Rice & Black Bean.

Coconut Dessert

The Coconut dessert is a two layer dessert made from rice flour and coconut cream. The top layer was more liquid and was more like just coconut cream, while the bottom layer was more solid and jelly-like. It doesn't look very appetizing in the picture, but it actually went very well with the Toddy Palm Cake! 

The Toddy Palm Cake is a fluffy "toddy palm" flavoured rice flour cake steamed in a banana leaf and garnished with shredded young coconut. It kinda just tasted like a sponge cake - I guess 'cause I don't really know what "toddy palm" is =P I just looked it up and it's the name of the species of palms used to make palm wine... hmmm... =P

Banana, Sticky Rice & Black Bean

The Banana, Sticky Rice & Black Bean was my favourite - banana and sticky rice wrapped and steamed in a banana leaf (pretty straight forward from the name =P) I actually don't think there was any banana in it, could not taste it, and I wouldn't be surprised if they left it out given bananas now cost $13/kg at the supermarkets =O But anyway, it was very delicious despite having no banana taste. The black bean tasted very much like red beans, and looks kinda like it too =P I really like sticky rice - sweet or savoury (like 粽子 / zong zi) =) I don't like rice normally, but sticky glutinous rice is definitely an exception! <3


No disappointment at all, from yet another Swanston St restaurant =)


7.5/10


C.
xo

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

28/11/12

I found a Shop-a-Docket voucher for Ghin Khao - buy-1-get-1-free =) I'm such a sucker for vouchers so we came here for lunch one day.

I was craving some Pad Thai so we got it again - really would have liked it if they had slightly cooked the bean sprouts slightly but still not bad overall.

P ordered the Red Duck Curry this time - was surprisingly really tasty! Creamy and coconuty with lots of tender duck meat and some lychees as well =) And it wasn't spicy at all which suited us very well =)

Food~

8/10 - think will go for some of their other curries next time they seem to do them really well =)

Service~

3/5 - food came promptly and waiters weren't hush rushing around the restaurant unlike the other typical Asian restaurants

Atmosphere~

3/5 - not bad for a Swanston Street restaurant =) and relatively clean in comparison too =P

C.

xo