Rama Thai

Rama Thai

495 Burke Rd, Hawthorn East

(Ph) 9822 7322

Catch up with J and S! I was looking in my Entertainment Book for something and came across Rama Thai - seemed quite good ratings on Urbanspoon so thought we'd check it out - oh how wrong I was =(

S got there quite early so I dunno if it was 'cause of that that the waitress started the night off badly with us =/ We ordered our food and waited ages before any dishes came out, while the table next to us who ordered AFTER us got their food before us =(

We got one entree to share - Golden Bags - deep fried pastry filled with minced chicken or prawns - spicy prawns (4) $9.50

The waitress had accidentally given us some chicken golden bags (pictured above), and just as we were about to start eating she comes back and tells us they were chicken and not prawn. So we waited a few minutes before she came back out with some prawn golden bags (pictured below) - which don't look as regular as the chicken ones and look smaller =(

I started biting into mine when I came across something cold and mushy - the prawns were raw! There was only the one waitress so I waited ages for her attention before she came and I complained - she apologized and took the dish away and gave us a new dish. FINALLY we got a plate of cooked (very hot inside this time!) golden bags - was alright, kinda like a spring roll actually.

We waited ages before our mains came. Crystal Pad Thai - stir-fried vermicelli, egg, tofu, bean shoot, garlic chive, and peanut with tamarind sauce - chicken $14.90

For a change thought we'd try pad thai with vermicelli instead of rice noodles! Actually quite nice - love the blend of sweet, salty and sour flavours =) Would be nicer if the chicken breast pieces were smaller so they're not so tough though - like at One Thai =)

Thought we should get a vegetarian curry so it'd be our greens for the night =) Gang Keaw Warn (Green Curry) - green curry with coconut milk, bean, basil, bamboo shoot - mixed vegetables $14.90

Damn I forgot green curry is actually quite spicy - though I like how they used coconut milk in it, I thought red curry is the one usually with coconut milk and green curry doesn't?

We got 2 serves of Coconut Rice (steamed rice in coconut milk and lime leaves) $3.50 per head and one Roti Bread - pan-fried Indian style bread - with peanut sauce $5.00

They gave us one silver bowl of coconut rice - which was delicious by itself and with the green curry sauce. After a while we ran out and I thought it was $3.50 per serve and they just gave us the 2 serves in one bowl but it was actually per head! So we could have gotten more ah well =P I forgot Indian roti is not as fluffy as Malaysian roti so this tasted more like a crepe/pancake but I liked the peanut sauce that came with it - ended up eating the roti with the peanut sauce instead of with the curry =)

We were pretty full by this stage and it was actually getting quite late 'cause they were quite slow taking orders and bringing dishes out - I guess can't expect much given there was only one waitress working =/

But there is always room for dessert! We decided to share 2 desserts - we ordered the desserts then a few minutes later the waitress comes out and tells us there is only one serve of vanilla icecream left and we can pick a different flavour of icecream for the other one - how can there only be one serve of icecream left?! We said we'd get coconut icecream for the other one.

Kao Tom Mud Taro or Banana - steamed sweet sticky rice stuffed with taro or banana served with Vanilla icecream $7.00

Taro sweet sticky rice with coconut icecream! The taro was just in the middle of the sticky rice and in a big lump - would have been nicer if it was spread out a bit more but it was quite tasty - actually went very well with the coconut icecream =) The taro flavour was actually quite mild - might have been better if we got banana instead actually ah well.

Coconut Pudding - steamed rice flour and palm sugar topped with coconut milk served with vanilla icecream $7.00

This reminds me of the Thai coconut pancakes (like at I Spicy 2) or the savoury Vietnamese mini pancakes (like at Thanh Nga Nine) but without the crunchy bottom. Still this was quite tasty, I like the palm sugar flavour mixed with the coconut milk. You can see the icecream starting to melt here already - so this was their last serve of vanilla icecream hmm...

Food~
3/10 - raw prawns in the golden bags is definitely a no go, and half melted icecream is not cool either, but apart from that the rest was alright

Service~
1/5 - they really should have more than one waitress working on a night, it ended being quite busy and she was running around constantly, at one stage the manager(?) came out as well - I wonder why he couldn't have helped out the whole time?

Atmosphere~
3/5 - quite a nice cosy restaurant

The Entertainment voucher gave us 25% off but I only realised after we left that they charged us $2 extra like they rounded it up, I don't mind giving it as tips but I don't like how they try to jip us like that!

C.
xo