Chat Thai Circular Quay (Sydney, AUSTRALIA) ★★★★☆

It's been five days since we arrived in beautiful Sydney but amazingly, we have only visited different suburbs by exploring different train routes but where's the touristy stuff? Finally, we are bringing those to the table this afternoon.

We are meeting Jelloman's aunt, her eldest cousin and her son at Circular Quay for lunch. Yeah, my camera is fully charged, and raring to go.

We got off Circular Quay Station and the plan was that we kept walking slowly towards The Rocks while Aunt I stayed behind to wait for her daughter. First up for us, Sydney's Opera House from far out. We ran into a tour group from Vietnam while we were photographing this. I wonder why there was no tour group from our homeland.



Of course, Sydney Harbour Bridge. We saw a photo or video of this almost every year when New Year countdown festivities were reported on TV.

After 30 minutes of walking around, we got back together as a group at Circular Quay. Soon, we realized that not many restaurants open as early as 11:30am but luckily, we found Chat Thai which was already welcoming customers with open arms. 

Chat Thai is a Thai restaurant chain serving Thai dishes with a modern twist. 

I wanted to check them out in Chatswood a few days ago but Jelloman opted for ramen on that day.

Iced Thai milk tea – I would come back here just for the Thai milk tea! This was very very rich in tea, condensed milk and caramel (I think) flavors. Yes, it's a tad sweet but that's the way I like it! Very solid start.

Tua Bap Goong – We ordered this out of curiosity. The Chinese translation on the food menu (Yes, there was Chinese there!) said Thai style har gow (steamed shrimp dumpling) and that got all of us interested.

  

The steamed coconut rice dumplings came with fillings of minced prawn, topped nicely with shredded coconut. There was a small plate of coconut sauce serving as a dip. I thought it was a pretty interesting dish. The minced prawn inside the dumpling tasted a bit like Chinese dried shrimp but without the crunch.

Som Dtum Thai – Green papaya salad with peanuts and dried shrimps. Aunt I's favorite with green papaya. I was a bit surprised by the excess of sharp acidity.

Khor Mhu Yaang – Char grilled pork jowls with nahm jim jaew. I thought these were the pork collar part but turned out I was wrong. It's the pork jowls. Pretty fatty but pretty tasty at the same time. As usual, it was accompanied by the traditional Thai chili sauce, nahm jim jaew.

Kai Jiew Bpu – Golden and puffy crab meat omelette. This was of course my call and I was happy to find out that everyone loves it!

The omelette was picture-perfectly puffy with loads of crab meat in the middle. Tasted exactly the same as the ones in Bangkok.

Amy's Noodle – Who's Amy? 

It was a toss-up for us deciding between a handful of noodle dishes and somehow we picked this stir-fried egg noodles with king prawns, choi sum, wombok and fresh chili. The egg noodles tasted a bit like instant noodles to me and the overcooking made it a little soggy. The three king prawns were likely the lone bright spot of the dish.

Itim Todt – Just one dessert to share as everyone was so full. This was one that looked the best on paper, fried coconut ice-cream with salted coconut caramel sauce. Who won't love fried ice-cream on a hot and sunny day?

I thought the batter was a bit disappointing. As we sliced the ice-cream ball into half, the crispy batter almost came off immediately. This was okay but not like what we have all imagined.

After the meal, we turned our attention to the nearby Sydney Opera House.

A lot of fine-dining restaurants in Sydney including Bennelong here, are not open for lunch except for weekends. I wonder if the shortage of tourists had anything to do with it. 

This was a very nice meal and I am delighted to have my Thai tea fix on this trip. But secretly, I am looking forward to tonight's fine-dining experience already. It will mark our first-ever overseas fine-dining experience in the COVID-19 era. Something we should remember for a while.

Food Rating: 5.5/10

Price: $$$

Address: Gateway Shopping Centre, L05/1 Macquarie Pl, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia

Closest Metro Station: Circular Quay

Tel: +61 2-9247-3053

Opening Hours: 11:00am - 9:00pm (Sun - Wed), 11:00am - 9:30pm (Thur - Sat)