Dispatch from Spatchcock, Randwick

Got a craving for Thai food? Perhaps you're seeing a movie in Randwick and want somewhere closeby to eat to the Randwick Ritz. Spatchcock Thai serves up all the Thai classics in a casual setting. Prices are excellent and service is fast making this the sort of place you can go mid week.

It was mid afternoon when the craving struck and I called my parents to see if they wanted to go out for Thai that evening. The original place that we wanted to go was full so we drove up to Randwick while I searched online for places to eat. It had to be Asian because while my parents try other things, they really are so loyal to their geographical place of birth. We decided on Spatchcock in Randwick, on what seems to be a row of Thai restaurants right next to each other. I have no idea how the competition works here.

Despite the fact that there are so many Thai restaurants, Spatchcock fills up this Thursday evening as the night progresses. There is a menu of specials and a regular two sided menu with all of the usual Thai stir fries, curries and salads. Alas the fantastic Thai drinks do not feature and it's just a choice of regular soft drinks. Prices however are very good and it's probably the difference between an occasion Thai restaurant and a reliable, cheap and cheerful local.

The food comes out quickly as there are only a few tables here when we place our order. The massaman curry, everyone's favourite, is only available as a beef curry and it is a very sizable portion with large, velvety soft pieces of beef, sweet potato, cassia bark and finished with a lick of coconut milk. It's sweet, saucy and delicious and you definitely want to order rice to go with it to make the most of the sauce.

The roasted duck salad is a bit different to the ones that we usually get. Here the boneless roast duck slices sit on top of a mixed leaf, tomato, onion and cucumber salad with a light dressing and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. It's not bad although there isn't much dressing so the salad is a tad dry.

This is my father's favourite. We choose to have this with prawns but you can have it with any sort of meat or vegtables and tofu. The rice is stir fried with sweet chilli jam sauce some egg and large slices of carrot and roasted cashew nuts on top. There is a bit too much carrot (the menu suggested that it there were other vegetables but it really is mostly carrot) but the rice is tasty and well flavoured.

The pad thai is stir fried thin rice noodles cooked with egg, tofu, garlic chives and bean sprouts and finished with crumbled peanuts and chilli. There is a generous amount of chicken in this dish and its sweetness makes it quite moreish.

I wasn't quite as smitten with the grilled marinated chicken pieces that were served with deep fried crispy halved rice balls although the lime chilli dressing was very good indeed. But we ordered so much between the four of us that it didn't really matter that I didn't go for one dish.

One of the other favourites is the special. It's a stir fried king prawn with chilli, strings of green peppercorn, kra chai (a type of galangal), lime leaves and snow peas, broccoli, carrot and plenty of onion it is topped with flavoursome fried basil leaves. the prawns are large and succulent and very generously portioned.

There is ice cream available as well as one Thai dessert-a sticky rice topped with Thai custard. As we've ordered so much we share just the one dessert. The sticky rice is topped with a sweet, eggy Thai custard topping and served warm. We all go for a corner of it with our spoons and I raise my white flag early while Mr NQN demolishes the rest.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever follow your cravings? What sort of food do you usually crave? And do you think having lots of the same restaurants together is a good business idea or bad?

This meal was independently paid for.

Spatchcock

Shop2/25-31 Perouse Rd, Randwick NSW 2031
Phone: (02) 9398 5757
Open 7 night 5:00-9.45 pm