Morks, Canberra

Mork's is a modern Thai restaurant in Canberra located along the Kingston foreshore. It serves up creative takes on Thai dishes with items like fishball toast with kewpie and smoked Yarra Valley caviar or their signature dish Angel Prawns served under little clay domes .I also have just one piece of advice when dining at Mork's.

I've wanted to visit Mork's for a few years now ever since hearing about their take on Thai cuisine and Laura was more than happy to try it on our Canberra holiday. Mork's restaurant is by brothers Mork and Benn Ratanakosol who are both working this evening. Although there is indoor and outdoor seating available, the bitter cold and Laura's chest infection means that we are sitting inside. Although the room is sleek and contemporary with lots of glass the service from all of the staff is really lovely and helpful giving it a warmth.

We start with cocktails-a non alcoholic Lychee Spritz with grapefruit, lychee, lemon, elderflower tonic for me and a Femme Fatale for Laura. Both are very good and Laura's Femme Fatale is nicely balanced with Campari, Rhubarb, Bullit rye, orgeat and rosewater. I would like a bit more elderflower in my cocktail as the grapefruit is the dominant flavour in mine.

We start with some snacks. Laura was thinking about betel leaves all afternoon and is happy when she sees them on the menu. Betel leaves vary somewhat in size and these are very small, tiny even with a very small amount of crab on top. They're dwarfed by the large, long plate that they're served on.

The chicken skin bun is a soft, steamed bao bun filled with cucumber, sate sauce and a crispy crunchy salted chicken skin piece. I love the bites of the chicken skin but once you get to the sate sauce the chicken skin more provides texture than taste as the sate sauce is very strong in flavour.

Our favourite thing to eat of the whole meal is the fishball toast. It comes as a teeny canape sized disc of fishball toast (like prawn toast but they mention there's also scallops). The caviar and Kewpie just finish this crispy luscious bite off perfectly. Laura and I even contemplate getting more of these we like them so much.

The Angel Prawns are Mork's signature dish and they are four king prawns served shelled with the tails on and steamed with a red curry sauce in little clay pots with lids. The prawns are cooked until perfectly tender and the sauce is like a steamed fish custard like Otak Otak or Fish Amok and is very tasty but surprisingly sweet.

I love food from Chiang Mai and always gravitate towards it when I see it on a menu. These Chiang Mai egg noodles are curious though. The bowl is quite small as there's much more topping than noodles in so much as the usual ratio is reversed. The topping is tasty but it's strongly spiced and very, very strong in star anise and pepper.

Mains are quite pricey and range from $28 for tofu to $60 for short rib while a seafood curry is $45. Because Laura doesn't eat beef we decided to go for the eggplant dish as a shared main. When it arrives it looks like pan fried fish but it has a sticky, tasty sauce, a cascade of herbs and a matchstick rhubarb salad. And whatever you do get a bowl of the coconut rice to go with this (or any main). It's one of the best coconut rices I've had with a nice separation of grains and a strong coconut flavour.

Usually both Laura and I love corn desserts because we've travelled a lot in Asia where it's commonplace. My favourite corn desserts don't really taste that much like you're eating corn and you just get this mild sweetness. The Cornography is perhaps a bit more creamed corn and we'd love a bit more sweetness to this to tip it more into corn dessert category than creamed corn. Still the choux is crisp and it looks to be freshly filled.

We are both so much more smitten by the Monkey Magic which is their version of deep fried ice cream but is so much more than that. It's vanilla ice cream coated in banana bread and then a crunchy crumb layer, dulce de leche and then chocolate cookie crumbs on top. The banana bread is such a clever surprise and although this is enormous (ideal for sharing among 2 or 3 especially after a big meal).

The bill is a bit of a surprise at just under $300 for two people (with a 10% tip) especially since we shared a vegetarian main but it was the snacks that got us. I'd recommend going with the $60 per person set menu which nabs you the best of the current menu and perhaps supplementing it with a snack that you want (or an extra fishball toast).

So tell me Dear Reader, are you ever surprised by the bill or do you do a mental addition in your head when you order?

This meal was independently paid for.

Mork's

18/19 Eastlake Parade, Kingston ACT 2604

Phone: (02) 5134 6993

Tuesday to Thursday 6–9pm

Friday & Saturday 12–2pm, 6–9pm

Closed Sunday and Monday

morks.com.au