Yok Yor is a casual Thai restaurant on Campbell Street, a block down from the Capitol Theatre. There's a good sized outdoor section and it is one of the few Sydney restaurants open late which makes it an ideal spot for a post-theatre meal.
It was a Thursday night and Mr NQN and I had just been to the opening night of Joseph and The Technicolour Dreamcoat. Buoyed by the show's intensely catchy songs, I am humming and singing down Campbell Street when we reach Yok Yor. A lot of the eateries here close by 10pm but Yok Yor stays open until 10:30pm so it's a good spot to settle our rumblings post-musical tummies.
We ask for recommendations because the picture menu is comprehensive and our friendly waitress points out a cauldron of soup with all sorts of goodies in it. "I think this is enough for two of you," she tells us smiling. But she doesn't know that I can't just order one dish. So I throw in another dish, sticky rice, a pandan drink and a dessert and finally there's an order I can live with.
There are the usual drinks like Thai milk tea and whole coconuts but I'm interested in the pandan drink because I don't often see that on a menu. Mr NQN usually loves an interesting drink but this evening he is busy looking up colourful coats to buy. When I ask him what he wants to order he says that he is fine with water. The pandan juice is aromatic, sweet and delicious and Mr NQN claims this as his own once he tries it.
The tom yum soup cauldron comes out and there's a flame inside and that's to keep everything warm rather than cook it (although that blows out quite quickly). It doesn't quite look like the menu picture and there are no prawns like the picture shows but there are plenty of things from meatballs, squid, mussels, mushroom, cabbage and a whole egg in a tangy tom yum soup. It's massive, realistically enough to feed 3 or even 4 people and even with hungry Mr NQN we can barely make a dent in this.
Our waitress pointed us towards the Sator Pad Goong as a dish that you don't often find on menus. It is mince pork stir fried with spicy sator or petai that are bitter beans or commonly known as stinky beans. They look like broad beans but they do have a distinct smell not unlike garbage but it's not super strong (the effects are mostly seen in urine, like asparagus). It's tasty with plenty of butterflied prawns, flavours of garlic, chilli and kaffir lime leaves and goes well with sticky rice extracted piping hot from the packet.
I wanted some mango sticky rice for dessert but Mr NQN loves durian so we compromised with this durian sticky rice dessert. Ordinarily I am not a huge fan of durian (I can't separate the smell from the taste) but this comes in the form of milder custardy textured durian (Thai durian is milder than Malaysian). It sits on a bed of soft sticky rice and lots of sweet and salty sweet coconut cream.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried stink beans? And can you ever only order one dish?
This meal was independently paid for.
Yok Yor
Entrance from Campbell Street side, Shop G06/323 Castlereagh St, Haymarket NSW 2000
Hours: Sunday to Thursday 11:30 am–11 pm, Friday & Saturday 11:30 am–12 am
Phone: 0415 817 099
https://www.yokyor.com.au/
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