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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Saffron Thai - Hawthorn East

Location: 223 Riversdale Rd, Hawthorn
Phone: 03 9818 1932
Time: always Lunch time
Cuisine Type: Thai Food
Price: Lunch specials are always around $10 (a little more if you have seafood)

What got dished out:

One of my favourite dishes has to be the curry GREEN chicken, it's not the most creamiest of dishes because I've been to places where it's so sickly creamy that it makes me want to puke. It's not also too coconutty either. It's like instead of one can of coconut can they put in two. But the one thing about this dish is that it's a tad spicy. Actually it's a little bit more spicy than what I can normally handle. But when the dish is this good, I just buy two cans of coke instead of two.
They're also generous with the amounts of chicken, I've been places where you're playing a game of "spot the chicken?" type of thing and then find delight when I see one.

The rice is coconut rice, well I think it's coconut rice. As you can tell, I don't really pay attention to such small details, lets just be honest here, this has to be the nicest curry chicken I've had in awhile, so I don't really care what the rice is. I just know it's not badly cooked.

But surely this dish can't be that awesome, there must be SOME complaint about it. There is. I'm no fan of carrots, zucchini and definately not a fan of bamboo shoots. I get why they put it in. But like I always say, you don't make friends with salad. generally I take a bite of one or two of the carrot and zucchini but I spend the rest of my time picking out the "green bits".
They also put in my honest opinion too much bamboo shoots. I commented to my friend "do i look like a Panda to you? why the hell is there so much of this rubbish" her response was obviously "u idiot".

Normally I get this in a take away box, and normally i never actually finish the dish. But the great thing is it still taste as good as it does the second day. provided i don't nuke the food in the microwave. =]

I've tried OTHER dishes like the chicken and cashew nuts, and the Pad Thai (chicken and the prawn version) but to be honest both have been hit and misses. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's great and sometimes I'd be like "WTF, i can't eat this rubbish" But the curry is abosolutely awesomeness.

My thoughts:
This place definately has something good going on, there's actually OTHER Saffron Thai's lurking about Melbourne. I haven't actually tried the other chains myself but I do like going here.
You can either opt to eat in or do the whole take away thing. I generally takeaway because there's nothing more sad than sitting alone and eating. unless of course you can look busy working on a laptop. Seriously I might as well tag myself on the forehead with "I'm a loser because I have no one to eat with". HAHAH I know i have issues.

One thing I might add is that they are quick. You place your order and before you know it the food's ready. Sometimes even I'm amazed. But that's it about service. Their customer service is kinda lacking.
I've been to OTHER Thai restaurants and it seems like it's the same deal. They're not exactly friendly. They bark at you. It's strange because I hear lots of people who go to Thailand and they tell me that it's the most hospitable country ever, I have Thai friends who are absolutely lovely, but for whatever reason it doesn't show when it comes to the hospitality industry. They all look ANGRY .

My first visit to the place almost put me off. Seriously, the girl at the counter looked like she was going eat me up more or less had i not ordered the food. It looked like it would almost kill her to smile. Friendly is definately NOT their forte.
and had it not been for their awesome food, i probably would have never gone back because i hate being treated with such disrespect especially if the food is merely average or borderline average.

In saying that, being a regular, the girls have managed to warm up to me. I once commented on how pretty their earrings were, and since then they all smile at me when i come in and have a friendly banter. If only they were this friendly from the get go. So now I enjoy going there a lot more.
I used to order and run as quickly as possible, okay it wasn't because of them. I just wanted to eat my curry.

I would recommend it to anyone, just ignore the coldness, they'll warm up to you, just tell them they're pretty or something. lol

Thai Saffron on Urbanspoon

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