Tawandang, Haymarket
I don’t eat a lot of Thai food mainly because I am weak in the chilli department and always find myself guzzling drinks to put out the fire in my mouth. But the father unit and the mothership aka @alwayseating suggested newly opened Tawandang (706 George St, Sydney), a restaurant chain originating from Bangkok that was the first Thai-German microbrewery serving original German beer. Unfortch the Sydney branch doesn’t have a microbrewery but they do serve ginormous beer bazooka towers filled with Singha ($38/2L, $58/4L)!
The Ka Moo Tod ($22.90) aka deep fried pork leg happiness is basically the only German item on the menu but boy, is it tasty! Gloriously crispy skin and juicy, tender innards this is definitely a must-order. The scoop of mashed potato is fine and all but it’s the sauerkraut I’m strangely drawn to- instead of the usual distinctive sourness, the cabbage is flavoured with five spice giving the cabbage a savoury note that is really kinda addictive.
The boy chose the Deep Fried Catfish ($15.90) because he’d never tried catfish before but it probably wasn’t the best dish to truly showcase the taste of catfish as it was fried to a fluffy battered floss. Luckily it wasn’t at all oily and a spoonful of the floss with the refreshing salad underneath was the perfect balance of flavours with the accompanying sweet and sour mango sauce.
Continuing on with our unintentional deep fried JOURNEY is the Deep Fried Barramundi ($25.90) which is an impressive sight. The barra is golden and fried long enough that the fins are able to be crunched on but still leaving the flesh soft and tender.
The Deep Fried Crab Spring Rolls ($9.50) is a bit of a miss, we were mainly suckered in by the photo on the menu. The rolls were slim rods of crispylicious pastry with nubbins of crab meat and I mean sure it’s tasty dunked into the sweet plum sauce but it’s not something that blew my mind.
I heart salted fish so the Fried Rice with Salted Fish and Kale ($13.90) caught my eye. Not too sure where the kale was but I didn’t miss it- the fried rice was incredibly fragrant with just the right amount of salted fish and enough fluffy egg to bring a smile to my face. We ended up ordering two lots because it rocked my world!
Tawandang has a special all you can drink deal for $4.50/per hour so you can get your fill of Thai milk tea, Thai lemon ice tea, Thai black coffee or Thai ice black tea. Woo! Value! Shame beer isn’t part of the deal…
We had to run for our trains so we didn’t have time to order dessert but I’ll definitely return because I loved the food and the service was friendly and efficient.
