Sawadee was a great venue for the January Zomato foodie meetup, with impeccable and attentive staff who were respectful of the constant conversation whilst looking after everyone there. This would make a perfect place for a fancy dinner in Ponsonby without costing too much (for Ponsonby anyway), and I really loved the decor too for the authentic feel. I don't think there's any question as to what is being served in this restaurant when you look around.
Apologies in advance for the photos. My bridge camera died and so all my reviews recently have been reliant on my smartphone's photography capabilities, if you've noticed a change from my previous reviews in that regard.
I started off the night with some fruit punch. Sawadee has a huge selection of cocktails and mocktails which I highly recommend you try out. There were a lot of boldly coloured confections being consumed around the table, and I was definitely intrigued by their interesting mixes on the menu. The punch was just right, not too sweet, but boldly coloured and really tall. Taller than I expected, anyway. Everyone around the table seemed pretty impressed.
There were three entrees. First up was the Sai Aua, which was a spicy chili-flecked pork sausage. It was minced very nicely and had a great texture, but I personally wouldn't recommend it if you don't like spicy things. It has quite a kick, balanced by the interesting addition of lemongrass and limey leaves, which is accentuated by its accompanying garnish.
My favourite entree though was the Moo Ping, the pork skewers marinated in Thai herbs and then charcoal BBQ'd. They were tender and flavoursome. I would never have guessed there were any herbs involved, because whatever they were brought out the flavour in the pork rather than being the star of the show. This was very good, although perhaps a bit chewy for skewers. That depends on if you like your meat on the well done slipping-off-the-skewer side or on the converse side of things.
Thirdly, the Thai style fresh spring rolls, or Poh Pia Sod, were also quite tasty. They're not like conventional spring rolls in that instead of the deep fried crunchy skin I expected, these used the translucent skin one might find used around Chinese har gow. The chicken and shrimp inside were al dente and perfectly cooked, and I also really liked the tamarind sauce that accompanied the dish. The skin was very sticky though, which is not a major problem as it's tricky to cook right (I know from my own attempts at making a similar skin in my own kitchen) but if this is mastered, diners can spend less time wrestling the spring rolls off the plate. Yes.
The mains are the standouts of the evening for me though.
Firstly, the Yum Pla Foo (crispy snapper flaks salad) was my favourite main. It's like these snapper flakes which are reminiscent of pork cracklings, and all interwoven into a patty, atop a salad of apple and onion julienned. The crunchy crumbly texture is very nice, and mixed with the rice the dish as a whole was aromatic.
The second main was Goong Ob Woonsen. I thought it was really unusual to bake prawns in a casserole, but it worked well here, and the glass noodles had soaked most of the prawn juices. I didn't notice until second helpings of the noodles that they were actually spicy, so good were the prawns.
Thirdly, the seafood curry served in a coconut was also a standout of the evening. Some people are hesitant towards curries because they kind of veer into a very soggy rice situation, and I sometimes feel this way, but this dish was great because the seafood and egg had soaked up all the curry paste and flavour so you're left with a drier curry. It sounds terrible when I put it like that, but the crumbly curry tasting stuff reminded me a lot of mixing my rice with fish roe, where it's all very aromatic and delicious. The scallops were especially delicious here. It's not so spicy that you can't taste everything else, and totally worth it.
Dessert (Tab Tim Grob) was interesting. Perhaps not for everyone, but very authentic Thai style. They had smoked coconut milk using a sort of special candle looking thing, and did so several times. In this milk was a water chestnut or two, lots of chewy tapoica, and young coconut meat. You can sweeten your own bowl to your liking with some of their sugar syrup, which I thought was a great idea. People can vary greatly about dessert preferences. I'm used to eating water chestnuts in a savoury setting, so I wasn't sure if I liked that kind of texture happening here, but the young coconut meat was delicious, and the white tapoica particularly nice, sort of like gummy lollies. It took some explaining, but when I explained that it's pretty much the stuff at the bottom of bubble tea, everyone got what tapoica was. For me, I didn't like the red tapoica so much because I could taste whatever was used to colour it, whereas the translucent white tapoica was relatively better tasting because it had instead soaked more of the coconut milk taste than colouring taste.
Overall, a really lovely dining experience with great service from entry to exit. I highly recommend Sawadee's mains in particular, but you can't go wrong really with a menu full of delicious Thai food. Nom!
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