AmyHuang
Jason KingSpice I Am
March 29th 2006 06:48
88 Wentworth Ave Surry Hills NSW 2010 Australia - (02) 9280 0928
It's about time to jump on the bandwagon and enthuse about Spice I Am. It seems to be everyone's baby in the last year, and with good reason; it is seriously good. For very little you get authentic Thai, with real flavours. The dishes are strong, chilli and complex, and I love it.
Spice I Am is a little hole in the wall near Central, and admittedly it's not much to look at. Plastic tables and multicoloured stools which overflow onto the footpath. The typical tiled white floor, in a room the size of an average living room, with a cramped kitchen in the back. But no one's here to admire the surroundings, and definitely no one's complaining.
The fishcakes are crispy and sweet and chilli and such a welcome change from the fish cakes we have come to expect, those which taste and look like old tins of tuna. It's an adorably attractive deep fried mess with a multitude of crunchy and sticky textures and a wonderful sweet chilli sauce. A sprinkle of coriander lightens and freshens it all, and you know you're on to something good.
If you're offered the barramundi special with green mango salad, for God's sake take it; this has to be one of the best dishes around. A huge piece of barramundi is fried in a light batter until the outside is impossibly crisp and the inside is wonderfully flavoursome. But the real gem is the salad which provides a freshness and spiciness that cuts the flavour of the oily crisp fish. Thinly sliced green mango is dressed with lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar, vinegar, chilli and coriander to create a most wonderful and refreshing salad, marrying perfectly with the density of the fish. This is modern Thai food, using Australian produce, which shows I Am's skill with Thai flavours; evidence that they invent as well as they adhere to tradition.
Trust me, even though you may now know exactly what it tastes like, you'll order it again next time, and be just as amazed and excited by the flavours.
The Ho Mok, fish curry steamed in banana leaf, is the new savoury panna cotta. It has a gelatinous consistency and no discernable chunks of flesh. Instead, shredded fish has fallen apart in a rich coconut milk broth, and has been set by steaming. The flavours are much stronger and complex then your corner, aptly-named 'Thai-rrible', out of the bottle Thai place; but it's the texture that makes this curry a marvel. The semi-solidified sauce makes this intriguing and fantastically different.
The service is friendly and helpful over the occasional language barrier, and they'll advise you on how to balance the meal if you're unsure. Because Spice I Am is evidence of the Thai ideal that a meal should be about a balance of flavours. Sweet, spicy, hot, and sour all play a role, either combined within a dish or with different elements in the meal.
You could pick anything on the menu and be confident in its quality; but it's more interesting and usually tastier to stick to the more unusual offerings. Tom Klong is a piece of crispy roasted fish in an incredibly sour dark broth; although described as a soup I'm not sure you could really eat it by the spoonful - it's best on rice. And so on, every visit highlights something new and exciting. If you're still unsure of where to start, go for the signature dishes marked with a '[S]' and you'll be right. You can't really miss when Thai is done this well, and so cheaply, because of the fantastic array of flavours on offer that everyone should experience. It's about sharing it around, after all.
Spice I Am is a little hole in the wall near Central, and admittedly it's not much to look at. Plastic tables and multicoloured stools which overflow onto the footpath. The typical tiled white floor, in a room the size of an average living room, with a cramped kitchen in the back. But no one's here to admire the surroundings, and definitely no one's complaining.
The fishcakes are crispy and sweet and chilli and such a welcome change from the fish cakes we have come to expect, those which taste and look like old tins of tuna. It's an adorably attractive deep fried mess with a multitude of crunchy and sticky textures and a wonderful sweet chilli sauce. A sprinkle of coriander lightens and freshens it all, and you know you're on to something good.
If you're offered the barramundi special with green mango salad, for God's sake take it; this has to be one of the best dishes around. A huge piece of barramundi is fried in a light batter until the outside is impossibly crisp and the inside is wonderfully flavoursome. But the real gem is the salad which provides a freshness and spiciness that cuts the flavour of the oily crisp fish. Thinly sliced green mango is dressed with lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar, vinegar, chilli and coriander to create a most wonderful and refreshing salad, marrying perfectly with the density of the fish. This is modern Thai food, using Australian produce, which shows I Am's skill with Thai flavours; evidence that they invent as well as they adhere to tradition.
Trust me, even though you may now know exactly what it tastes like, you'll order it again next time, and be just as amazed and excited by the flavours.
The Ho Mok, fish curry steamed in banana leaf, is the new savoury panna cotta. It has a gelatinous consistency and no discernable chunks of flesh. Instead, shredded fish has fallen apart in a rich coconut milk broth, and has been set by steaming. The flavours are much stronger and complex then your corner, aptly-named 'Thai-rrible', out of the bottle Thai place; but it's the texture that makes this curry a marvel. The semi-solidified sauce makes this intriguing and fantastically different.
You could pick anything on the menu and be confident in its quality; but it's more interesting and usually tastier to stick to the more unusual offerings. Tom Klong is a piece of crispy roasted fish in an incredibly sour dark broth; although described as a soup I'm not sure you could really eat it by the spoonful - it's best on rice. And so on, every visit highlights something new and exciting. If you're still unsure of where to start, go for the signature dishes marked with a '[S]' and you'll be right. You can't really miss when Thai is done this well, and so cheaply, because of the fantastic array of flavours on offer that everyone should experience. It's about sharing it around, after all.
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