Restaurant Review: Devonshire Thai, Surry Hills

Last night I went for dinner at Devonshire Thai in Surry Hills. We were looking for a quick and cheap eat before seeing That Face at the nearby Belvoir Theatre.

From the outside the restaurant doesn't look anything special, a run of the mill Thai (they seem to be everywhere in Sydney) with large doors and windows opening onto the street. There seemed to be far too many staff for the number of tables buzzing around.

The menu was pretty broad with a two pages of stir fries, curries, rice dishes, noodles and salads. All of my favourites were there including som tum papaya salad, larb and pad thai. The only thing missing was the crispy pork from my local street stall in Bangkok.

Dave and I shared a duck curry and pork larb (a minced pork salad). I really liked the flavour of the dishes, you could tell that they had been made by a Thai chef. The larb had a lovely balance of heat from the chili, kick from the lemongrass, sourness from the lime and hints of fish sauce. It really was rather good.

Then what took the food up another level for me was how they had tried to integrate some local Australian ingredients into the, otherwise authentic, Thai food. The duck curry had a couple of hidden grapes and strawberry halves in it. Before trying them my initial reaction was sceptical, but they went really well. The textures are complimentary and they gave a little bust of sweetness to the dish. The larb had a couple of olives in it, the salty tang worked. To me this shows a restaurant that is thinking about the food and doing something imaginative.

Devonshire Thai met our needs exactly, a quick, cheap and tasty eat that got us to the theatre 15mins before the start of the play. The bill was very reasonable, even considering some of the table were drinking beer. A great local for those who live in the area.