Khao Pla, Chatswood

For a few months now I've been hearing about a fantastic little Thai place situated in what's practically my hometown. I had to search it up on the Internet, because I never actually paid attention to Khao Pla in passing! The address confused me a little because I read "Victoria Avenue" and thought it would be around the Concourse, but its shop lot opens onto Anderson Street (opposite to Bao Dao/ Moochi/ Houlihan's... which I've realised all happen to bear Victoria Avenue addresses).

Khao Pla's chef, Pla Rojratanavichai, has had the likes of Spice I Am, Mr Wong and Ms G's under his belt, which probably explains all the hype surrounding this particular eatery. It's this hype that has generated pretty consistent dinner-time queues, and due to inconvenient hunger pangs, it's taken a few attempts to actually get a table.

On the day we decided to commit to the half hour wait, we'd finished watching a movie, which meant we hadn't gone a moment without chewing on some sort of snack. Since a waiter was planted at the front of the restaurant to greet patrons, we were able to leave our mobile number with them, giving us the freedom of going walkabout to work up a bigger appetite.

Exterior

Due to the minimal space, most of the tables make up one long table, which means that there's a bit of manoeuvring required to get to the benches at the wall. Khao Pla probably isn't the best setting for an intimate date/ catch-up, as you have to shout across the table to your dinner partner (which also means you can clearly hear the conversations of the people on either side of you). It didn't help that there was a large group of diners who had drunk several bottles of wine already and were guffawing loudly - though who could blame them? They were celebrating a birthday, after all.

Even with that half hour to gain precious stomach space, we were still borderline peckish, so we went with 2 dishes and steamed jasmine rice to share.

First to arrive was the crying tiger. It was char grilled wagyu beef accompanied by a generous amount of sauce. Succulent and juicy, I don't think the beef really needed the sauce, though it did provide an extra punch of sweet, sour and spicy flavours.

Crying tiger ($16.00); Rice ($2.50)

 Second was a green chicken curry with thai eggplant, ginger, bamboo shoots, Thai basil and kaffir lime leaves. The curry was pretty standard, except it was particularly hot - when the waitress went around checking on each table, she even teased me about the crimson state of my face :(

Gaeng keaw wan (Green curry) ($14.00)

Summary:

• Food is:
• Good
• Spicy
• Portions a bit small / prices a tad high given small portions
• 2 people should probably order 3 dishes to share + steamed rice or roti / 2 dishes + rice or noodle main
• Noisy
• Stools - those who need back support will need to sit on the benches
• I would come back - I particularly want to sample the tom yum soup!

Menu disclosed below:-

Menu