Thai Wi-Rat

Thai Wi-Rat is a Thai/Laos restaurant in Chinatown which serves authentic food true to it's culture. You don't need to ask for Thai Hot here, just ask for normal hot and it will bring tears to your eyes. The spiciness slowly increases in intensity and doesn't hit you until about halfway through the meal. The medium is probably best if eating in large groups. Try hot if you're not too concerned about your appearance after dinner.

What I didn't like about Thai Wi-Rat was that the ordering was done individually at the front counter. We wanted to order extra dishes halfway through our meal but when we looked up at the counter, there was a long line of people so we decided against it.

Yum Nuea - Grilled Rump Steak with Thai Salad Sauce  

For me, this more authentic than the usual Thai beef salads you get at other restaurants. The beef was sprinkled with what I think was ground roasted rice powder which is an unusual addition but made the flavours really stand out. I haven't seen this ingredient used a lot at other Thai restaurants. I've only ever seen it in the Vietnamese broken rice dish so this was a really interesting way of using it. I really liked this dish and thought it was much better than others I've tried.

Pla Dook Yang - Grilled whole Thai catfish served with Thai E-San sauce

I asked the waitress what a really popular dish was here. She immediately pointed at their catfish specialty. I'm usually not a fan of catfish but this one was so tasty. The fish was extremely crispy and the dipping sauce accompanied it perfectly. I wasn't sure what E-San sauce was so after some googling, I found that it's a bottled sauce commonly used in Northern Thailand as a BBQ accompaniment. I guess it's their bbq sauce equivalent? Very rich in flavours, sweet, salty and spicy. I looked up the ingredients and it had fish sauce, palm sugar, chilli, tamarind paste, lime juice, roasted rice (again!), cumin leaves and mint leaves - all ingredients with bold flavours.

Pork Larb - Laos Mince pork salad   

This was an underwhelming dish. Simple mince pork with the typical flavours of sweet and sour. I was expecting it to be more flavoursome. It was still enjoyable but after the first two dishes, it wasn't that great. Looking back, I probably should have ordered the duck larb. 

Chicken Pad Thai 

The pad thai was nice, it had all the right elements and wasn't lacking in flavour. It still doesn't compare to my hands down favourite Thai restuarant - Baan Pad Thai so I am a little bias here.

Thai Green Curry with Beef 

The serving of curry was small and the sauce was a bit too watery. I prefer my curries to be a bit thicker and sweeter. There also wasn't a lot of beef in the curry either.

I usually get green curry and pad thai at all Thai restaurants as staples to compare.  This place doesn't exactly serve the best pad thai and curry but their other dishes are definitely worth going here for. They have a lot of dishes you don't see often and are not afraid to use hot chillies and unusual ingredients. I recommend going here to try their Laos dishes and a few of their house specialties. 

Review:
Thai Wi-Rat
48 Duncan St
FORTITUDE VALLEY Q 4006