Plern Thai Haymarket

FIRST LOOK: Plern Thai Haymarket. Hard to say, easy to like.

The entrance is subtle, too subtle. Step inside and noodlies, Sydney food blog reckons it’s a jaw-dropping experience.

Plern’s discrete entrance is easy to miss, especially given it’s next door is the brash and bright dessert cart of the long established Thanon Khaosan. But step inside and you’ll marvel at the whimsical, naiive mural art, pastel lunch box feature wall and an imposing lead light centre piece.

Like all Thai eateries, the staff are cute and friendly, armed with just enough English to get by. The clever menu is limited featuring classics like crying tiger, som tum, tom yum plus Isaan snacks such as sausages, fried quail egg wonton and poached cockles with dipping sauce.

They’ve translated the names of many well known Thai dishes which confuses things, for example pad kha prao is a confusing tossed grounded Thai salad on the menu. The beef is minced and sweetly marinated. It might be too sweet for some, but for noodlies, the combo of fish sauce and this dripping sweetness works deliciously well.

While tom yum goong rolls off the tongue, noodlies reckons tom kha gai, with coconut cream, chicken pieces and a dizzying range of zesty tropical mints makes a very nice change. Creamy and sharp makes for another brilliant flavour combo.

Som tum Thai is rich with fish sauce, fresh with shredded paw paw. It’s also on the sweet side but before any of those flavours hit, you’ll need to get past the solid chilli wall – it’s meant to be medium, but Plern’s interpretation of medium is enough to make a grown man cry.

Plern Thai Haymarket has been around for six months or so, but it’s still relatively unknown; one review on TripAdvisor and Yelp, none on zomato (well this will be the first) and no other blog posts that noodlies could find.