BISTRO MEKONGin Castlecrag is all about south-east Asian food. It’s the sister restaurant to Kensington Street’s MEKONG and I love that you can get all types of south-east Asian food here! I feel like I’ve been to a lot of Thai restaurants, or Indian restaurants, where you can just get food from one cuisine. Here, you’ve got a bit of everything to try. It made for a very exciting meal and we ate a lot of things we’d never had before!
I don’t remember exactly what mocktail I had but I liked that there was a selection of non-alcoholic drinks on the menu. We then started our meal with the Bistro Mekong Sharing Plate – Smoked ocean trout, spanner crab tacos, Vietnamese turmeric pancake and grilled pork belly ($28). This plate has a bit of everything! It’s got a taster of many of the most popular entrees, which is handy. My personal favourite was the grilled pork belly. I think it’s wrapped in a leaf of some sort – it’s the little dark brown parcels at the bottom of the image below.
The difficult thing for me at Asian restaurants is the spicy-ness. Everything seems to have some sort of chilli in it. Unfortunately I can’t really tolerate any chilli at all! We did request ‘mild’ for everything, but the smoked ocean trout and spanner crab tacos still had a bit of a kick to them. The turmeric pancake was probably the most bland item on the plate. It had prawns in it but was lacking something in the flavour.
The mains all looked really great and we definitely had a hard time choosing what to eat! In light of that, I would also recommend going in a group so you can order more. We picked two of their signature dishes. The Beef Cheek Cambodian Curry – sweet potato and pumpkin with pickled ginger and homemade roti ($30) was amazing. It was kind of like a massaman beef curry. And yes, we did ask for mild but there are still chillis on top – haha! It was a really warm, hearty dish that was great for this kind of winter weather. I had never had Cambodian food before so it was nice to try something new. The accompanying roti was a bit different to the soft roti I am used to. It was like it had been deep fried, very crispy!
We then also ordered some Stir fried asian greens – snow peas, bok choy and Chinese broccoli ($20). To me, this is a must-have side for any Asian meal. Rice, of course, is the other staple.
The other main we had was a curry that was completely different! The Royal Amok Curry – Signature curry with king prawns, scallops, and barramundi served in a coconut shell ($30) is a coconut based curry full of seafood. It even had bits of coconut in the curry! We initially thought these were calamari. How amazing is this presentation! I loved that it was in a coconut shell, and the prawn head on top made it that extra little bit more dramatic. This was a beautiful curry too. I’d recommend ordering it if you’re a seafood fan!
Finally, I was curious about some of the desserts too! Even though we’d already eaten so much we decided to share the Fresh coconut ice cream – with roasted peanuts, sticky rice and palm seeds ($12). What a fun little dessert. It’s definitely very ‘Asian’ and unlike any Western dessert, especially with the sticky rice. I must say this was very refreshing after the spicy curries!
Castlecrag, you’re lucky to have BISTRO MEKONG in your neighbourhood! I only wish I lived a little closer to enjoy it!
BISTRO MEKONG
SHOP 5, 100 EDINBURGH ROAD
CASTLECRAG, NSW 2118
https://bistromekong.com.au/
NB: talk&spoon was invited to dine at Bistro Mekong, with special thanks to Matt from Cardinal Spin. All opinions, however, remain our own.
