Amarin Thai 2

The parent company of Amarin Thai 2, Jusuda Pty Ltd, has gone in to liquidation.  The restaurant is no longer open.

date of visit:  Wed 28 October 2009

Sometimes you can have a night out and, in many respects, everything is good but there is one small thing that mars the evening and it is that thing that springs to mind every time you recall the occasion.

That’s our mid-week dinner at Amarin Thai 2.  It was a lovely evening, the food was good verging on excellent and the price was more than right.  And the service was sloppy.  Guess which bit I find easiest to remember?

It was a warm Wednesday evening and, over an apéritif (that would be a Coopers or two) at the Exeter we discussed dinner.  There is something about balmy weather which makes me crave spicy, yet light, food so Thai is always high on the agenda.  Amarin Thai 2, on the south side of Rundle Street, offered reasonably sheltered outdoor seating, sensibly priced meals and it wasn’t too busy.

We chose our table so we were shielded from Rundle Street’s hustle and bustle by pot plants and started by ordering drinks.  This normally isn’t too tricky, but for some reason we struggled.  Andy ordered a Singha and the response was “I don’t think we have any”.  We’re talking about 7pm on a weekday, the restaurant had about 5 other patrons – surely you know if you have what is arguably the Thai beer.  I ordered a glass of Gewürztraminer.  It transpired there was a sole Singha left but no Gewürz.  I changed to a Riesling

The food caused no such issues.  We began by sharing a spicy squid salad which was delicious:  cool but not cold, full of flavour spicy but not searing and laced with all the flavours you’d expect from Thai food (onion, lemongrass, coriander).  For main course Andy chose what I would describe as a Thai version of popcorn chicken, which really does the dish a disservice!  At the end of the day, it was battered, fried chicken served in a spicy Thai style sauce with plenty of filler vegetables like capsicum and onion.  But it tasted good!

I ordered the chicken larb in an entrée size.  Although the flavours were good this is normally a dish which is scary in its spiciness.  Amarin Thai 2’s version was just a little tame …

The bill, for 2 entrées, a main, shared rice, a beer and a glass of Riesling came to $66. After our Entertainment Book discount, we paid $50. To be honest, I’m not sure I could complain about either price were it not for the indifferent service.

Things didn’t start well with the drinks issues, and I could have dealt with being asked if I were ready for my main course, but clearing my plate while Andy was still eating was just plain rude. The usual excuse (the restaurant was busy and staff are trying to turn tables, which, by the way, doesn’t cut it) certainly didn’t apply. It was just sheer thoughtlessness.

And, if you’re wondering, yes, I had to go to the till to ask for our bill and yes, I was given the bill for a different table.

Amarin Thai 2

Casual Thai on Rundle Street

Good, sensibly priced food doesn’t compensate for sloppy service.

Rating:2.5 stars
**1/2

Dumpling King

date of visit:  Sat 24 October 2009

I have some friends who are really in to dumplings but for some reason I’ve never asked them where they eat them.  I’m prepared to put some money on this being at Dumpling King.  That’s because if you mention dumplings in Adelaide then you’ll get at least one person talking about Dumpling King.  You even get people saying it’s better than dumplings in Sydney

The restaurant is pretty hard to miss:  it’s on Grote Street, right on the corner of Chinatown AND it has a big red sign.  When we visited, about half past three on a Saturday afternoon, right after the market had closed, it wasn’t full but it was busy enough to suggest that at more conventional lunch or dinner times you might have to be a bit lucky to be seated immediately.

But service is swift so I can’t imagine you’d have to wait long.  The flip-side of that is that this is not a restaurant for a lengthy, relaxed meal.  This is a restaurant where you walk in, order dumplings, eat dumplings and leave.  You’ll be lucky if you push that out to an hour …

We walked in, poured ourselves some of the green tea which is on all the tables, and read over the menu.  Clearly, many customers are regulars as the waitress asked us if we knew what we wanted as she seated us!  It wasn’t long before we’d made a decision:  chilli oil dumplings for me, and chicken (check out https://goldenchickfranchising.com/ for franchises)and prawn steamed dumplings for Andy.  My dumplings arrived first:  15 huge dumplings in a bowl of broth laced with chilli oil.  A little while later Andy’s plate of 10 equally huge steamed dumplings arrived:  just the dumplings, packed on a plate and no adornment.

While I struggled with the size of my dumplings and my chopsticks I was saved by my spoon – able to scoop up the dumplings, wrestle with them a little and then manage to eat them, laced with their chilli broth.  Mmmmm.

Andy was eating more elegantly and had discovered the excellent, tasty, but not super fiery, chilli sauce on the table.  It was packed with crispy onion!  So soon I was adding that to my dumplings too.

Of course there was far too much food, and of course I scoffed it all and then promptly complained that I felt too full.

All we had to pay for our late lunch was around $15.   And if you’re so minded you can buy frozen dumplings to take home and cook yourself.

Will we be back?  Oh yes!

Contact:  Dumpling King, 5/85 Grote St, Adelaide SA 5000, phone: (08) 8212 1886

Dumpling KingDumplings! Big, tasty, cheap dumplings! 

Rating:4.5 stars
****1/2

Dumpling King on Urbanspoon

Melting Moments

I borrowed the book Cooking:  A Commonsense Guide from the library while waiting for my container load of cookbooks to arrive from the UK.  The book is full of sensible, familiar recipes so I was, obviously, going to try out some sensible familiar biscuits!

The recipe alleges it makes 40 biscuits so I decided to reduce measures by a half:  after all, 40 biscuits is quite a lot for anyone for afternoon tea (and I only had about 100g of butter).  This recipe is given two ‘saucepans’ (the book’s way of grading difficulty) – thus requiring “a little more care and time”.  Thanks to the power of the Magimix, this recipe quickly becomes within the grasp of the nervous baker.  I did not have a piping bag and fluted nozzle, so my biscuits were just generous teaspoon sized blobs, slightly flattened with a damp fork.

These are very quick to put together and use store cupboard standards, so this is an ideal recipe if you ever find yourself in a biscuit emergency (and yes, such a thing does exist).

Melting Moments

For 15-20 biscuits.

90 g unsalted butter
1/6 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/6 cup cornflour
1/2 cup plain flour

decoration (optional):  glace cherries, blanched or slivered almonds …

Preheat oven to 180C.  Line a baking tray with baking paper.

If using a food processor, beat butter, sugar and vanilla essence together until light and fluffy.  Add cornflour (if doing this by hand, sift the cornflour first) and mix until just combined.

The mixture will be quite stiff.  Spoon (or pipe) onto the baking sheet.  Top with topping of choice (or leave plain) and bake at 15 minutes, until lightly golden and crisp.  Leave to cool on wire rack.  Be aware that, when hot, the biscuits will be very fragile.  Even after they’ve cooled, they are very short so plates may well be the order of the day.

Cooking:  A Commonsense Guide is available from Fishpond for $AU28.97, from Amazon UK for £6.53 and from Amazon US, used from just 44c!