Thai Tha Hai, Cleveland St, Chippendale

Thai Tha Hai, Cleveland St, Chippendale
Tuesday 13 June, 2006

Looking desperately for somewhere to eat before the theatre, we tried 2 places unsuccessfully before stumbling across this surprise package. The bistro's attached to the Rose & Crown and Duck & Swan do not open till 6 - 6.30pm and our play commenced at 6.30pm, so we needed to eat....and fast!

Fortunately, Thai Tha Hai was open & had several tables of early diners (they must have been going to the same play at the Seymour Centre). We were warmly welcomed and had the pick of tables. The decor is basic and it has a cheap & cheerful look and feel about it. The seats downstairs are benches (not sure what is on offer upstairs) but we were comfortable.

The menu offered all the old favourites and we made a special mention to our waitress that we needed to be out of here by 6.15pm to get to the theatre by 6.30pm. She giggled and indicated that the kitchen was fast. So, we ordered some vegetarian spring rolls to start followed by Red chicken curry, Pad thai with pork and the GST special with tofu (the name was so intriguing we just had to order it).

To our surprise the waitress had just taken our order, quickly popped back to check if it was OK to bring everything out to the table at once and then returned with the first dish followed by the second, third and fourth in quick succession. Believe me, this gives new meaning to 'the kitchen is fast'. We started to wonder if there were hidden microphones on our table so the kitchen could start cooking the minute we gave our waitress the order!

The spring rolls were lightly fried (even though this wasn't indicated on the menu) and were sliced into bite size pieces with chunks of avocado and cucumber. The red chicken curry was delicious and there was plenty of sauce to scoop over the steamed rice and pad thai - yum! The rice was served with a huge serving paddle which was ideal (I want one for my kitchen). The GST special wasn't a plate of MSG as we had jokingly guessed but a plate of vegetables and tofu with a tamarind & sesame sauce.

Between the 3 of us we had some leftovers so asked for it to be transferred into a takeaway container. Our waitress politely explained that would cost 30 cents - seriously....

Thai Tha Hai is cheap & cheerful - the total bill came to less than $50, the staff are very polite and friendly and they gave us complimentary minties on the way out. This experience was definitely a case of third time lucky.

Thai Tha Hai - 101 Cleveland St, Chippendale - (02) 9319 1222