|
Nick Dent cries “Oy!” for Macleay Street’s brand new Thai. 
Potts Pointers have been waiting a long time for the opening of Oy, the eastern suburbs offshoot of Sailors Thai, and the staff seems determined to make up for the delay.
Seated at the very back of the restaurant while high-speed blurs work the narrow room, we’ve barely had the menu a minute before a waiter asks if we’re ready to order. When we say no, he disappears, leaving behind a waiter-shaped cloud of dust. It’s like being on 33 1/3 RPM while everyone else is on 78.
This is not a complaint, by the way. Fast service is a win-win in my book: customers get fed and watered, and management gets a healthy turnover. Oy does not take reservations and in its third week has no need to. The punters are queuing up already. That’s the power of brand recognition.
When another of Alvin’s chipmunks asks again if we’re ready to order, we bargain for time by requesting a bottle of Fermoy Estate 2007 sem sav blanc from Margaret River ($36). It’s a delicate drop but it holds its own against what’s to come.
Co-owner Peter Bowyer and chef Krongthong Akkichito have put together a modest-sized menu. There are only two entrees, per se, and they’re really just appetisers. A heart-shaped betel leaf carries a little pile of peanuts, roasted coconut, lime and ginger, topped with smoked trout and trout roe ($5).
You roll it up, put it in your mouth and a chorus of flavours explodes into song. After this polyphonic spree comes a prawn cake impaled on a stick of sugar cane ($5) dipped in plum sauce. A fine balance of salty and sweet, it looks like a miniature corn dog and is so delicious you can’t help but eat the stick as well. (The cane is soft and edible.)
Aromatic curry of chicken ($28) is an understated dish of pert chicken chunks and new potatoes in a light, brothy brown curry. Cucumber relish adds sparkle, if not heat; personally, a bit more chilli would have been nice.
A fantastic roasted duck and lychee salad in a red vinegar dressing ($27) is almost as sugary as dessert’s tapioca ($10) – a splurge of roe-like sago beads strewn with sesame seeds and thick strands of young coconut. Under the restaurant’s red light the latter looked a little peculiar, but tasted sublime.
Oy is a restaurant for the sweet of tooth (oy means sugar cane, after all) and the poor of time. That orange ceiling seems intended to give it the atmosphere of an outdoor market, and its tubular ruddiness makes it a bit like looking down the birth canal.
Indeed, once we’ve requested the bill we are all-too-soon expelled onto the pavement like sooky newborns. The Oy umbilical is going to be hard to cut.
Open Mon-Sun 6-10pm
This review was conducted anonymously and paid for by the reviewer.
 |
Lifestyle 
Subscribe to this comment's feed