Spice I Am, Darlinghurst

Another post about Thai restaurant in Sydney, yet again...  Seems never ending when it comes to Thai food, especially with Sydney-sider having a high demand of Authentic Thai food.  If I'm not wrong, now apparently there are more than 1,000 Thai restaurants just in Sydney let alone and it's still growing.

This time is one of the finest upscale Thai restaurant with elegant decoration and renowned for its uniquely authentic and tasty Thai dishes.  Conveniently located in the middle of metro and top area, Darlinghurst.  This place however, its might sounds splurging in term of pricewise but the food  and services are absolutely top knot.  Booking is highly recommended here and they only do two seating times for dinner which are 6 pm and 8.30 pm.

I bet most of you guys have heard about Spice I Am before.  Yes!!  because they not only produce spectacular food but under the same management they actually have four branches across Sydney with all having different and unique concept.  Not too wrong to say that they are big brother in this industry.

I've been to three of them.  One in Surry Hills, is a tiny and squeezy but mind for the long queue on dinner time.

The next restaurant is in the Darlinghurst, (this post)

Another one is House Thai (even it has a different name, but they still under the same management).  They use different name for this particular restaurant, I think because in this place they more specialise in North Eastern Thai cuisine, dishes like Som Tum and BBQ chicken with sticky rice.  Also, strongly use fermented fish sauce for the salty touch, tamarind for the sour punch, that's distinguishing them for the flavours of North Eastern.

And last but not least the newly open Spice I Am at Balmain.



Lychee Martini $18

Very enjoyable drink, sweet but dangerously deep drunken with a mixture of Wyborowa vodka, Soho lychee liqueur, and lychee juice.


Grande Lychee Mojito $19

Inspired from Cuban fame which was the birthplace of Mojito but with a twist of the liquor lychee.  It has Crushed lychee and lime with spearmint, Havana Club Blanco, and Soho lychee liqueur in it.  Can't get enough of this.



Khao Kreab Pak Mor $24 (6 pieces)

Steamed mini rice paper parcels filled with shiitake mushrooms and bean curd served individually on the bed of endive lettuce with a splash of soy and vinegar sauce.

Bour Tod 6pcs $16

Bour Tod is basically Phuket style fritter of green prawns on crispy betel leaf and they deep-fired to incredibly crunchy leaf then stacked up and sprinkle with chilli sauce, crushed roasted cashew nuts, and finally garnished with Thai coriander and sliced fresh chilli.  The BEST Thai dish I have ever eaten, I would say!!!  The taste very very exotic, nutty and definitely a dish I always come back for.



Goong Ma Kham $38

Deep fried king prawns with tamarind sauce, served on a bed of steamed Chinese broccoli.  Although the prawns were chunky, fresh and nicely deep fried but then the flavour of the tamarind wasn't enough to balance with those beautifully cooked fresh King Prawns which later got dried up.  More sauce and sprinkled of salt are absolutely demanded and could enhance the dish.  Very pitiful and this dish be the last one on the table that we finished.



Gaeng Ped Yang Red Duck Curry $39

Roasted duck in red curry with pea eggplant, apple eggplant, kaffir lime leaves, chilli, cherry tomatoes, lychee, pineapple and Thai basil.  When you read the list of those ingredients, it may sound that so many elements going on in this dish, but once they all combined together under that famous Thai red curry, it turned out to be a very spectacular curry dish.

The dish topped with the fresh coconut flesh which helps thicken the curry and become even more refreshing and light.  Serving it on the fresh coconut shell, is a traditional and excellent way to present the dish.



Pad Prik Khing Moo Grob Crispy Pork Belly $30

Stir fried crispy pork belly wok, tossed with red curry paste, green beans, chilli and kaffir lime leaves.  It is a signature dish here in Spice I Am.  And also a recommended dish to have but warning for those who cannot handle chilli, as this dish quite highly rated for their level of hot and spiciness.


Pla Tod Yum Ma Muang $ 38

I wasn't a fan of this dish and we actually wanted to order Pla Sam Rod but shamefully it wasn't available that day, and the waitress recommended us with this fish dish instead.  Golden brown and crispy of whole red snapper deep fried then topped with Som Tum or Papaya Salad.  The fish was nicely done but Papaya salad is lacking a kick in flavour and too dry for my liking.


Lemon and Mandarin Ice Cream $10

The two beautiful combination of flavours.  The sourness from lemon ice cream balanced off with the sweetness from mandarin ice cream.  So light, yet refreshing and kinda wash up our mouth after heavy taste.  



Khao Niew I-Tim $12

When this dessert came out to our table we all amazed by how cute it is and we riddle is it just coincidental or deliberately done.  This dessert appears as snowman standing on the green rice field.  It came like that complete with the two eyes and I just added the cheeky smiley mouth for him. (though it looks rather creepy).  Sticky rice is very soft and great texture. a little bit sweet and not too soaky.

My hubby explain that, Khao Niew I-Tim, is one of the favourite snack food for Thais, but in Thailand the way they are served is quite different.  A single slice of bread, folded into two and filled with sticky rice, coconut ice cream and topping choices of yours.  Crusted peanut may sometimes be added as well. 



Cup C $18

If you guys ever been to House Restaurant, you would probably ever tried this yummy dessert as well.  But here in Darlinghurst, they are just newly introduced, not even in the dessert lists at that time we dined there. 

The devine warm baked chocolate cake served with vanilla ice cream and oozy chocolate lava melted in the middle.  Word fell to describe how delicious this chocolate cup.  But what I know is, six spoons sunk into this heavenly chocolate cup and scrapped til not even a single cake's crumb left.  Then we looked at each other and our eyes telling we surely need one more.  Even that's would take another 20 minutes waiting as it freshly baked to order, we allowed ourself to sacrify.  The second dish came and our table become the quietest moment only the 'clinging' sound from spoons and only the sighing "Hmmm..." Ooohhhhh..." Ahhh....".  Yet the second cup still didn't change the taste of it.  You know what I mean rite, normally if the tummy is full already and the second dish of the same food will go like errr..  But hey,  not happened for this time.


Spice I Am
296-300 Victoria St.

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

Ph: 02 9332 2445