Pawpaw Asian Kitchen — Restaurant in Brisbane City

You show up to Pawpaw hungry, and leave full, happy, and carrying tomorrow’s dinner in a takeaway box.

Let’s start with the Massaman curry for $29. What you get is worth every cent. These beef cheeks are slow-cooked into submission. You barely have to look at them and they fall apart. The curry’s rich, layered, slightly sweet, like it wants to fight you, then tuck you in afterward. It’s proper comfort food.

The satay chicken skewers ($15) are four big sticks of turmeric-marinated chicken, grilled just right, with a peanut sauce you’ll seriously consider drinking. Comes with a sharp little cucumber pickle and sesame on top - simple, perfect.

And then there’s the Roti Canai curry ($28). A mild Malaysian curry with eggplant, sweet potato, pumpkin, and coriander, served with golden, flaky roti. That bread doesn’t just soak up the curry - it commits to it. Somewhere in the back, there’s definitely a grandma who knows exactly what she’s doing.

The portions are generous. Odds are you’ll walk out full and still have enough leftovers to take care of tomorrow’s dinner. It’s the kind of food that doesn’t just feed you, it looks after you.

Honestly, there are no bad dishes here. This is Asian food that goes toe-to-toe with what you’d get overseas, and wins. No fuss, no fanfare, just really,...

3rd visit, 7 of us arrived early with children. Ordered at counter, had BYO and was supplied a wine bucket which was nice. Food arrived and don’t know if waitress was flustered but she was throwing the food down when the sweet chili sauce went into my daughters new $800 handbag, inside and out plus over her. Waitress was so sorry, knew that was going to happen, 2nd time it happened to her, so sorry went and got few paper serviettes and that was it. Cleaned it up ourselves as best we could, in the toilet and needless to say ruined our meal, a little more care and responsibility for actions would have been nice-no offer of help so sat in the sticky mess, we ate the food, which was OK but tainted by our experience and left but won’t be back-food is tasty enough with large portions...

This was my first-time visit to the Bulimba edition of PawPaw Asian Kitchen. The dining area is not indoors, but is open-air side-hallway seating, so on a chilly Brisbane evening in early September 2021 we were surprised to be fairly cold at dinner despite a nearby overhead heater. I'm generally inclined to be positive and love Thai food, and this place has a good reputation, but I was surprised to find the food significantly over-priced for the middling quality compared to many other local Thai restaurants. Pretty good, but not 'a cut above' deserving of their premium pricing. The friendly service was very attentive but couldn't overcome the chilly environment...