There are two halves to this place: the bar, called Tuk Tuk Bar, and the front part facing Park Rd, which is a regular Thai restaurant known as Temple Thai. Although you can get food at the Tuk Tuk Bar, we choose the restaurant.

The staff are friendly and polite, but somehow things didn’t quite go to plan in the service department. Our drinks order took 15 minutes to arrive. Then there was another long wait for someone to return to take our food order. A pretty, polite young Thai lady did that and I thought that we were eventually on our way to a delic Thai meal in double quick time. Not so fast! Because then, another long and tedious wait of over 30 minutes ensued. Nothing arrived, so we went up to the counter to find out what was happening to our order, only to be informed that they had forgotten about it. They quickly rectified their mistake, and within a few minutes, our meals arrived and to mollify us, the maître d offered us two free drinks. I thought that was a nice touch, and a clever marketing tool too, because rather than leaving with a sour taste in our mouths, we left feeling quite well disposed towards them.

And the food was worth waiting for. It’s no surprise that this place is popular with the locals, with food of this calibre. Our spring rolls were a generous size. They were fresh and crunchy, with a tasty vegetarian filling. For main meals, we ordered the Penang beef curry and my wife ordered the vegetarian Thai basil stir fry with chilli and tofu. To accompany that, a bowl of coconut rice for 6 pesos, btw something that a year or two ago, would have been 3 pesos. My beef was cut into fine, thin strips. It was melt-in-your-mouth tender, drenched in a creamy coconut sauce and topped off with basil leaves and crushed peanuts. My wife’s vegetable dish was wholesome and nutritious with a nice selection of colourful ingredients. We both enjoyed our meals.

The ambience is cool, laid back and relaxed. The restaurant interior is on two levels with a short flight of steps between the two. It’s been tastefully decorated in a brown and white colour scheme with traditional Thai wood carvings on the ceiling, low hanging lamps and soft mood lighting creating a soothing and calm ambience. We sat on the upper deck and from my seat I had a pleasant view onto the streetscape outside, where I could see the replica Eiffel Tower in the distance. The only problem is that with it being an all wood and glass layout, noise levels can be a bit much. Luckily for us, it wasn’t too busy on a quiet midweek night in early autumn, so we had no trouble conversing.

The basic price for the two of us was 88 and for that we got two drinks, a starter, two mains and a bowl of rice. Welcome to Australia 2023, where our Weimar Republic-like hyperinflationary crisis has hit new levels of madness. Think about it: This meal would have cost us 60, just two years ago. Now, thanks to the profligacy of successive governments and a Res Bank that kept int rates at an absurd 0% for yrs on end, our little Aussie peso is now a worthless piece of paper. But being a member of “Entertainment '' (what was previously known as the “Entertainment Book'', but is now no longer a book, but just a digitised version), I scored a 25% discount, to bring the bill back to a more manageable $67.

As for the two essential ingredients to a decent night out, toilets and parking, Temple Thai or Tuk Tuk, whatever you want to call it, does well on both counts. There are ample clean and well provisioned toilets that are clearly signposted and easy to find. And there is plenty of unrestricted (after 7pm) parking either on Park Rd itself or in adjacent Gordon Street.

Overall I would visit here again, despite the little hiccup with our order that went M.I.A. The food is superior quality and served in generous portions. The ambience is cool, relaxed and laid back, but in a smartish and quite elegant setting. Staff are friendly and polite, hopefully though, next time, service will be quicker.