Thai Rani — Restaurant in Melbourne

Being the lover of Thai food that I am, I'm always on the lookout for a great Thai restaurant that serves up my favourite dishes in a delicious way. I saw the reviews for Thai Rani and decided to finally give it a try. It's got nice decor inside, and the ambience is nice. They have a good extensive and varied menu with photos alongside some of the dishes to get a good visual of. I would normally choose my usual Chicken Fried Rice, but I must say, the photo they've used in the menu is most unappealing, so I went for the Chicken Massaman instead. Beforehand, I ordered the Chicken Curry Puffs as they looked great in the picture.

The curry puffs were delicious. A great start to the first time dining here. It did come out a bit slow, but then again, this restaurant (along with many like it) choose to look after their takeout orders first (which irks me very much). When it did come out eventually, they tasted as delicious as the photos showed them to be. The main meal came out VERY slowly and was actually quite irritating. My friend ordered the Lemon Chicken, which looked NOTHING like in the photo. The photo - and dish description - depicted crispy battered chicken, whereas what came out was soggy and almost mushy. I however got the Chicken Massaman and Coconut Rice, both of which were really good.

I will say, the food here overall is very good and worthy of all of these positive reviews. It's reasonably priced and has a nice modern atmosphere. However ... I really wish restaurants looked after the patrons that are already inside BEFORE taking care of phone orders. I will be willing to try it here one more time, but if it's as slow as it was last week, that will be my last visit. I'd rather they tell someone on the phone to come down an extra 10 minutes later, than leave people inside watching order after order after order leave the restaurant while...

Warm hospitality was abound and not only did we love the delicious authentic dishes we also had the opportunity to try a few intriguing surprises.

We began with several unique cocktails and mocktails. I really enjoyed the unicorn one which was a fun multicoloured concoction that was visually pleasing and quite refreshing. There was also a midori spliced g&t and a matcha beverage which was interesting as I have never seen matcha done in a cold drink before.

Entree wise we sampled the curry puffs, chicken satay skewers and the chilli wontons. I loved the sauce the chicken was smothered in- delicious! The curry puffs were also a hit and the handmade wontons were very impressive. So much flavour and a lot of different chillis were used to create quite a unique taste. Definitely worth trying

Our first main was the ‘treasure hunt’ a theatrical experience involving dry ice. As the ice melted on the dish it revealed some absolutely delicious fish. We were told that this dish is a favourite in Asia and has been recreated at this restaurant because the owner hadn’t seen it anywhere in Melbourne. This is another really cool dish to try for something different.

We then moved on to a sizzling seafood plate whereby the prawns were cooked to perfection and lychee and duck curry accompanied by some stir fried vegetables. Don’t forget to order a coconut rice because it is phenomenal and I could have eaten the whole extremely large serving!

Dessert was another pleasant surprise as it deviated from traditional Asian desserts (which I don’t generally enjoy) and got a bit creative. The dry ice came out again in the ‘campfire’ which was effectively a s’mores like experience. Our second dessert was a similar concept with the interactive self pour to combine a shot of baileys with ice cream and Indian coffee. An overall...

We got takeaway & was a bit disappointed with one of the dishes. Ordered the ‘Kung Fu Noodle’ which I thought was going to be the street Malaysian dish that I knew, however, what we got was Char Kway Teow.

As a born, bred Malaysian who had a road side hawker stall in my younger days over there, the Kung Fu noodles known to Malaysians is something different; Photo of different dishes are below.

First pic of the dark noodles is the noodles advertised as Kung Fu noodles that we received, which is Char Kway Teow. Second pic is the actual Kung Fu noodles that we were expecting.

The only reason why I was so disappointed was because, it’s hard to find decent Malaysian food on this side of town, & when one is homesick, one gets excited over trivial things, like expecting a comfort food dish that’s not commonly found here.

Despite that, the flavours of the Char Kuey Teow were nice, with a subtly decent ‘wok hei’ & the tom yum was delicious alongside the...