Porkfat Thai Restaurant Sydney — Restaurant in Sydney

2023: (5 stars) Choo chee curry comes alive in the hands of the talented kitchen team at Porkfat. The red curry made of long red chillies, fish sauce, makrut leaves and palm sugar is poured over a well-presented deep fried golden pomfret ($49) and a far cry from the creamy, soupy coconut sauces you find in Thai restaurants elsewhere. It’s only our second visit, but we’re recognised by the talented floor team and quickly shown to a table on the mezzanine. We brought our own wine (BYO $20/bottle) and by the time we’re watered up and drinking it, the first dish hits our table: Porkfat is tiny so they don’t mess around.

Porkfat’s larb ($37) enlivens your mouth with smoked chilli and the richness of pork fat cut by toasted rice and fresh greens. Chilli here is lively but I beg you not to meddle: let this kitchen continue to balance dishes in the traditional Thai way. Nutty sator beans (sometimes called stink beans) were a highlight in the Queensland king prawn stir-fly ($43). The flavour of the creamy crustaceans was amped with prawn oil balanced with makrut. I ate this meal in the perineum (the weird period between Xmas and New Year) but have been holding off telling you about it because Porkfat don’t reopen until 23 January. It’s worth booking in now though…

2022: (4.5 stars) Pork fat was a mainstay of Thai cookery before commercial cooking oils became more convenient. Owner/chef Narin "Jack" Kulasai is returning to the old ways at Porkfat Sydney, a 30-seater on the Ultimo edge of Haymarket. Inside the compact, red brick surrounds you’ll find the former Long Chim Sydney head chef putting out a tightly focused menu.

We’re quickly seated on the lower level by staff beaming those million-watt smiles Thailand is famous for. With space at a premium, the wine list is a five-bottle affair with the French 2020 Undivided Chardonnay ($15/glass) being a cuisine-appropriate drop. Next time I’ll remember to BYO ($10/bottle). And there will be a next time after the unctuous rich pork jowl green curry ($27) with bursting apple eggplants, Thai basil, kaffir lime leaves and lychees that give breaks from the dish’s punchy heat.

A stack of tamarind wings ($12) show great balance under crispy garlic and coriander. The star of our night is the deep-fried whole golden pomfret ($38) heaped with green mango salad (+$6) that turns out to be matchsticks of green apple, and temper the fiery heat. The fish is cooked perfectly and, while the heat levels bring a wee tear to my eye, we leave nothing behind. A shared bowl of the only dessert—homemade coconut ice cream ($14)—is enough to put my mouth back together. It’s only barely sweet with a topping of candied pumpkin and roasted peanuts, and slippery palm seeds hidden beneath (okay, they might be an...

Heard about this place and was intrigued by the menu, so two of us arranged to have lunch there last weekend. Things must be pretty tough in Sydney as restaurants are now asking for a credit card deposit, and Pork Fat was no exception. Says a lot about the integrity of patrons generally that restaurants have had to resort to this practice. The seating is not wonderful, but it’s a step up from another Thai Favourite, Spice I Am, where you may as well be sitting on milk crates. Pork Fat has an awkward seating arrangement on the left of the entry on the ground floor, there’s a set of stairs to a mezzanine level, with a number of tables for two or four. I don’t know how you’d comfortably fit 6 or 8 so make sure you inspect the place and figure out how you’d position everyone before booking for a party that size. We brought our own champagne and were happy to pay the $20 corkage albeit a little steep but still a reasonable ask. On to the food. We chose the pork fat larb, the chicken Massaman curry and the prawn and snow peas and some rice. The Pork Fat Larb was seasoned precisely to our taste, in the restaurant’s range of medium spicy…we could have taken a bit more heat but this was good. The crunchy shattered crackling dispersed throughout the dish elevates the texture of the larb, and the powerhouse combo of lime juice, chili, sweetness and salt absolutely makes the dish pop. Honestly, this was an explosion on the taste buds, best larb I’ve had in Sydney. The chicken curry was a dish of meltingly falling off the bone chicken with potatoes in a luscious, oily in the right way sauce that only Thais know how to execute, superbly flavoured. They were upfront and told us the prawn dish ($40) has 3 prawns, do we want an extra prawn for $8, we did. Not a bargain but these were large, fresh delicious prawns and we enjoyed the dish. I’d definitely go back, and if your taste buds are feeling a little jaded from too many neighbourhood Thai restaurants, this will bring them back to life...

Overhyped, over priced and underwhelming. Will not be back.

This is my honest review from someone who has traveled the globe, eating food from nearly every cuisine and rated restaurants from low to high scale.

I have been wanting to try this place for months. After reading the reviews and watching that episode of “somebody feed fill” I had high expectations but it honestly was a let down for the price. I can’t say that any of the dishes were outstanding or exceptional to the point of making me want to come back.

The larb was nice and fresh and was my favourite dish of the night though nothing ground breaking. It was a dish I would compare to “startled pig” from a popular place in LA called Night & Market Song - THIS is my reference point for something mind blowingly tasty that is similar and if anyone wanted to try this dish they can make the recipe for themselves (the recipe is online).

The crispy pork was bland and coated in the most incredibly annoying chewing bits that got stuck in our teeth. The sauce that came with it was far too salty and needed more sugar/lime and less fish sauce.

The red beef brisket curry was good with a nice rich sauce but it was very savoury/salty with a slightly bitter taste and would benefit from being paired with a coconut sticky rice to add some sweetness to balance the flavours.

The crab fried rice was good.

The coconut ice cream was awesome! Nailed it on the flavour, sweetness and texture. Not sure about the coconut jelly things around it, they were a bit strange and I think the ice cream would be better paired with a mango or passionfruit granita with tapioca pearls.

Overall, there was an imbalance of salt in the flavour profiles. I think the food could benefit from some added sweetness to harmonise and balance the flavours.

The staff were very nice, friendly and accomodating! And the noise level was not bad at all.

I think they are headed in the right direction but haven’t landed a touchdown that would cause me to be...