Khao Soi will challenge you to try something new.
I haven’t suffered many man-crushes but for a few years I was deeply in platonic love with Matt Watson, the fishing guy from TV. I was obsessed with fishing but knew little about how to do it; Matt knew everything. Somehow
I’d got hold of his phone number.
“Oh God,” my wife said when she met him for the first time. “Is Jesse bothering you all night and day?”
Matt thought about it for a few moments.
“Nah,” he said. “I reckon he’s got the temperature about right.”
I’ve remembered that lovely phrase ever since and think of it particularly in relation to off-the-radar restaurants asking to be reviewed. Some of them drop me one Instagram DM and I never hear from them again; others pester me almost daily, even after I’ve agreed to add them to the list. But Khao Soi! Khao Soi, ladies and gentlemen, has the temperature about right.
Khao Soi Thai restaurant in Remuera. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Photo / Sylvie Whinray
A kind message introducing themselves via my food-writer colleague Kim Knight; a polite follow-up one month later offering to share their story with me over dinner … I loved it. So much so that while they were waiting for me to reply, I snuck in and ate dinner there without them knowing. I can only be honest about a restaurant when I’ve paid for the meal myself and, much as I would love to hear these guys’ story, I wanted to write my own story first.
This is my favourite sort of restaurant to review. First, it is doing fantastic food in a style that I’m fairly sure isn’t available anywhere else. Second, it seems not yet to have been widely discovered. It means hopefully I can make a difference to the lives of the wonderful people involved in this enterprise, by filling the place with Viva readers excited to check it out for themselves.
The cuisine is Northern Thai, but perhaps not as you’ve experienced it before. I tend to think of larbs and papaya salads when somebody mentions the top end of Thailand, though those dishes are more properly associated with the north-east, a cuisine known as Isaan.
Photo / Sylvie Whinray
Khao soi – the restaurant and the dish it is named after – comes from further north, around Chiang Mai, and if anything reminded me of Malaysia: perhaps an echo of the old Muslim trade routes through this part of Asia.
The signature dish is a gorgeous sort of Thai twist on laksa. A thick, spicy coconut broth, a protein of your choosing (I went for the juicy, stewed chicken thigh) and slippery egg noodles around half a centimetre wide that were just firm enough to make biting through them satisfying. On top was a sort of crunchy noodle bird’s nest thing and to the side a selection of condiments for squeezing and sprinkling: lime wedge, chilli, red onion and pickled cabbage.
Prawn khao soi. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
The oils in the soup had split slightly in the way really good curries do. Opposite me, my dining partner had a seasonal variation of the same thing featuring prawns – quite difficult to manage but plump and tasty, and adding a nice sort of seafood-stock flavour to the broth.
You could pop in just for one of those each, but I had a look around the rest of the menu too, and strongly recommend the Thai Leaf Bites – a little package you wrap up yourself at the table. Featuring shrimp, peanuts, chopped lime (a new one to me but it works) and a supremely dippable tamarind sauce, this dish was over in a couple of gulps.
Khao Soi’s Thai Leaf bites. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
It was followed by “Smoky Dip”, a kind of spicy grilled eggplant purée with all sorts of bits and pieces, which somehow didn’t double up with the plate of goodies we’d just eaten. You may spend some time wondering how you’re meant to wrap or dip an entire boiled egg, fried pork, crackling, lettuce leaves and carrot sticks, and in what order, but once you taste that eggplant you’ll realise there are no wrong answers.
I chugged along with a Boneface APA I haven’t spotted anywhere else, then a couple of nice-enough wines by the glass that don’t look particularly matched to the menu but won’t get beaten up by it either. Meanwhile, waitresses zipped to and fro across the floor with big smiles and heaving plates.
If anything the service was too fast –we were back out the door in less than an hour.
This restaurant is on Remuera Rd, a strip whose restaurants have improved a lot in the 15 years I’ve been reviewing, even if the overall scene feels stuck in neutral.
But Khao Soi has a different energy – not designed to flatter the locals with food they think they want, but to challenge them a little into trying something new. Every suburb needs at least one restaurant like that, and I hope they have enough success that plenty more follow.
Address: 355 Remuera Rd, Remuera
Hours: Tuesday to Wednesday, 11.30am–2pm, 5–8pm; Thursday to Sunday, 11.30am–2.30pm, 5–8.30pm; Monday, closed
From the menu: Golden Tofu bites $16; Thai leaf bites $17; smoky chilli dip $20.50; stewed chicken khao soi $27; royal prawn khao soi $33
Score: 0-7 Steer clear. 8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don’t delay.
According to Dining Out editor Jesse Mulligan.