We aimed to replicate our recent meal at Cher Thai with a meal at another highly rated nearby location, to mixed results.
We had again a chicken pad thai ($20.90), an ongoing departure from our usual order of a pad kee mao, and this time without a pad kee mao on another plate as backup. Monkey King’s pad thai was less sticky than Cher Thai’s, less sweet (this is a positive), but overall probably less exciting, though by no means bad. The flavours were more balanced, which is surely a good thing, but for some possibly purely subjective reason it just didn’t hit the same as our first pad thai in probably half a decade. Or maybe it’s just because it was less oily.
The beef Penang curry ($20.90) was pretty OK, with good flavours and a welcome smattering of vegetables. The curry itself was quite watery and would’ve gone down nicely with some rice (we were warned), but we declined the offer, opting instead to share a single roti ($6 with a curry order, otherwise $7). The beef inside the curry was sadly in the form of thin strips, not blocks, as we had hoped (not that there was any indication that there would be, apart from the presence of massaman beef on the menu), though there again was nothing in particular wrong about that.
The roti was pretty good, honestly but I think we would’ve ordered some coconut rice had there been some on the menu, rather than a rather plain sounding ‘Jasmine Rice’ for $5. The fact that the restaurant doesn’t allow leftovers to be taken away (what?!) also meant that we had to be ultra-careful about ordering too much food, and thus the rice had to be a miss.
Monkey King Thai Drummoyne
190 Lyons Rd, Drummoyne NSW 2047