Friday 18 May 2012

With Love From South Africa: Food Adventures Part 2

We decided to try Wangthai - a thai restaurant in Sandton based on a few recommendations from several locals including SuperSports' Gary Bailey.  So off we toddled off for a night of proper dining. This is a formal restaurant so I had a blast getting all dolled up for dinner and we had an amazing table with a fab view. Its a restaurant for romance too with the candles and soft music and fountains.

Anyway - to the food: We started with a seafood hot and sour soup that packed a punch. Oh wee.  It had prawns, mullet, calamari and mussels in it and lots of fresh herbs - I could identify galangal, whole mint leaves and lemongrass. But there was more. Hubby said the soup was way too 'alive' for him :-). I explained to him - Thai cuisine is known for incorporating the taste elements of sweet, sour and heat all in the same dish.




We got a little tray with condiments to adjust the meal to your taste - sugar, chilli flakes, fish sauce and vinegar


 
We also had shrimp rolls that came with a sweet chilli sauce for dipping. Not your regular batter heavy soggy rolls. Whole large shrimp with tails on with sliver thin strips of scallions and holy basil wrapped with a very thin sheet of wrapper and fried till golden brown. Bursting with flavour and the shrimps cooked to perfection. 




For our main meal, we had fragrant jasmine rice which came in this gorgeous silver tureen that i wanted to take home immediately; 




Chicken and cashews thai style. This was definitely different from the chinese version. This was fragrant and a depth of flavour from the holy basil and something else that i asked about and was told it was the addition of dried shrimp paste. 





And keeping with true Thai tradition, we had an unusual curry. If you are a curry person, you know that the options are usually red or green but this was neither. This was a seafood peanut curry that was creamy and sweet yet spicy. Totally moreish. I had an amazing tapioca, ginger mocktail that i will try to replicate at home. We opted not to have any dessert after such a decadent dinner. 





Day 4 was a 'fast food' day. No greasy fried stuff here. Ocean Basket had so many options on the menu, it took me half an hour to decide what to have while ignoring the heavy loud sighs of hubby. I decided to have the mussels and shrimp option with fries which i didnt eat. It came served in this silver bowl thing that was sizzling when it came to me. This meal was sumptuous. The seafood was so fresh and cooked just right and then the lemon mustard sauce was suprisingly mild and very tasty.




The final part coming up and our very first giveaway too. So so excited

1 comment:

  1. Mmmm... I just ate and I am not even really a seafood person, but this post has made me hungry all over again oh! Those shrimp rolls look delicious, and so does everything else.

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