During Good Food Month, I booked into Morks for the Issan Odyssey lunch ($40) – a one off lunch providing street food from the Northern Thai region. We were lucky to have a table outside on a sunny warm day. Two of us enjoyed the Issan Odyssey lunch while my other two gluten intolerant friends picked a dish off the regular menu. I’d actually forgotten to mention the dietary requirements at the time of making the booking (so bad of me!) but luckily my friends didn’t mind and the Morks team were able to provide a gluten-free option.
The first dish out were the Larb Wontons with Thai herb yoghurt. Crunchy wontons and flavourful minced meat inside.
Next were the fried beef spare ribs and Issan sausage accompanied by nham jeaow sauce. The beef was slightly charred and had a great BBQ flavour. I love the sauce, (I think a mix of lemon juice, fish sauce, chilli and onion) which gave a lovely tang to the short ribs.
Sticky glutinous rice was served to accompany our mains.
The som tum (spicy papaya salad) was colourful and refreshing.
The last dish to come out was the grilled chicken with Ratanakosol marinade was so succulent and I loved the char grilled flavour on the skin. Yum!
Both gluten intolerant friends had the beef chuck curry with rice and salad ($28). Lots of yummy beef!
Dessert was not included but I couldn’t resist trying out something different. Morks Restaurant introduced a new dessert menu over the last few months so there are many new dessert items such as the Sirius Black (chocolate mousse), Samurai Jack (sticky date pudding), Strawberry Gigolo (shortcake) and my favourite the Sweet Egg in Hay. A new item on that day’s menu was the Pavlova Explosion ($15) and Benn suggested I try that one. This came out partly flaming and I like that our waiter told us to blow it out before attempting to eat (just in case people didn’t know to do so). The dish consisted of two round meringue balls, a scoop of berry sorbet sitting on broken up honeycomb, passion fruit and berry coulis, with some colourful flowers sprinkled throughout. More of a deconstructed pavlova, I thought this was well presented and a good choice for pavlova lovers. The added crunch from the honeycomb gives a bit of a twist to your traditional pav.
I always enjoy eating out at Morks. I might as well use this post to show what was had at a previous outing with friends. I couldn’t wait to try Mork’s BBQ pork bun ($6) with a thick cut of pork, sliced onion, toasted coconut and fresh leafy bok choy. The slice of pork was very thick and smothered in marinade. I loved the flavours and the fresh red onion gave some extra peppery bite.
You can see the toasted coconut hiding underneath
The roasted pumpkin yellow curry with pickles ($25) was colourful and light and I liked the crunchy pickled vegetables, however I was disappointed that there was no rice served with this to absorb the yummy curry. Must try and order some rice with this next time.
The massive serving of the Farmer’s Pad thai ($25) gave me food envy – look at the huge slices of chicken! That’s next on my list to try.
Another friend ordered the snow peas, basil leaves, chilli and 64 degree egg ($25). Looks like a very healthy vegetarian dish.
That’s it for Good Food Month in Canberra this year. Looking forward to the next one!
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Foodgasm 8/10
