Thai Riffic on street - Parramatta, NSW

If you follow me on instagram, you'll notice that I've been eating out at places without posting about it here. What's going on? Living with someone else (and taking care of an apartment) has simply meant that I've had less and less time to sit down and put pen to paper (so to speak). But now that I'm back in Australia, I plan to post as frequently as I can to try and catch up cause we've got some good things coming soon!

As many of you know, I've since moved from the southern side of Sydney to the west and I've become a proud and happy resident of Parramatta. Where we live, we're never too far from really, really good food which is absolutely amazing! One of the places that we've been lucky enough to try in recent days is Thairiffic on the street. Located underneath the Westfield cinemas, this conveniently located restaurant (which is a part of a larger chain of Thai Riffic eateries) offers the usual fragrant, delicious Thai fare but also brings many street eats to the west.

The Mrs and I popped in for lunch one afternoon after not being able the decide on what to eat (trust me, the abundant choices in Parramatta can get debilitating). After being seated, we skimmed over the menu and noticed quite a few dishes that you don't regularly find in Thai eateries around the area. So, we quickly placed our order and waited patiently for it our opportunity to sample the delicacies.

I ordered one of my favourite Thai street food items: guay teaw neua toon which is a rich and deep flavoured beef broth served with beef balls, thin rice noodles and tender chunks of braised beef. If you like pho, you'll definitely like this soup noodle as the flavour profiles are really similar: you have the aniseed from the cloves and star anise and the herbaceous aromatic smell of coriander. The springy beef balls provide that texturally pleasant meaty element which is furthered by the big, chunks of fall apart beef. It is significantly sweeter than Pho but you'll learn to relish this sweetness as you hastily slurp those thin strands of rice noodles.

The Mrs ordered the khao mun goong ob mor din which was a claypot rice of sorts with rice stir-fried in a spicy shrimp sauce and served with plump, juicy prawns, fish roe and an onsen egg. Be warned: when they say spicy, they mean spicy. Each grain of rice is coated in this moreish, fiery sauce which made my tongue tingle with joy. This dish isn't particularly generous with the prawns but they do give you really big ones that are cooked to perfection. This dish was also way too spicy for the Mrs so she had to switch with me.

She didn't really like my dish all too much either (too sweet for her) so for compensation, she ordered an extra order of barbecued ox tongue. The ox tongue was grilled really well and took on a charred, crispy exterior...really highlighting the rich, fatty meat but texturally speaking, this was one of the chewier ones I've eaten. Still, they do the dipping sauce really well here so it was a delight to dip the ox tongue in the sweet and savoury sauce.

Again, our apologies for not having updated the blog in a while but we've been kinda busy (really, we have!) and as we go out and explore all that this wonderful area has to offer, I'll be sure to double my efforts and post as frequently as I can to catch up! Stay tuned!