Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Riversdale Thai, Camberwell by Bureaucrat

Riversdale Thai is located on Riversdale Road in Camberwell, with a tram track alongside it, a bus stop in front of it, and a train line next to it. Having found myself in that part of town one chilly night, I had wandered in for a spot of takeaway. The decor what you’d expect of a suburban restaurant in this area – smart and neat with plenty of Thai-style furnishings.  Despite getting there just before 6pm on a weekday, there was already a table of diners. 

Riversdale Thai, Camberwell, pad thai, noodles
While I do enjoy Thai food, the fact that I’m bit a of a chilli wimp means that I tend to order dishes that aren’t loaded with chillies.  Thank god for pad Thai!  Pad Thai is a stir fried rice noodle dish that was invented as part of a noodle competition in Thailand during the 1930s.  So the story goes, the government wanted to reduce domestic consumption of their rice exports (presumably because they were getting a better price on the export market) and was trying to get people to eat more noodles instead.  Pad Thai became so popular that it's become a quasi-national dish.  I like this story, but am a bit puzzled by it since it requires rice to make rice noodles.

Anyhoo, the noodles here were good and reasonable.  The noodles were reasonably plentiful, good savoury-sour/tart flavour from the soy and tamarind-based sauce, lots of tiny nuggets of firm tofu and beanshoots, and a sprinkling of toasted peanuts.  My minor quibbles are that I would have liked a bit more chicken and more eggs in the dish.

Riversdale Thai, Camberwell, beef, vegetable, stir fry
Our other dish was Pad Khing w beef, which is a veggie and beef stir fry with ginger.  A nice mix of seasonal veg that were lightly cooked so that they stayed crisp and crunchy, lots of thinly sliced ginger gave the dish a mellow warmth, but it wasn’t as zingy as you’d expect it to be.  There was more beef in this dish than chicken in the pad Thai. 

Riversdale Thai, Camberwell, takeaway
We got a large serve of rice to go with it.

Riversdale Thai, Camberwell

Riversdale Thai, Camberwell

Verdict
Food - 7
Ambiance - 7
Service - 7
Price – 6.5

Overall
A reasonable suburban Thai restaurant.  The food is reasonable, the service is reasonable and the price is fairly reasonable (I would have liked the serves to be a wee bigger for the price).  

Address
Riversdale Thai
655 Riversdale Road
Camberwell 3124
Telephone: 9077 7782

Riversdale Thai on Urbanspoon

2 comments:

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