Review Chon Thai - Balmain

Ordered takeaway and both the food and experience were disappointing. The fried chicken salad came without any chicken. There were only breadcrumbs.

Went here for the first time & loved everything about this place. It’s a reasonably large place with seating on two floors. We sat upstairs and noticed there is also a verandah with seating for warmer days up there. The menu here is extensive and we all decided to have the banquet menu for some variety. I loved every single dish they served here, a rare occurrence:-) Food was well presented, tasted amazing and packed a punch. The beetle leaf with smoked trout was amazing as was the salad and curries. The black sticky rice dessert was yummm. Great service, accommodating kitchen and lovely ambience made for a great night out. Would come back here anytime :-) thanks

Ordered 4 dishes, the Fish and Prawn cake was very good, and others are pretty average, not good value for money. Their kitchen seems working on Uber orders only, churning out bag after bag, totally forgot dine in customers. It took more than an hour for us to get our main.

Excellent menu with delicious food and surroundings , staff very friendly and helpful with menu selections if needed. Will be going back there again 100%

Great Thai food - definitely above average. Friendly service and a nice atmosphere - great place to dine with friends...

I really enjoyed pad thai I've ordered to take away today. The service was great and thanks a lot for the cash discount! -Lee-

Best Thai food in Sydney..what a hidden jem this place is! Food was amazing in presentation and taste. We can't wait to go back

Chon is a fantastic restaurant. The food is way beyond your average suburban Thai eatery. It’s innovative, beautifully presented and delicious. I recently held a function in the upstairs dining room and it was a 10/10 experience and my guests loved it. Keep up the great work Air and team Chon. 🙌

Love the food here. For a Thai restaurant, I think it's not bad. However, some of the waiters are quite rude! There's this one waiter, always has a frown on her face, don't know why?! Frankly, if you wanna frown, don't work in hospitality!

Chon is one of the 200 or so restaurants recommended by Fairfax Media at the recent Good Food awards as “another example of how good Thai food is in Sydney.” Thai food at Khao Pla, Holy Basil and the like are good, but Chon is definitely not one of them.<br/><br/>Chon is a two-storey eatery in Balmain which is fitted with hanging white spherical lanterns and white dining tables. My first impression is that the restaurant is filled with mainly Australians rather than Thais longing for a taste of their homeland. My guess proves prophetic.<br/><br/>My pad Thai was horrendous. The Prawn Pad Thai was mushy and soggy; the flat rice noodles were obviously overcooked. Furthermore, the Pad Thai did not have the distinctive stir-fry flavour which typifies all the Pad Thais in Bangkok and most in Malaysia and Singapore. The Pad Thai is also sweet like sugar and the prawns were stale and powdery.<br/><br/>My stir-fry prawns in prawn paste and chilli weren’t any better. The prawns were stale and powdery too, and the way how much sugar was added to the prawns was baffling.<br/><br/>Good Food judges, before you praise a restaurant, please make a trip to Bangkok. I will certainly accept that this is one of the best Thai food accustomed to Australian tastebuds.

This Thai restaurant has become an addiction. A friend who lives in the area recommended it when I was in Sydney on business a few months ago. Now it’s become a regular stop on my trips to Sydney. I’ve found myself going out of the way to make it here and satisfy my craving for their indescribable betel leaf appetiser. It’s like nothing else I’ve had elsewhere. You must try it. It’s a beautifully balanced morsel of food that leaves you wanting more. The place is always filled with locals saying hello to each other and catching up on the goss before heading home after a great meal. Give it a try. I’ll be surprised if you’re disappointed by the great food, the cozy and simple atmosphere and great service. If that doesn’t draw you in. Perhaps the fact that it is BYO will and to help out on that front there’s a wine store two doors down. Enjoy. I’ll be back and perhaps see you there.

I love this restaurant. The food is everything that a high-brow Thai restaurant should be: exciting, tasty, abundant, and keep you wanting more. The dumplings and the pork belly are 👌🏻 my only suggestion would be to change the menu seasonally. I'd love to see what else these guys can do.

Brilliant, a real stand out in the Thai restaurant scene! Everything was still those great traditional flavours but with the modern edge that it needs to separate it from the rest!! Well worth the visit! We will be back!

A great Thai restaurant in Balmain, the snapper was delicious as well as the massaman curry, they also do great pina colada cocktails, my new local favorite.

Excellent Thai restaurant!! The food was absolutely delicious! I can't fault anything about the dishes we selected. Pork belly was cooked to perfection. I would have liked a little more roti with my curry but it was still really enjoyable. Only negative about this place was that it was very loud. Owner appears to know what he's doing :)

Don't believe the low scores - this place is great. Not cheap, but really tasty, imaginative Thai food. May have had teething problems in its early days, but no signs of them in my recent experience.

Great food, BUT they have crowded too many people onto too small tables and it's FAR too noisy for anyone to have a decent conversation, except maybe on the top verandah. We have been quite a few times, but last visit on a Saturday night the service was extremely slow. Such a shame as the old Satasia had the formula right. Chon seems to be trying hard - but maybe trying to make too much money at the expense of a good  night out. We've been promised some sound baffling for a few months now but have yet to see it.  Having said all this we will continue to patronise as it's the best Thai food in Balmain.

Lovely spot out on the balcony, overlooking twilight Balmain replete with gentle breeze. Good atmosphere, handy wine list. Marc Bredif Vouvray perfect accompaniment to tasty food.<br/><br/>Betel leaves spectacular, good pork belly in soft pockets, whilst the curry puffs were a hit with the kids. Crisp chicken wafer rolls a bit weird.<br/><br/>Pad Thai disappointing - strange vermicelli, tasteless. Pork belly sweet & sour absolutely delightful - crisp, yet gooey, really well done. Papaya salad also very tasty, balancing salty with sour and mild chilli.<br/><br/>But the wait between courses was silly. Almost an hour between 2 X mains and next 2 X mains. Kids were over it, food had swelled, so appetite had dissipated. Fizzled to a fail.<br/><br/>Adjoining table of disgruntled lovers provided a fascinating refrain.

Balmain, like most suburbs in Sydney, doesn't exactly want for Thai restaurants. But rare is the establishment that offers something beyond the usual Thai staples. And rarer still is an establishment helmed by a chef who used to call the shots at the esteemed city eatery Sailors Thai. So the opening of Chon comes loaded with higher-than-usual expectations. <br/><br/>Unfortunately, for me, it's only a mixed success. The good dishes are very good. Egg nets with shredded chicken, coconut and kaffir lime are an absolute knockout. Likewise the Southern-style king prawns with sugar snap peas is a beautifully light stir-fry that packs a big prawn flavour. <br/><br/>But I found the barramundi wrapped in banana leaves to be underwhelming and rendered oddly wet by the blanket of red curry paste smothered on the fillet. Textural issues also dampened a duck salad, where the slices of breast meat were a tad overcooked and leathery. <br/><br/>Dishes arrive quickly - too quickly - and with little regard for sensible sequencing, but Chon wouldn't be the first Thai restaurant to be guilty of that. The floor staff are all highly friendly and helpful, the white-lantern ceiling is modern and light, and the BYO policy is a big added plus. <br/><br/>I feel it's a bit unfair to reach a definitive verdict on Chon after merely one visit. Consistency is clearly an issue, but there are many dishes on the menu I'm yet to explore, and if more of them turn out to be hits than misses, then Chon will edge closer to fulfilling its aspirations to be a cut-above the suburban norm.

Good food at reasonable prices. Went on a Saturday night and the venue was full with quite a few large groups. Food came out quickly although there was probably a good ten minutes between the first entree arriving and the last. Our mains were delicious. Had a duck salad, fish with 3 different sauces and some crispy squid. Preferred the fish and duck salad - great flavours. Would definitely return.

Great cuisine. Excellent prices. Try the pork belly which is to die for! Desserts are very good. Sticky rice pudding was yummo. A new experience in Thai food so its different from thr usual ho-hum Thai in this area!

If you've been missing Pomegranate, this is the new top end Thai in Balmain to take it's place. Great food, well priced, definitely not your average Thai takeaway. Awesome.

My visit to this new and quite wonderful Thai restaurant will not only live with me for a long, long time but it has captured my culinary heart! Do we have too many Thai restaurants? Well, not when they are of the calibre of good food, great ambience and quality service such as Chon provides. It is hard to single-out the "best" dishes simply because there are so many of them but what better reason to go back! The crispy wafer, the twice-cooked pork belly, the quail egg and the betel leaf with smoked trout certainly are designed to set the tone for an incredible experience. The range of salads will appeal to every palate, and the mains are first-class. try the Japaneses eggplant, crispy pork belly (not at all fatty), the mussaman curry, and the wagyu beef. Importantly, leave room for the desserts.<br/><br/>Chon is one of those wonderful places where satisfaction is guaranteed whether you are there for the quicker meal or the lingering experience. Try it!!