There is not really a lot unique to say about Pinto Thai in setting the mood. Wherever you are in Australia, there is bound to be one or more local Thai places close by - sometimes within walking distance. Well, walking is a bit of an ask here, even in the adjacent streets, being on a busy main road and all. Anyways, this is one place that I have known about, and have gone past on so many occasions. With it being new and everything, plus one of the locales, it is without question that I give it a go.
It was time again for watching another PPV on the WWE Network, we are talking about Tables, Ladders, and Chairs this time - what a night it will be! As per tradition, I went back to Menulog to get some deliver to have while watching it. A lot of the time, it seemed to be Indian to default to - and with no disrespect to that cuisine, a bit of a mix-up seemed like a good idea. For that reason, I thought that some Thai would be good - and it is basically the next best takeaway as well. So, on to MenuLog and logging in the order then paying, all that was left was to wait.
Coming to think about it after so many times, I will give benefit of the doubt with delivery service. Sometimes they must get caught in traffic, and that is always a big bummer for anyone in that situation. Since this is on a main road, and it was a pretty busy time that I logged in, I will give them a bit of slack for some overtime. Fashionably late is sometimes the way to go. Needless to say, dropping it off was possibly the quickest that it has been yet.
This is a Thai place, so for anyone moderately familiar with Thai restaurants there will be no surprises for what is on the menu. That means all the usual curries, the usual noodle dishes (and then some), and all the wok-fried dishes often coming with the choice of meat. Additionally, they have salads, a few grilled meals, and plenty of seafood options. Add onto that the entrees, side dishes and some nibblings then what you have yourself is a fairly solid and complete Thai menu.
To whet the appetite, the first order of business was some starters. I got curry puff and crispy chicken wings. The curry puffs were decent, where the filling was soft and hot, a combination of beef and potato. It was covered with a soft, and robust pastry shell. Better yet were the crispy chicken wings. It had the best combination when ordering chicken wings, and that was having the meat be tender and juicy and the skin being super crispy. The skin was infused with what tasted like salt and pepper, which made it even tastier. Like most chicken wings, I could easily eat a whole plate of these and then some.
After some good starters to the meal, it was on to some great mains. First up was a noodle dish, in which I selected "drunken noodles" with pork as the meat. This dish was really well done, with rice noodles that were cooked fantastically and quickly then mixed with a fresh and aromatic selection of vegetables and spices - there was onion, capsicum, garlic, chilli, plenty of peppercorns throughout (you can miss them) and all sorts of beans. By only using some basic ingredients, it made for a dynamic and wholesome meal. Of course, the meat was tender and mixed into the noodles quite well. So far, so good.
The next dish was the classic curry beef masamum, which was requested at medium heat. This is coming from someone who does like it spicy, and will often order something maybe a bit too hot from time to time. At many an Indian, or Thai, or any place having curry really, do I often default to the medium heat. From so many years of having anything from around that part of the world as a major part of my diet, medium has more or less become the new mild to me (and mild simply tastes bland now). All of this is needed to be said, because upon this time around the curry sauce had some real heat to it. I was not quite panting for water (though drinking a bit still helped), but I could definitely feel the sweats occurring from such a hot curry.
Outside of the heat, this was a fantastic version of the dish. The beef was super tender and had a wonderful flavour, plus the potatoes were soft and fluffy. Those potatoes and beef were infused in a fantastic gravy that was deep with flavour that had plenty of peanuts through it, and along with describing the aforementioned level of spice, it simply was tasty and thick. My mum would be proud that I ended up getting this beauty.
And for one last addition as a meal, I got the salt and pepper squid. This is one of those items which are very reliable - often, without much conscious thought, it gets ordered by default and is very close to always being a sure-fire winner. Salt and pepper squid, whether as a pub snack, or gotten in a Chinese restaurant, or anyplace else, is often really tasty, has a sharp bite from the pepper and is moreish in texture and taste. There was that here, and add on a good mixture of onion, chilli, capsicum and garlic chopped up and mixed in with the salt and pepper. All that made for a good dry seasoning, plus you cannot argue with the size of the serving.
Almost by compulsion, when getting a curry I can't not have it without getting some sort of bread to dip it in. That is almost as ingrained in my head as "coffee to cake". The bread is more in place here than rice. For that reason, with getting a curry, immediately afterwards a roti was ordered in conjunction with the rest of the meal. There was definitely something a bit different about this take on the roit, which honestly almost reminded me of Texas toast. It was cooked well, definitely kept the flaky texture in tact between the crispy outside. On an aside, it was not quite as buttery as most offerings would be - which is a case of preference, as I do quite like a bit of the buttery residue from naan and such. And with that, that was a good and successful takeaway selection.
Not much more is able to be said about Thai Pinto. It is another local Thai place, it does some decent food, and it matched the necessity to be reliable, good value and with no dish being out of place. You can never really go wrong with it, though once in a while there is one which stands above the crowd and Pinto Thai was one of these examples.
TL;DR: Basically, this is great Thai food. Nothing too much outside the norm is offered, and as the fallback option that it is these days, all the favourites are there and it should prove to be a crowd-pleaser. I have said before in a review quite some time back that rarely is a Thai meal outright bad, though some are certainly better than others. Occasionally though, something like this pops up which really hits all the spots and is a fair deal better than most of its brethren. Well, Pinto Thai is an example of that level of quality and is on the shortlist for a fallback option at short order.
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