The bridge of Sai
Once a quiet street in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Cyrildene, Derrick Avenue boasted a few nondescript shops interspersed with red-brick houses with low front walls. Big Julie delicatessen hugged one corner of the street. The shop windows were framed with some seen-better-days, scraggly lace curtains, the tables were sparse and the service was slow, but for those in the know Big Julie became a much-frequented pit- stop. Anyone who’s ever been to a New York deli will understand when I speak of Big Julie hot-beef- on-rye sarmies. They weren’t quite in the mile-high style of New York’s famed Carnegie Deli, but Julie came a close second with finely sliced layers of warm, succulent corned-beef pastrami interwoven with pickled cucumbers suspended between two fresh slices of rye. They were legendary.
Today Derrick Avenue is serving a completely different style of fare. The menorahs have been replaced with Chinese trinkets and good-luck charms. The neat suburban homes have retreated behind metres- high walls and hastily-built venues house a menagerie of Chinese restaurants, supermarkets and vegetable hawkers.
English is no longer the order of the day as Derrick Avenue has become the new Chinatown.
Micky Liu’s Thai restaurant (the only one in Chinatown), Sai Thai, is small but, next to some of its dodgier neighbours, it could be considered fairly upmarket.
Liu has a food pedigree that goes back to Bangkok, where she was born and trained, and is the consultant chef to Thai Airways. A sort of unofficial ambassador for Thailand, she touts her country through her food.
Liu’s husband Dennis, who hails from Hong Kong, is a congenial host, handing us a menu with pages and pages of appetisers, soups, salads, beef, pork, poultry, seafood, rice and noodle dishes. Vegetarians, long neglected on the restaurant front, will be delighted by the three-plus pages of options.
Always suspicious of long menus, I requested that chef Liu prepare a Thai spread for three hungry people. Wine is BYO or from a 5-litre box. Imported beers (the ideal accompaniment to Thai food) are available, as is an array of excellent, freshly squeezed fruit juices. The watermelon was superb.
The food trail could be likened to a culinary marathon, as Liu despatched the dishes from the kitchen. Make-your-own spinach rolls, spring rolls, prawn cakes and an excellent Tom Yum Goong, the traditional hot-and-sour prawn soup, were just the starters. That over and with no respite, the mains sizzled their way to our table: curried crab, a succulent whole fish, moreish crispy salt-and-pepper prawns, a good green-chicken curry and an interesting spicy-rice-and-green- mango dish, of which Liu was clearly very proud, as she rushed from the kitchen to watch us eat.
The chef insisted we end with a creamed coconut and fresh mango dessert. Delicious. The only drawback? We lapped it up, except for the momentary bouts of indigestion as we contemplated the bill of the never-ending feast.