Sang's Thai restaurant - Sunshine Coast, QLD

(degusted  9th Aug, 2011)

Moreton Bay Bugs, stir-fried with chilli and basil.

We enjoyed dining at Sang's Thai restaurant – and although we flag a few technicalities with their dishes, most punters probably won't realise (or care) about these minor issues in dishes that are otherwise quite tasty and overall pretty good. The fact that the place was over half full on a Tuesday night, and many of those were obviously locals on repeat-visits, speaks volumes about the success of this place, and suggests they've got their dishes well sorted for local tastes. Who are we to argue with that!?

After a long relaxing lunch at Kings Beach we were not really that hungry, so before our dinner we took advantage of the many kilometers of beautiful walking tracks and amazing beaches that are what make this area on the Sunshine Coast such a drawcard for visitors. With a tenth of a marathon completed, we searched for a restaurant offering something to pique our interest, and Urbanspoon revealed Sang's Thai restaurant as one that had a swag of good reviews and plenty of "likes". Consider that a decision made – thanks, urbanspoon.

Having recently moved into its current location on a prominent corner shop site, Sang's dining room has a nice mellow feel – dark chocolates and browns set up an intimate and rustic feel – while still looking modern and chic with the polished concrete floors. The patterned tablecloths were nice enough even though they were in fact vinyl – usually a tacky addition – but in this case, the covers were nice enough and were not detrimental to the feel of the place.

Service was friendly and prompt, even though a large table had arrived at a similar time – we were not forgotten, which was nice.

For starters, we had the Fish cakes and Yellow pancake – the latter could be described as being similar to a vienamese Bun Xeo (crispy pancake), although a lot heavier and denser and more oily. This yellow pancake did not actually look very yellow, except for the oil that came out of it – the best part was the filling, which included bean sprouts and chicken pieces. One of The Degusters liked them more than the other, mainly the combination of crisp outside and chewyness inside. Being so oily, however, they really needed a sharp dressing to cut through, however the sesame and soy dressing supplied gave a big mouthful of sesame oil, and just added to the slick in the mouth.

Crispy "yellow pancake"

 The fish-cakes were enjoyed by us both, and were full of a fresh and bitey kaffir lime-leaf flavour, and a chilli hint that came through after swallowing. The crunchy peanuts gave the otherwise soft cakes some good textural dimension, but the sweet chilli sauce seemed to have been from a bottle (we didn't ask). Regardless, this was the preferred starter out of the two we tried.

Fish Cakes

The dish to which other online reviewers have given good reviews is the Moreton Bay Bug dish, which can be had either in a Penang Curry or stir-fried with chilli and basil. Did someone say chilli? Bring on the stir-fried version for us, thanks!

Moreton Bay Bugs, stir-fried with chilli and basil.

This dish presents well, and who wouldn't love those bugs?! The bug meat was beautiful – cooked well and tasted great; there were 3 bug halves in the dish.

Although the flavours that were in the dish were quite nice, it didn't really live up to the label of 'chilli'. Sure, there was a slight hint of hotness, but nothing like a good chilli hit we were hoping for. We're guessing it was tailored for local palettes which might have found this level of chilli quite hot enough for them.. We recommend asking for extra chilli on this dish.

The roast duck can also be ordered in either of two ways – as a red curry or stir-fried. We went with the curry version to get a variety of tastes. Hats off to the chef for including lychees in the red curry (our favourite ingredient when we make these sorts of dishes ourselves), but the duck was slightly over-done – the thicker cut pieces were better than the thinner pieces, so we expect the duck was cooked right after the roasting, but continued to cook in the curry – and was therefore a little bit past perfect. It was not tough or dry, however, and tasted really nice nonetheless.

Roast duck in red curry. Thumbs-up from us for the inclusion of lychees.

We would recommend this place to others, with some points to remember: ask for extra chilli if you like it; note that it's BYO, and a small steamed rice is probably enough for two.

Rating:  Nom(x1) - yummy for sure, hits the target market well.

Meh                      It’ll Do                   Nom(x3)                              Must go back!

Done and Degusted @ Sang's Thai

Fish cakes

Yellow pancakes

Moreton Bay Bugs, stir fried with chilli and basil

Sliced roasted duck breast in red curry