Tusk, Balmoral

By MICHELE HEWITSON for viva

Tusk has been around our neighbourhood for a good while now. Seven years is a good while in the scheme of things: where the noodle houses come and go and we have given up ever hoping for anything, oh say, euro-chic around these parts.

When Tusk moved in it looked rather chic. It still does. Here was a Thai joint without a Buddhist shrine, and not a yard of the ubiquitous striped silk Thai restaurant owners must get by the truckload, at a discount, with which to swathe their bolster cushions and windows.

At Tusk everyone sits at tables. You are not offered the chance to sit on the floor which is supposed to be a treat at some Thai establishments but which has always seemed to me to be a way to save on paying for chairs.

Anyway it is very nice to sit at the bar at Tusk, waiting for the Television Critic to arrive (it is a rule of arriving that if you live five minutes walk from the restaurant you will be late), reading Thailand Tatler (which has the most glorious typos and nonsense about social climbing) and looking at the strip of noodle bars opposite.

We are fond of some of our local noodle bars but glad we were not availing ourselves of their charms this evening.

For all its casting aside of the traditional Thai restaurant accoutrements, Tusk does a pretty bog standard Thai food menu at slightly above the usual prices - to pay for the nice chairs, perhaps. So they ought to be able to do the standards well.

Which is why I ordered the Thai fish cakes ($8.00) and why the TC ordered the Tom Yum Goong ($8.50).

They did not do the fish cakes well, unless there is some sort conspiracy among Thai restaurant owners to convince us that Thai fish cakes should resemble deep-fried rubber.

The prawn soup was okay, but we have had better here and the TC, who needs to keep his senses sharp, his tongue acerbic, complained about a noticeable lack of lemon grass.

He was also less than impressed with his Pad Hoi Shell ($21.50), a sizzling platter of sad, greyish scallops and passable bits of veges.

My Moo Yang ($17.50) was, despite the cow connotation, pork. It was skewered and, allegedly, marinated in coriander, pepper and garlic. It was skewered pork.

We shared a funny pudding. It was lurid green on the bottom of the little squares and had wobbly, jellied coconut cream on the top. It looked like the sort of pudding they'd serve in hell and it was delicious.

On investigation (we asked the waiter) it turned out to be sticky rice pudding with coconut stuff on top. He gave us the Thai name but said that if we ever wanted it again to just ask for rice pudding.

The TC, who turns his nose up at my home-made rice puds, even the one out of the Nigel Slater cookbook, gobbled it up. Jolly good that. Just close your eyes while you eat it - or do as the bloke at the table next to us did, and keep your sunnies on for the entire meal.

Tusk could do better, and in the past has done better. It still looks like what it is: a smart addition to noodle bar drive, but it could afford to update its menu (and acquire a new recipe for fish cakes) without - for it is fairly full most nights - alienating its loyal clientele.

Address: 590 Dominion Rd, Balmoral


Open Dinner: 7 nights


Food Thai


On the menu

The usual: spring rolls, seafood in flaming pot with coconut soup, whole teamed fish with fresh ginger, spring onion, pickled plums and vegetables.

Vegetarian: Plenty of the stuff, including - if you really must - ways with tofu


Wine: Limited, and little that is drinkable by the glass


Crowd: Our neighbours who, like us, are presumably having a night off from the noodle bars


Parking: Plenty round the back in the Warehouse carpark


Bottom line: Tusk is a very pleasant place to go and hang out, and there's nothing jaded about the venue. But they should really be able to manage the basics better than the rest. And they could take some risks with a menu which should be a little more challenging to our noodle-bar sated palates.




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