Caraffini
serves Thai food, and is located at 320 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, just
down the road from Ford’s and opposite the Speights Ale House. Say what
you will about Thorndon, it may be dank, it may be overly politicised
but it does have a good selection of restaurants, none of which are
visibly dank. The restaurant is rather small, with half a dozen tables,
serving as a mixed deli-restaurant during the day.
I
don’t really know of any useful cultural stereotypes about Thailand and
its people, so I shall have to refrain from such time honoured literary
devices in my review of Caraffini. I believe that this may in fact not
be such a bad thing, besides which I think it adds a certain moral
virtue to Karate Party, and that can’t hurt.
BG,
an official friend of Karate Party, had invited me to join him at
Caraffini for dinner, an offer I could not refuse, given his knowledge
of good, cheap Asian food. We arrived about 7.30, taking the last free
table. The restaurant was busy, and the lack of visibly angry customers
was encouraging. The range of the menu was rather impressive, with five
soups and fourteen main options, and any restaurant with that many
soups is my new special friend. I could have easily eaten nearly
everything on offer.
I
chose to start with the Tom Yum Gai soup ($7), followed by the Beef
Penang ($12.50), BG also had the same beef dish. The soup was
delicious, nearly the equal of my previous favourite from Seim Reap on
Victoria Street, superior in that it came with rice. The only flaws
being not enough chicken and too many mushrooms, although that latter
point is only really a negative if, like me, you don’t eat mushrooms (I
fully understand that my position may be deemed irrational). The Beef
Penang was fantastic, the beef tender, almost sweet, however it was the
coconut curry sauce that was the real delight. It was creamy and sweet
in a non-cloying fashion, in fact I would have been happy to have had
this sauce by itself on the rice, no offence intended to the beef.
For
$19.50 this was superb value, the food was delicious and of generous
proportion. My only concern was that it did seem to take an overlong
time for our main dishes to be served. This probably means that the
food is freshly cooked, which I guess is a positive point. I would
recommend this restaurant to anyone, especially those looking to try
something new. They have a great range, at fair prices (although
apparently they used to be a lot cheaper).
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320 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington