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MELBOURNE | I’ve always been a big fan of Tony and Oh Rungpradit’s Thai food at their Collingwood restaurant Son In Law, so when I was invited by Tony to check out his new spot Son In Law – The Pad, I was keen to see the concept.
It’s located inside ELLA, the new Tokyo Station inspired dining precinct inside Melbourne Central that’s brought together several popular Melbourne restaurants in a multi-purpose lane way like space.
The menu is a much more stripped down affair compared to the original. The focus here is on customisable pad thai, hence the “the pad” suffix of the venue’s name. You can choose your desired noodle, protein, and spice level, and a few minutes later it’s ready. Stir fried in with the noodles and protein is egg, diced tofu, dried shrimp, been shoots, and chives.
For noodles, there’s the original along with butterfly pea flower, crispy, pumpkin, and rice berry. On this occasion I opted for the pork cheek with vibrant purple butterfly pea flower kanom jeen noodles, and the hottest spice level. It all comes together very well. A nice spring and texture to the noodles, tender, tasty pork, with a nice succulent fat to meat ratio, and lots of punchy flavour. Other protein options include things like tiger prawns, chicken, and crispy pork belly.
Fried chicken riblets feature a wonderful balance between sweet, salty, spicy, and sour and are well worth ordering. Also worth looking at are the bao – you can choose from pork belly, roast duck, and black sesame tofu.
There are a few other things on the menu, including Thai milk tea and milo doughnuts and Thai-style coconut ice-cream.
It’s early days for the new ELLA food space, but if the initial offerings like that at Son In Law – The Pad are anything to go by, it’s going to be a success. I’d happy return for more of the Thai food here any day.
Son In Law – The Pad
ELLA Melbourne
211 La Trobe Street
Melbourne
Victoria 3000
Australia
Telephone: n/a
E-mail: [email protected]
Website
Open
Sun – Sat: 11:30am to 9:00pm