House

Bar Bar Food Dessert Eat & Drink Pub Bistro Thai Wine

Jackie McMillan
February 12, 2014

Triple Ace Bar manage to eschew having their own bistro by sitting directly under Sydney crab institution – Harry’s Chilli Singapore Crab – and leasing out their former beer garden to House. It’s the Issan cousin to the popular Spice I Am restaurants in Balmain, Darlinghurst, and just up the road in Surry Hills. Expecting a totally unrenovated pub, I smiled to see some Astroturf, blonde wood and Edison light bulbs have crept in. Plonk yourself at the bar; order an inexpensive bottle of Tim Knappstein Riesling ($23); drink a glass while you wait for friends, then cap the bottle and wander outside for a ripper Thai meal with an outdoor pub atmosphere. This regional Thai cuisine employs fermented anchovy, fresh chilli and sourness from tamarind; but recently a few of the gentler Spice I Am favourites have emerged, from Yellow Curry Chicken ($19) to Gaeng Keaw Wan Nua Toun ($19), a green beef curry with apple eggplants and extraordinary depth of flavour. They go down nicely with a Peroni ($8.10) from the pub’s bottled beer selection. Meaty favourites like Mood Daed Deaw ($8.50) – sun-dried marinated pork strips – make good drinking food against Nam Khao Tod ($19), a spicy, crisped rice salad. Don’t leave without sharing their infamous B.T.S. ($16) dessert…