[FOOD REVIEW] Thai Riffic on Street, Parramatta

Since my memory sucks and I can't sleep until like 4am anyway, I thought I might as well blog my little trip to the new Thai Riffic on Street (2184B/159-175 Church Street) in Parramatta that is located conveniently beside the escalators to Event Cinemas and the soon to be opened Chefs Gallery. Initially, we were going to go for sushi train but then half an hour before we met up for dinner, my friends and I decided to change plans and come here instead haha. However, I'll have to say I was quite disappointed on my visit due to the taste and small portions. But, the service was really quick and efficient. Our dishes came around 10 minutes after we placed our orders and the staff are quite attentive to our needs and so that's definitely a plus! The menu does seem quite limited though but it's so bright and colourful with lots of photos of the dishes so that was nice to see. Actually, the whole restaurant was very bright with the lights and everything so it definitely has that bustling atmosphere to it. Typical Thai restaurant feel I guess. But yeah, I wasn't really fond of this place.

Geang Keaw Gai (Thai coconut curry w/ green curry paste) $15

The red curry looked quite intimidating and there's no chilli scores on the menu to denote how spicy the dishes were so we decided to just opt to try the appealing green curry w/ chicken. I'll probably be commenting about the small portions a lot but forgive me on that, I was pretty disappointed lol. There wasn't much to this dish, couple of pieces of chicken and green beans with a very watery curry. It had that taste of green curry along with the spiciness but it lack depth to the flavour so it really felt like diluted green curry to a certain extent so I wasn't really a fan of this one.

Chicken Pad Se-ew Neua $12

I actually liked this one but I still think it was a bit too sweet. But it does have sweet soy sauce in it after all so what can you expect I guess. I definitely didn't need the extra sugar on the side though haha. The noodles were nice and chewy with a balanced assortment of fried eggs and chicken so it tasted good overall. However, the portion was small as usual and the chicken was a bit dry.

Meuk Todd (Salt & Pepper Squid) $14

I was the most hyped about this dish since I haven't had s&p squid in a looong time, but sadly I also ended up being the most disappointed with this dish. The sweet chilli sauce was a bit too spicy and weird tasting for my tongue so I opted to just eat the squid plain and as expected, it tasted plain lol. However, I did quite enjoy the texture of the battered squid, could've done better with a bit more salt and pepper though. I couldn't really taste the salt and pepper at all.

Kana Moo Grob (Wok fried Pork Belly) $16

As usual, the small portion turned me off since it also lacked in the veggie department as well lol but presentation-wise, it looked pretty good and I have to admit, this was my favourite dish. The pork belly was really soft and tender but the crispy skin was a bit too chewy for my liking. It was also a bit fatty but it was quite smooth. At first, I really loved the taste and texture but after a bit of veggies and a slice of pork belly, it started to taste really salty and so I would definitely recommend eating some plain steamed rice with this one. But I did enjoy it. The veggies were fresh and crunchy but I think the pork belly could've been cooked in the sauce less longer.

Pang Mo Punn (Watermelon Blend) $6

When my friend and I saw this on the drink menu, we immediately decided to get this haha. This is a juicy watermelon blend with a dash of lime in which I couldn't taste any lime because there was a strong sweet watermelon flavour which was good but then they added some sort of artificial sweetening to it that made it quite sickening. Watermelon is more of a refreshing drink to me so having that super sweet taste to it really ruined the drink  and I needed to eat that watermelon slice to really get that fake sweetness off my tongue. There were also a lot of small cubes of ice that didn't blend entirely and so 2/3 of the drink was spent crunching on quite a bit of ice lol. Definitely wouldn't recommend if you want something refreshing.

Overall, I wasn't really impressed with the food, but I guess my biggest gripe was with the portions since I'm quite used to the larger portions that are offered at Thai restaurants and so I just wasn't full from the meal. It really felt like fancy Thai that didn't taste fancy enough lol. To be fair, I don't really like Thai food in general so I'm pretty biased but yeah, this isn't something I would come back for considering that I prefer cheap and satisfying eats and this simply isn't one of them. And I'm traumatised by the watermelon drink lol.