BKK & The Golden Age of Melbourne Thai
Course by course at HQ Group's CBD Thai eatery
It is a running joke in my immediate circles, which is to say snobbish industry-adjacent types, that Thai food is the favourite cuisine of people that don’t really like food. I should clarify here by saying that, by “Thai” food, I mean specifically the westernised, neutered Thai food you’ll find in bayside restaurants and venues with neon signage. We’re talking jaundiced chicken satay made from what I consider to be the most conservative-coded cut of protein, the chicken tenderloin. We’re talking watery, sweet “curries”, hurriedly reverse engineered and studded with morbid pale ribbons of poached meat. We’re talking bland, joyless food that is an affront to the artform it is attempting to replicate. We’re talking about the edible version of this:
I try to avoid that Thai food. But thankfully, for a multitude of reasons, there is often very little reason to settle for it in 2024. The Melbourne CBD is going through a golden era of Thai restaurants serving authentic, exciting iterations of the genre, and increasingly, regional Thai food is becoming more popular across menus. The deeper we delve into the colourful, exciting and dangerous world of Thai food, the more we learn about what this complex and varied cuisine has to teach us about technique, texture and seasoning.
Today, we’re going course by course of a recent lunch at Melbourne’s BKK, where head chef Sungeun Mo presides over service like a watchful, hyper-focused conductor leads their orchestra. Good Thai food sends your body into a state of high awareness; your head awash with wave after wave of dry spice and smart textures, your stomach glowing like low, hot charcoal embers. This is good Thai food.
It is always a pleasant surprise when a big budget venue escapes your gaze, and through sheer force of consistency and reliability, circles back to you a few years later. In my experience, only the venues that value quality, authentic cooking and have a focus on customer service are able to do this; break the shackles of the media cycle and form long term relationships with their clientele. The single best recommendation I can receive from someone for a restaurant isn’t that they’ve been there and like it; it’s that they go there all the time.
BKK falls into this category. The mid-casual Thai offering from HQ group, who operate the Arbory venues and the rest of the spaces in the muti-level HER complex, impressed me on a recent visit. The space is comfortable and lively, a tight L-shaped dining room wrapping around an impressive open kitchen; all the better for absorbing wafts of the kitchen’s barbecue-focused menu.
We begin with everyone’s favourite South East Asian canape conveyance; the betel leaf. Here, a cool, creamy tartare of just-set prawn, still muddy and earthy but bouncing back against the tooth sweetly, is folded through the funk of gapi fermented prawn paste. As with most of the food I tried at BKK, there’s a generous attention paid to seasoning and garnishing dishes; always a tangle of herb, or a crunch of nut or grain spiking each mouthful. These are especially tasty, the pops of fluorescent finger lime singing through like a sax solo in a particularly tight jazz quartet.
To follow, two barbecued pork skewers with “best friend spice”, the provenance of which I unfortunately failed to ascertain, but rest assured that it too was tasty. The charcoal singe of the wooden skewer tips put me at further ease; this kitchen isn’t messing around. There are no airs and graces here, and despite BKK’s slick copper fit out and friendly, professional staff, the food delivers on the promise of a little bit of peril with your pleasure.
A somtum of green papaya cools and stokes simultaneously, sweet and syrupy interludes of crunch and refreshment proving a perfect foil for the pork. It’s happy-chatting food; communal, relaxed, but lively enough to punctuate the conversation. Our next dish, however, has my full attention.
Suburban nightmares of damp and loveless Thai beef salads are banished forever upon receipt of BKK’s iteration. Grilled flank steak is grilled rare and sliced, but given ample time to rest in a vigorously acidic dressing. Again, it’s the flourishes of texture that elevate this simple dish to something memorable; carefully picked herbs, all in contrasting shapes. Tiny, explosive pops of green Thai chilli. Half moons of shallot lending bitterness and crunch. I especially love the pieces of lime, squeezed with the frugality of someone who knows how much limes currently cost, left into the salad, and the final flourish of roasted chilli flakes and toasted rice powder. It’s casual yet calculated, traditional yet without nostalgia. This is a dish I’ll most certainly return to.
To finish, some more substantial and meaty dishes. As with the rest of BKK’s menu, I was struck by the approachable price point and suitability for solo dining. This pad kaprao, a sort of best-case-scenario home cooked meal encompassing protein, vegetable, starch and garnish, is pretty exceptional value at $21, roughly what you’ll pay for an upsized Zinger box with extra wicked wings in 2024. Thusly, the choice is obvious; next time you’re tempted to do damage to your life expectancy via highly processed trans fats, instead opt for this bowl of goodness, juicy sweet and savoury all at once, with a textbook fried egg on top.
Rounding out our lunch, and something of the star of the BKK menu, a fragrant red curry of duck and lychee. Melbourne has been looking for a duck curry role model since the golden days of Adam D’Sylva at CODA, and highly agreeable versions propagate the menus of many establishments. Particular care here is shown to the duck itself; I would guess it is par-roasted or possibly confited, then hit with the high heat of the barbecue to infuse some of that excitement into the broth. The result is a textural and aromatic onslaught, the char and chew of the exterior, the lavish luxury of the flesh, the sweet and perfumed curry broth, the sugar hit of lychee punching like a pop song chord change. It’s a truly lovely thing.
I was very taken with BKK. It felt a little like walking in on a band’s set a few songs in. You’ve missed the excitement of the arrival, but you’ve also missed the awkward second and third songs, where the band is still getting into the pocket. It’s nice to be welcomed into a venue that’s found its rhythm, and keeping its eye on the prize in terms of delivering delicious, easily replicable food at a doable price point.
BKK
Level 3/270 Lonsdale St, Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9997 0437
Thanks... well you know what I'm craving now!!