Thirst Wine Bar & Eatery

Thirst Wine Bar & Eatery (Melbourne Building, 20 West Row, Civic) is a relatively new addition to the eateries in Civic offering a Modern Thai menu (owned by the former owners of Anise Restaurant). As its name suggests, it does have a bar area where you can enjoy a few drinks and some snacks. Alternately, you can just head to the restaurant area to enjoy a meal. The place looks modern, simple with small and big drawings of fire adorning the walls of the restaurant. The menu is not extensive but it offers both traditional and non-traditional dishes, such as the Green Curry with Trout Dumplings.

We ordered a Crispy Fish Salad as a starter and i quite liked it. The dish consisted of small deep fried whitebait with slices of green mango, coriander, roasted peanuts with a hot chilli dressing. It's light, refreshing and packed with flavours that just makes you wanna keep on eating it.

As mains, we decided to order the Chiang Mai Noodle and Green Curry with Trout Dumplings. Chiang Mai Noodle is the equivalent of laksa in Northern Thailand and it uses a curry broth. The broth is flavoursome and the chicken was nice and tender. The crispy noodles at the top definitely added a nice touch to the whole dish.

The dish that i was really looking forward to was the Green Curry with Trout Dumplings because i've never tried something like this. The so-called dumplings are actually minced ocean trout fillets mixed with garlic, ginger & coriander root shaped into balls (like meatballs) and cooked in a classic Thai green curry. The curry was light and matched with the delicate flavours of trout dumplings quite well - worth trying for its uniqueness.

Chiang Mai Noodles

Green Curry with Trout Dumplings - can't see the dumplings as they are all submerged in curry

And what is a meal without desserts? *especially when they look tempting...

We ended up ordering a Coconut & Pandanus custard with a caramelised sugar top. Glad that they caramelize the sugar upon order so that it is still hot and ready to make that beautiful cracking sound when it arrives at the table. The custard itself was lovely and fragrant and had that nice green colour too. And ohn yeah...i had the honour to crack it! *winks

On top of the custard, we also greedily ordered two scoops of sorbet. It was a must because the flavours were so different and we just HAD to try them. We got a Pineapple & Ginger Sorbet and a Lime & Kaffir Lime Sorbet. Loved the lime one as it was so refreshing and the kaffir lime added that edge to it - warning: could be sour for some people! If you prefer something sweeter, then the pineapple & ginger sorbet should be nice - fruity and 'gingery'.

Dinner was enjoyable and it was nice to try something different such as the Green curry with Trout dumplings and to savour new and exciting sorbet flavours. Not to forget that cracking the custard was a highlight too...love doing that!