Cheap Thrills At Khao Man Kai, Sydney

Khao Man Kai is a Thai restaurant on George Street in Sydney's CBD. They're known for their eponymously named Khao Man Kai or Hainanese inspired steamed chicken and rice but also have a range of other well priced dishes. It is perfect for a quick, cheap eat in the city with most dishes under $20.

Monica and I have around one hour for dinner. Only because Mr NQN dropped us off and is taking the dogs for a walk in the park and in an hour it will get dark. Luckily Khao Man Kai is the perfect place for a quick bite. The restaurant is light and spacious with high ceilings and chicken toy mascots perched on copper piping and large soft toys. They bring us menus but you order via a QR code.

For drinks Monica orders a whole coconut while I choose a strawberry yogurt shake which is delicious with a generous amount of real strawberry sauce and the light tang of yogurt. It's very thick and so thick that even the fat straw has trouble dispensing the smoothie.

Most dishes are under $20 but this is a khao man kai combination set so it has double the meat. If you order khao man gai with a single meat it is around $16.90. You can choose the type of meat that you want from a choice of 6: steamed chicken, fried chicken, grilled chicken, pork jowl, bbq pork and crispy pork. We order the steamed chicken and pork jowl. The steamed chicken is nice although we both really enjoy the pork jowl with its unctuous texture. There are three dipping sauces: a sweet soy kecap manis, a classic chilli and a stronger chilli garlic sauce. The garlic rice is very lightly flavoured with garlic and there's also a bowl of comforting chicken broth as well.

I had heard people rave about the soy marinated salmon and prawn on mixed rice. The seafood is marinated in a soy based marinade with a soy cured egg yolk, tobiko on a bed of rice. It's not bad although I think I prefer straight sashimi and I prefer the raw salmon to the raw prawn.

The dish we both adore is the green curry ramen. You can choose to add meat on top and we select the fried chicken. The flat noodles aren't traditional ramen noodles but are more like khao soi egg noodles. They're still good and hold up well without absorbing too much liquid. It comes with 2 deep fried pork wontons and whole egg sliced in two atop a wonderful broth that is so addictive that we both go back until nothing is left. The fried chicken has a batter like a beer batter that gives it a resounding crispiness even when half submerged in the curry sauce.

We also order the Tum Thai because we always like to eat our vegetables. This is fresh, crunchy and a good version of a green papaya salad. There are other versions of Som Tum available but we order the regular one without the small crabs.

There's no room for dessert although there are a range of toasts with toppings like Milo and pandan as well as shaved ices and ice cream. I check my phone and it has just turned dark outside and we've finished in just under an hour too!

So tell me Dear Reader, what is the quickest meal that you've eaten out? Do you like chicken rice?

This meal was independently paid for.

Khao Man Kai

804 George St, Haymarket NSW 2000

Phone: 0452 231 878

Open 7 days 11am-10:30pm