Love Thai food? This unassuming Pyrmont local favourite serves some seriously memorable dishes, from rich lamb massaman and crispy pork belly red curry to seafood fried rice loaded with bug and crab. Find out what to order at Soi 25.
It's Mr NQN's birthday when we arrive at Soi 25 in Pyrmont. The corner restaurant is very popular with locals and on this Thursday night many of the tables are taken. Soi 25 is named by owner Tony Doan - the 25th is his wedding anniversary and he figured this way he would never forget it.
Tony grew up with a mother who was a Vietnamese street food vendor in the 1980s who instilled in him discipline. He taught himself Thai cooking, focusing on Northern and Southern regions. Tony works the restaurant floor while two chefs work the kitchen: Head Chef Thanawat Saisaeng and sous chef Suksan Kaewmal, both from Southern Thailand.
Soi 25 spent 4 years from 2017 located in Darlinghurst where it was a sprawling 140 seater restaurant. They then moved to Burwood in 2022 and then to Pyrmont in 2024 to a 50 seater restaurant fitting 30 people inside and 20 people outside. Tony is a chef and he has worked on the recipes for Soi 25 and launched their new menu at the end of June 2026. The food here is Thai but often with a fusion twist to it.
Their signature starter is the Mia Kham betel leaf that is topped with prawn and sashimi-grade Hokkaido scallop, finished with Yarra Valley salmon pearls, toasted peanut, coriander, coconut, ginger, herbal palm sugar and sugarcane juice. It's a wonderfully tasty mouthful full of flavours and textures that go so well together.
The prawn cakes are not your regular prawn cakes. These are crispy panko crusted prawn cakes with nori, sesame with cucumber ribbon served with a fantastic yuzu miso aioli dipping sauce. The flavour absolutely pops and straddles between crispy, juicy and fresh.
The deep fried roti is filled with chicken mince, curry powder and oyster sauce with a massaman dip on the side. This is one of my favourite entrees as the roti is so crisp and the massaman dip is so creamy and full of flavour.
The mushroom spring rolls have porcini and shiitake mushrooms served with a sticky sweet soy chilli dip with a touch of lime. These are nice and crunchy and the dipping sauce gives it a molassesy flavour to it. Tony quips that he refuses to use sweet chilli sauce with spring rolls.
It's easy to choose what to order because the signature dishes are highlighted. Their signature dish is the slow braised lamb massaman which begins as bone-in lamb shoulder cooked for five hours, marinated for 12 hours and then cooked in the massaman sauce so that it is meltingly soft with crispy shallots and toasted peanut on top and sliced potatoes.
While you can have your curries with steamed jasmine rice, their seafood fried rice is a must order and a luxe version of fried rice. It is jasmine rice with Moreton Bay bug and spanner crab meat, egg, spring onion and garlic and topped with tobiko and more spanner crab on top. This is one of my favourite dishes in a menu full of hits.
The crispy pork belly red curry is also fantastic. It's a coconut red curry made with an array of fruit and vegetables like broccoli, Thai eggplant, carrot, pineapple and shredded bamboo shoots with crispy slow-roasted pork belly slices and Thai basil leaves on the side. The pork belly melts in the mouth and has a crispy edge to it and I love the variety of vegetables in this.
Another of their most popular dishes is the crispy chicken with cashew nuts made with boneless chicken thigh that is wok-tossed with cashews, capsicum and shallots with house made chilli jam. Tony explains that they finish it off with crunchy cashew nuts on top just to give it that crunchy texture in every bite.
It's time for dessert and there are two on the menu. The mango sticky rice is made using fresh mango with a pandan sticky rice with a scoop of mango sorbet and a side of sweetened coconut milk. Mr NQN loves the mango while I love the sticky rice dipped in the coconut.
There is also another dessert with coconut and pumpkin custard served with crispy roti, vanilla bean ice cream and peanuts. This is also really tasty but I actually love the triangles of roti dipped in the coconut sauce from the sticky rice.
So tell me Dear Reader, if you could specialise in making one cuisine, which one would it be? Which dish do you like the sound of?
NQN and Mr NQN were guests of Soi 25 but all opinions remain her own.
Soi 25
52A Harris St, Pyrmont NSW 2009
Phone: 0405 198 802
www.soi25xpress.com.au/menu
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