Tidlom Thai Antique Restaurant

Location: Shop C1, 550 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9606 0991
Link: www.facebook.com/tidlommelbourne
Cuisine: Thai

Tidlom is not easy to find. Tucked away in an alleyway off Lonsdale Street, you could easily walk past without noticing it (which is exactly what we did).

Inside, the place is small and the decor is simple and a little left-of-centre.

The waitresses are polite and welcoming. We are seated and menus are brought out. For such a small place, the menu is quite extensive, but a few dishes catch our eye.

We start off with a cool refreshing Thai milk tea, which has hints of grass jelly in it.

Thai milk tea

And then for some starters, we order the prawn cakes and the soft shell crab.

prawn cakes - minced prawn meat, lightly seasoned then coated
with fresh breadcrumbs and served with a sweet plum sauce

Not your ordinary prawn/fish cake. These ones have large chunks of (actual) prawn meat coated in breadcrumbs and fried to a nice crispy texture. The plum sauce is sweet, simple and contrasts well with the crunch of the prawn cakes.

deep-fried soft shell crab with crispy garlic and chilli sauce

The soft shell crab is super crispy, as soft shell crab should be. The garlic is aromatic but not overpowering, and the sweet spicy chilli sauce definitely gives it a kick.

And then it's onto the mains. We order a curry and a stew.

Thai green chicken curry

The green curry is sweeter than I am used to for a curry, but there is a depth of flavour and generous amounts of chicken and crunchy bamboo contrasted with soft pieces of Thai eggplant. The rice soaks up  the gravy perfectly.

Thai style pork stew - slow cooked pork seasoned with
Thai herbs served with Thai spicy sauce 

This one takes the spice level up another notch. A sour (tamarind?) based soup with the heat of chilli, pieces of pork float around, but mostly bones. The soup was amazing, would work well with prawns, or another cut of pork perhaps, but if the bones (we are advised these are supposed to be soft edible bone) definitely need more cooking before they can be consumed.

Overall, a much enjoyable meal, pleasant service, and relatively inexpensive (around $60 for the three of us). Worth a return.

Overall Impression: 9/10