Khao Kang Maruay is a modest restaurant that specialises in Isan-style cooking from Thailand’s north-east but the broad menu also lets you dive into toms, gaengs and yums from all corners of the country.
14/20
Thai$
For the past few months, I’ve been keen to write about one of the restaurants in Sydney’s Thaitown, but it’s been a harder task than expected to land on one venue to spotlight. Indeed, Good Weekend could cover Thai restaurants in Haymarket every week for the rest of year and I wouldn’t run out of regional specialities to be excited about, from the intense curries at Southern Thai stalwart Caysorn, to New Thainatown for restorative soups, to TikTok-famous Homm for bingsu shaved ice desserts.
I’m not even sure where Thaitown begins and ends these days. Pontip Thai Market, which opened on Campbell Street in 1991, is largely hailed as the foundation stone of the cultural hub, which the City of Sydney council officially recognised with three street signs in 2013. According to Thaitown’s official website, the map starts near the Capitol Theatre and radiates towards Central Station and “beyond”.
Anyway, given I’m wearing hiking socks and sheepskin slippers while writing this, and just googled “Is it OK to plug a heater into a double adapter” (AI Overviews says “No”), perhaps the best Thaitown recommendation I can give you for the next three months is Khao Kang Maruay on Ultimo Road opposite Market City.
Opened by Vin and Nararat Carromprath in 2020, the modest BYO-only restaurant specialises in Isan-style cooking from Thailand’s north-east, but the broad menu (it just keeps going, one laminated, photo-filled page after another) provides plenty of opportunities to dive headfirst into toms, gaengs and yums from all corners of the country. It’s the hot pots that I’m most enthralled with right now, though, particularly a winter special of beef braised in broth howling with spice and freshened with herbs. A lucky dip of tripe, tendon, spleen and springy beef balls means each spoonful is a different adventure.
I’m also very much about the jaew-hon, a traditional Isan soup powered by pork bones and supercharged with lemongrass, galangal and makrut lime. It comes to the table in a little pot on a gas burner, accompanied by a raw meat smorgasbord of prawns, liver, beef, pork, chicken and squid to dunk and cook. There’s also a ferocious amount of cabbage, basil and glass noodles to add, plus a potent dipping sauce (nam jim jaew) underlined by roasted and ground sticky rice.
Uncompromising Thai pings brain receptors in a way that no other cuisine can, although Sichuan comes close. Both are highwire acts balancing spicy, salty and sweet, but Thai – especially Isan, with its sour, complex, fermented funk – wriggles into the medulla in a way that has you thinking about papaya salad, seemingly for no reason, on the way to work. The som tums are good here, too, but in keeping with the winter angle of this review, I can more earnestly recommend the comfort-pain paradox of the lime-zapped larb; a cuttlefish kra pow stir-fry of holy basil and ruthless slips of chilli; and the Isan-style sai krok (fermented pork sausage) fragrant with garlic. The pork boat-noodle soup pulses with ancient spice and blood. Assorted, coconut-forward desserts bring you back down to earth.
I’ve barely skimmed the surface of Khao Kang Maruay’s menu, let alone the breadth of regional dishes around Haymarket’s ecosystem of tamarind, fish sauce and shrimp paste. Go there. Explore. Put your face in a hot pot. Find yourself still thinking about moo krob pla ra on the bus the next day.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Fast, friendly, no-frills Thai diner
Go-to dishes: Spicy braised beef ($29.90); boat-noodle soup (small $8.90; large $16.90); cuttlefish krapow with rice ($22.90) kaew-hon hot pot set ($42.90)
Drinks: Large range of Thai-style iced teas and smoothies, plus BYO wine
Cost: About $60 for two, excluding drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
