Morks Restaurant

Morks is one of those restaurants where I have been meaning to go for years, waaaaay before I even started blogging. I’ve heard many things about this place: it’s a Thai restaurant, it has a tiny dining room and you definitely need to book, they have a cool blog etc but nothing prepared me for what I saw in the menu. It had main and entree dishes with Asian elements  but what surprised me was the fine dining fancy tasting menu available for $65.00 per person. How odd… I did not expect that. 

I was torn, do I come here and try more Thai types of dishes that I was expecting to eat or do I have the fancy schmancy tasting menu? After our hesitation of which banquet to choose, we found out that they don’t usually serve the tasting menu past 8pm. We smiled ever so politely and they were able to accommodate for us even though we also had dietary requirements on our table.

Tasting menu – ($65.00 per person).

Springs rolls with meat (non seafood alternative).

Scallop and pig – pan seared scallops and pig ear terrine with a delicately balanced relish of coriander root, garlic, chilli and lemon juice served with grilled spring onion. I’m not the most adventurous eater so I don’t know if I didn’t like the odd gristley texture of the cold terrine or just the thought of eating a pig’s ear. The scallop was very nice though.

Eggplant– grilled eggplant salad with chilli jam dressing, fried shallots and coriander. This might be bias because I love eggplant, but this was one of my favourite dishes. The salad leaves were fresh, I loved the dressing and the eggplant wasn’t overly oily.

Chicken satay skewer (non seafood alternative). Apparently it was really juicy and succulent and even though it was just a simple skewer, it was fabulous.

John Dory – John Dory fillet with kaffir lime leaf based curry served with steamed wombok. A fantastic delicate fish with the most amazing intense curry on top.

Sorbet – lychee sorbet to cleanse your palette. A lovely refreshing sorbet to take away the spicy sauce from the John Dory.

Cauliflower – cauliflower fritters with white lime sauce garnish served on bean sprouts tossed in basil oil and finished with a drizzle of chilli oil. Not much to look at but easily one of my favourite dishes. The crunch of the bean sprouts with the crispiness of the battered cauliflower left a yummy buttery taste in my mouth.

Asparagus – asparagus served with a mild green curry, coconut milk infused with Brie and crispy rice noodles (no seafood alternative). Spicier than the curry from the John Dory and the asparagus was cooked perfectly.

Prawns – open wonton of green curry prawns on a bed of basil and pea mash. I don’t like peas so I didn’t know if I was going to like this dish. Comparatively it probably didn’t impress me, the green curry was nice but it was just a prawn on a wonton blanket. The individual peas were very hard, I just left them on the plate.

Pork ribs – pork ribs with caramelised sweet and sour soy glaze with round beans and mustard leaves. This was the make or break dish that made us choose this tasting menu. Even though it was amazingly delicious and tender, it was bordering on too salty and sweet but could be balanced out by the rice.

Coconut – coconut ice cream with a passionfruit coulis and warm sticky rice. The ice cream had an icy texture and it was probably tasted better when it was melted down into the warm sticky rice. The passionfruit coulis was unnecessary and slightly tart.

Not part of the banquet~

Fried ice-cream – vanilla ice cream wrapped with butter cake, coated in egg yolk ($8.50). We were worried that by the end of the tasting menu that we would still be hungry, so during the cauliflower course we preemptively ordered a deep fried ice cream. Better than you average deep fried ice cream, the caramel topping was the best in my opinion.

It was rather quite big.

I was overly impressed by this hidden gem. The food, the service, the food… Despite being fully booked, the wait staff (well just one guy) was very attentive, the kitchen was flexible and kindly adjusted to our dietary requirements and it was not at all what I expected (I thought we were just going to be eating pad Thai and Massaman curry).

Morks are still set to move to Kingston but they will continue service until the end of the month and open mid September in in their new location near the Aurora apartments.

I understand that the take away menu is entirely different and definitely worth a try!

Venue: Morks restaurant

Address: 37 Kesteven St, Florey, ACT 

Phone: (02) 6259 0112

Website: http://morks.com.au/

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