Tag: Yim Yam

40 Ballarat St, Yarraville
Phone: 9687 8585

There’s something about Yarraville which is instantly charming. It might be the fact that the little village is wedged between a train line and a highway, and is pretty much a cul de sac neighbourhood that goes nowhere. As a result, there’s not a lot of traffic, and walking through the streets at night feels like you’ve stepped back a few decades in time and you’re traipsing through a little country town. So for me, it’s kind of nostalgic.

Anyway, I recently visited the Sun Theatre to go see the latest Harry Potter movie; which frankly, was something of a disappointment. Bryan came along with me, as my substitute date, after my date had rescheduled on me due to a bout of tonsillitis. In hindsight, after having had that postponed date with said gentleman, Bryan was better company anyway. But I digress. As usual.

Yim Yam is a cute little restaurant up the far end of Ballarat Street. The retro Thai paintings and album covers adorning the bright walls set a convivial tone. There’s a couple of long communal tables with benches, around which are wedged smaller tables for two. There are a couple of tables on the footpath outside as well, which would be good for summer.

The staff were a little harried throughout the whole night, but that’s more to do with the fact the place was constantly bustling while we were there.

We started off with some Thai sausage.

It was not bad, but I was expecting something less sweet and a bit spicier.

In the mood for some seafood, we ordered the pineapple seafood curry. It was certainly quite flavourful, but fell dismally short of the two chillies which the menu promised. It was really quite sweet, too. Still, not unpleasant by any means, but next time I’ll remember to ask for it to be extra hot. 

Bryan had steamed rice, but I like to have sticky rice whenever it’s available – I like the way it sticks to your ribs and leaves you full for ages – but rather disconcertingly, it arrived freshly microwaved (?) still in its plastic container!
But never mind, it’s not too hard to remove it myself. It makes you wonder, though; would it have been so hard for them to remove it in the kitchen?
We also ordered the Lao chicken salad. Now I don’t know anything about Lao food, but this looks suspiciously like a Thai Larb Gai. In any case, it was tasty and wonderfully fresh. Again, I would have preferred a little more chilli heat. Perhaps it’s just me and the way I like my Thai food.
As you can see, we enjoyed the food enough to polish it all off between the two of us (but you could hardly expect less from two such prodigious eaters, hey?).
Yim Yam has a cute little loyalty card program too, cleverly named the Khop Khun Card. (‘Khop khun kaa/krub‘ means ‘thank you’ in Thai.)