Krataron

After my previous meal with my good friend Calvin, we both said that we will make it a point to catch up say once a month at least. Well, this was our first meeting since then, nearly a year later. Gee how time flies. Things just keep going forward and unless you make a special effort to organise a meeting, it just seems to get brushed aside by everything else that goes on in your life.

We walked around the very cold city and decided on some Thai food. Krataron is located on Lonsdale Street amongst the few remaining Greek restaurants. The restaurant is nicely decorated and was full at the time we entered. It has two levels, with the BBQ section upstairs.


Here's Calvin, having lost about 7 kgs of weight off his already thin body since we last met. His job is very demanding and he works overtime all the time, not by choice but because he has to. He recently got a new job with a large company and is going to get paid a lot more. I'm so jealous but also very happy for him. Plus he shouted the meal, which was great. We've arranged to meet again in a month just before he leaves his current job (which is near my company) and I said I will shout next time.


We ordered Tom Yum Seafood soup. The entree size was only a small bowl so I told Calvin to eat it since I don't like Tom Yum that much.


The Papaya Crab Salad was good but very different. I expected bits of swimmer crab meat to be mixed in the salad, but instead it was those tiny crabs with their shells intact that have been marinated in salt water for about a month. It gives the whole crab this salty flavour. Mum used to make that and we would eat it with congee when we were young, so that brought back memories. I like this spicy salad with the crab.


We had Red Curry Beef with coconut rice. The curry was good but the beef wasn't as good as some other Thai restaurants. It also needed some more vegetables in the curry rather than just a large bowl mainly of liquid.


The Pad Thai was good, with the noodles cooked through and the sweet sauce not bad.


I also had some roti, which was ok but it cost another $1 for peanut sauce to go with the roti, which seemed a bit ridiculous. We also had Thai milk tea, which was very sweet but had that interesting flavour as usual.

The service was ok. The staff were extremely busy and rushing all over the place, but they did the best they could. I don't blame them in this instance but instead the ownwer for hiring too few staff. We usually got what we wanted after two requests.

Overall Rating: 12/20, Food is ok, service slightly lacking. Prices comparable to other Thai restaurants.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.