I ate a lot of Thai food in Australia…and much Chinese… Vietnamese… Nepalese, Indian… and even Aussie tucker! Report by dusty miller
So I was very delighted to learn from Piet Lombard, chairman of Harare Sports Club, that a new — well new-ish — Thai restaurant had opened in the gritty, workaday, industrial suburb of Msasa. And even happier when I also heard that Thai Chang was run by my old Greendale mate, Bruce Macdonald and his new — well new-ish — Thai wife, Aui!
Big Bruce and the former Mrs Macdonald, Whan-Peng, who is also from Thailand, at one stage ran the inestimable Thai-Thai Restaurant at Philadelphia (the one just beyond Borrowdale, not in Pennsylvania!)
Bruce and Aui and the third member of the restaurant’s first team: executive chef Yo Saenbut offer authentic Thai food, the same stuff diluted to suit Western and local palates and token “English” cooking at Thai Chang, which is situated at Shop No 4, Doon Estate, 1, Harrow Road, Msasa. (That’s roughly half way between the Flat Dog Diner and Shop Café).
The Macdonalds have successfully internally tarted up one of the grim old corrugated iron-roofed buildings that have been there since Doon Estate was headquarters of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Organisation (Wenela). Thousands of men trekked there from all over Central and East Africa seeking lucrative work, deep in the bowels of the earth mining gold on the Rand.
The outside is still a bit shanty-town meets squatter camp but this is a work in progress and I can imagine the gardens soon beginning to look smart if the large troupe of cheeky grey vervet monkeys I caught in my reversing mirror when leaving allow things to grow.
Nice crowd Chan Thai was quite full when I got there fairly early for lunch last Thursday. Half an hour later it was pumping with sit down clients in suits, collars and ties, shorts and T-shirts, torn jeans and scuffed bovver boots and a steady flow of takeaway punters being served.
One guy diagonally opposite me annoyed his neighbours no end by constantly bellowing at strength 15 in mixed Shona, English and Zimglish into not one but two cellphones from his table. Somehow I just knew he and his chick would order mushroom burgers and chips (US$7 each).
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A white toddler of three or four displayed the most revolting table manners, but doting parents simply beamed as he put several parties off their nosebags.
Two young Chinese (I think) blokes in baseball caps chain-smoked as though this were 1965 before, between and even during several courses strong in rice, noodles and tea.
I had a pleasant light starter of Thai spring rolls: deep fried pastry stuffed with glass noodles and vegetables with a small saucer of sweet chili dipping sauce at US$3 and washed it down with Sprite lemonade, as the liquor licence hasn’t yet been granted.
And more or less at the same time a deep, full, steaming bowl of tom yum koong, hot and spicy prawn soup arrived, which included three large, probably queen, crustaceans, mushrooms, sliced chicken, quartered tomatoes and a whole kitchen rack full of herbs and spices at US$8.
Indian prawns Bruce tells me all their prawns are imported from India and are wonderfully firm and of consistent size and quality.
This I can confirm after a main course of another prawn dish: gang mussaman, an ancient royal Thai curry recipe made with palm sugar, peanuts, tamarind sauce and chunky potatoes cooked in coconut milk at US$16 (vegetarian version US$9, US$11 with chicken and US$12 with beef).
With that came some delicious fluffy white basmati rice with egg folded in (something like a foo-yong) and accompanying noodles which turned out to contain loads of huku and was virtually a meal on its own.
Needless to say, I was totally outfaced, as I usually am eating out in the restaurants of India, China
