Botherambo

"How's the smell?!" says my mate, squinting through the garlic-chilli stain in the air. It's a feisty, follow-me sign that escapes from the kitchen pass. But it's not dangerous, like some Thai kitchens; there's measure to the inherently maniacal flavours and some classy local ingredients that clearly locate Botherambo on the creative-agency side of Richmond – seemingly, a long way from Victoria Street.  

The menu (you guessed right: share plates) has Aussie-Thai favourites like fishcakes, but these ones are made with open-ocean farmed barramundi. There's green curry, too, with a long list of ingredients that sound like picture-book characters (elephant ear, wing bean and cloud fungus) and show that chef Kam McManamey (ex-BangPop) knows his way around an Asian speciality grocer as well as he does the local, boutique-produce market.

Meals come out as they're ready, so while you're working through a tea-smoked salmon salad – a jab of fresh lime here, a jostle of mint there, a salty spurt of hand-milked salmon roe on top and many shades of crunch (from shreds of green papaya and young coconut) – the grilled corn arrives. The whole cob has been hacked in half, scorched black in parts, and perched on a chalky textured neon-red sauce of preserved tofu (also known as "Chinese cheese") and coconut cream. With a squeeze of fresh lime, and the salty sauce on smoke-affected sweetcorn, it's one of those dishes where dancing eyebrows and earnest chewing speak volumes.

Mains or "large shares" include a red, coconut-rich curry of duck leg that is up there among the most-ordered dishes, or there's whole deep-fried snapper. Tease off the crisp, dry (not at all oily) flesh and load it with aromatic leaves (deep-purple amaranth, bright mints, coriander) and cucumber. 

But, the most ordered dish has to be a little $4 coconut sorbet: the number of plates advancing from the kitchen increasing as dessert-time arrives like high tide. It's simply a scoop of house-made coconut sorbet with a hard case of kaffir-lime infused Callebaut "ice magic", and it is luscious, but fresh and tropical. 

Botherambo has two sides: one for dining, one for drinking. It has a deliberately scrappy kind-of unfinished finish: sandblasted old red bricks, exposed wooden beams and silver insulation panels. You can drink craft beer from a can or Singha from the tap in a fridge-cooled glass. You may need advice with the short list of wines (little-known imports, from Spain, Portugal and Italy, with a few local labels), and there's enough palm sugar, rum and young coconut in the cocktails list to transport you, seemingly a long way away from Swan Street, Richmond.

Do ... slip into the bar-side for a Singha and snack
Don't ... try to book, unless you're a party of eight
Dish ... cold smoked ocean trout
Vibe ... casual, bump-in bar and eatery

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