Two Sisters Thai

If Canberra has 100 suburbs – which I think it does roughly, probably more – it would be a fair call to say it has more than 100 Asian eateries,  well over, by the time you factor in the number in the town centres. How to distinguish between these places?

Everyone has their favourites, presumably based to a big extent on proximity and familiarity. We used to be Timmy’s regulars when we lived in Manuka many years ago and would spend an unjustified effort telling others of its joys. The Timmy’s gloss has gone since we moved northside, and I have to say, not much has taken its place, except the city Japanese spots, Iori and Tasuke, and the city Thai Thirst, but Thirst is in a different category, with its focus on wine and Western diners.

We have friends who like and frequent Two Sisters Thai in Dickson, which is why we head there rather than any of the myriad Asian eateries in this strip. The last time I was in this upstairs corner room, with views of KFC and McDonald’s, it had detoured into that dubious fashion for cooking on hot tiles. But that must have been a very long time ago, since the sisters, Naly and Sisouk Rajbandith, came from Laos 25 years ago and opened the restaurant 17 years ago.

You immediately feel a family-style warmth here, in an upstairs room, everything bright and very neat, if utilitarian, with folded napkins on the tables, and Buddhas watching from various presumably portentous outlooks, with tanks holding miniature fish.

The menu is arranged coherently, not always a given in these kinds of eateries, and it’s not hard to find your way around relatively brief lists under the headings of traditional Lao, seafood, stirfry, duck, noodles and soups.
Two Sisters is licensed but we’re not immediately offered the list and end up asking for it. Perhaps most people BYO, or get with the mood and eschew booze. The wine list itself is cheap, basic and not very serviceable, made up of wines such as Metal Label, Barren Jack and Foundstone, or you can get beer, including Lao ($6.90).
We start with rice paper rolls ($6.90 for two), which come freshly made, plump, crisp and good. Inside is a prawn and they’re crammed with herbs, lettuce and carrot, served with a simple, pleasant peanut and hoisin sauce.

The deep-fried fish cakes ($6.90) have that requisite springy, squeaky texture, with that uniformity of texture you’ll recognise from the genre, studded with the green on spring onions. They’re fine little things, with a standard sweet chilli sauce alongside that you might rather do without.

We’ve also ordered something called “yum duck”, which comes as strips of pretty rugged-tasting duck meat (described as “duck morsels”), with no subtlety in the flavour, nor in the bright pink-red skin, the colour of strawberries. The flavours are vinegar, fish sauce and garlic, with pretty of heat from chilli, and in the mix are red onion, spring onion, coriander, mint, tomato and cucumber – a salad-like mix.

The dish of the night for us is the Lao sausage ($17.90). Next time, this is the dish I will order without a doubt and it’s the one you should consider, too. The homemade sausages are served chopped up with sweet chilli sauce (again, a more complex and interesting sauce would be great here). They’re dry in texture, with the texture and flavour of lemongrass quite prominent, along with the pork meat, herbs and chilli. They’re simple and mild. They’re savoury, delicate, interesting and highly edible. It’s dishes like this that make a place special.
We also order “snapper three flavours” ($25.90) which the menu suggests comes with either sweet and sour or ginger sauce. We’re not asked to specify, and the sauce is both. It is a whole, intact fish that looks to have been deep-fried, making for plenty of crispness in the skin – possibly too much, actually, the flesh has been rendered rather dry from its treatment. But we enjoy pulling this fish apart and digging out the succulent bits; always satisfying. It’s covered in a lot of thick sweet and sour sauce with not much subtlety, but with loads of enjoyable batons of fresh ginger in here as well.

Service is friendly, but it’s not really the place where you get far trying to discuss the food with staff. The background music reminds us of 1980s love songs. The Buddhas are lovely and the room is busy in a calm kind of way, not a mad-paced Asian eatery kind of way.

We order the special dessert – stick rice with mango ($8.90), which comes as a small pile of white sticky rice, covered in a sweet, enjoyable, aromatic glaze, and half a large, fresh mango chopped on the side – a fresh end to a decent meal in a welcoming place.

Food 2/4
Wine list 1/4
Service 2/4
Style 1/4
Value for money 2/4

11 Something went wrong. 12 Not so great tonight. 13 Fine for a cheap and cheerful, not so for a place that aspires to the top end. 14 Good. 15 Really good. 16 Great, when can we move in? 17-20 Brilliant.

Scores out of four are a quick reference to key highs or lows. They do not relate directly to the score out of 20.