Martin FrimetThy Thy 1 gets it right time and time again
March 31st 2008 23:26
Home to a large swathe of the city’s earliest Vietnamese immigrants, Victoria Street, in Melbourne’s inner suburb of Richmond, is now battery-packed with restaurants offering the best of South-East Asia on a plate or in a bowl. Stomach already growling, I’ll admit then that I was beginning to doubt my companion as she dragged me past a succession of these large glass shop fronts, each filled with table after table of happily-slurping customers, and then began instead to coax me up a narrow, unmarked stairway.
“Everyone knows about Thy Thy 1”, she reassured me. Everyone apart from me at least it seemed.
On first glance Thy Thy 1 looked much like all the other places on the street. A selection of simple, school canteen-style wooden table and chairs, each stocked with its own self-serve collection of chopsticks, spoons and paper towels.
Set in a long, rectangular space and with light streaming in from a large window front, Thy Thy 1, however, did feel somehow elevated; admittedly that impression was less a heavenly feeling and nore one of being inside an old air hangar. An expectant chatter buzzed behind the gentle crash and clatter of plates and spoons, while the cabin-crew selection of staff buzzed round almost incessantly, smiles set to high, hands always busy.
With a large, authentic menu at prices so low that they almost feel like a misprint, both my mouth and then my stomach were quickly hushed into a deep, contented silence as we settled in to eat. The rice noodles we ordered came in a heaped bundle and were punchy and well-flavoured without being spectacular, while spring rolls wrapped in leaves of lettuce and dipped and sweet chilli were a pleasing explosion of taste and texture, if a little heavy after half a portion. By contrast, a bowl of Pho, a popular Vietnamese noodle soup, came with add-your-own extras of beanshoots, lemon , basil and chilli and was a standout serve: simple, refreshing and yet power-packed with flavour, it was the kind of dish that you could die happy on.
With a queue that was stretching down to the ground floor by the time we were leaving and a second restaurant now open just a little further down Victoria Street, Thy Thy 1’s reputation seems certain to continue to transcend hidden staircases and high-school tables and to live on and on in Melbourne’s culinary trail.
Thy Thy 1
1st Floor
142 Victoria Street
Richmond
“Everyone knows about Thy Thy 1”, she reassured me. Everyone apart from me at least it seemed.
On first glance Thy Thy 1 looked much like all the other places on the street. A selection of simple, school canteen-style wooden table and chairs, each stocked with its own self-serve collection of chopsticks, spoons and paper towels.
Set in a long, rectangular space and with light streaming in from a large window front, Thy Thy 1, however, did feel somehow elevated; admittedly that impression was less a heavenly feeling and nore one of being inside an old air hangar. An expectant chatter buzzed behind the gentle crash and clatter of plates and spoons, while the cabin-crew selection of staff buzzed round almost incessantly, smiles set to high, hands always busy.
With a large, authentic menu at prices so low that they almost feel like a misprint, both my mouth and then my stomach were quickly hushed into a deep, contented silence as we settled in to eat. The rice noodles we ordered came in a heaped bundle and were punchy and well-flavoured without being spectacular, while spring rolls wrapped in leaves of lettuce and dipped and sweet chilli were a pleasing explosion of taste and texture, if a little heavy after half a portion. By contrast, a bowl of Pho, a popular Vietnamese noodle soup, came with add-your-own extras of beanshoots, lemon , basil and chilli and was a standout serve: simple, refreshing and yet power-packed with flavour, it was the kind of dish that you could die happy on.
With a queue that was stretching down to the ground floor by the time we were leaving and a second restaurant now open just a little further down Victoria Street, Thy Thy 1’s reputation seems certain to continue to transcend hidden staircases and high-school tables and to live on and on in Melbourne’s culinary trail.
Thy Thy 1
1st Floor
142 Victoria Street
Richmond
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