Ranong Town, Ferntree Gully

Now that the borders are open, travel has become an achievable thing to do. But only if you have the patience to wait out long queues at Customs, flight cancellations and withstand the impacts of the shrinking dollar. Thankfully, authentic food can be found closer to home to bring you closer to where you wanted to travel to. 

Ranong Town is a new restaurant serving authentic Thai food. The building used to be a milk bar but has been repurposed to a restaurant with seating for around 4-5 tables inside and an additional 2-3 outside. There are no great views outside the restaurant, unless you fancy looking into people's houses across the street and a Telstra phone booth but it is a good place to sit if you're waiting for coffee takeaways (there's a fancy coffee machine that the staff was playing with while we were eating but the coffee trade was slow because it was lunch hour). 

We chose to sit inside to escape the drizzle (La Nina, begone!). There was a row of fridges at one end and an open area with a few shelves filled with snacks and everyday essentials of varying origins, some from Yarra Valley. It is quite an eclectic collection with no rhyme or reason but interesting to browse through when waiting for the food. We settled on a bag of crackers and munched on those while waiting our order of Khao Moo stewed pork hock on rice ($16) and Thai boat noodles ($16).

The stewed pork hock on rice can also be ordered as a main course ($22) without the rice. The pork was very tender and smooth. There is a vinegar chilli condiment that accompany the dish to cut through the greasiness of the pork. 

The boat noodle is filled with herbs, five spice powder soupiness. There are a few pieces of beef and beef balls, bean sprouts, and rice noodles. Gaz had not tried boat noodles before and was put off by the liberal dash of five spice whereas I have had it before in Thai Town and Dodee Paidang and knew what to expect. This is where culture shocks set in, because Gaz did not grow up eating five spice and is used to beef marinated in baking soda to tenderize it but it is the opposite in most south eastern countries. 

 The food here is authentic and tasty. They also have curries ($17 - $21 for seafood option) and several other dishes that sound interesting like Hat Yai fried chicken ($20) and stir fried bitter beans ($16). Now if you are getting something like bitter beans in a restaurant, you know you are getting authentic!