REVIEW: THY Eatery, Bankstown

Originally published by Two Thousand in 2015

I hate cutlery. Knives and forks especially. A spoon I can live with and chopsticks are cool but nothing beats the high octane thrill of eating an entire meal with your hands. It doesn’t matter how fancy the restaurant is, if they send out any kind of meat on the bone, I’m picking that shit up faster than you can say “worst first date ever”.

There’s a silver bucket of cutlery on every table at Thy Vietnamese Eatery just begging to be ignored. The majority of their menu consists of bite sized Vietnamese specialties, hand picked by the gods of fingerfood. You might put a pair of chopsticks next to your plate so you look sophisticated on Instagram, but that’s all they’re good for.

Banh cuon is Thy’s signature dish. Freshly steamed rice pastry, rolled loosely around minced pork and chopped mushrooms. On the side there’s thick slices of Vietnamese ham, a pale processed meat with a sponginess that goes well with the wet rice pastry, broken into pieces with your hands and stuffed into your mouth after a brief dip into the sauce bowl.

Banh beo aren’t as messy to eat but after the banh cuon most of your arms are already covered in rice noodles and bean sprouts so you yell “fuck it” and try to pick up these cute little rice cakes with your elbows. The banh beo are topped with dried prawns, shallots and fried croutons, eight on your plate beside some more of that pale spongemeat you can use as an edible paddle for your food.

After two plates of ratchet hors-d’oeuvres, the main course is a banh xeo the size of a one year old, a bright yellow pancake, fried until crispy and filled with prawns, pork and bean sprouts. What it lacks in the satisfying crack of the banh xeo served at Que Huong in Cabramatta, Thy makes up for in sheer size. Tear into that metre long pancake (which is unfortunately filled mostly with bean sprouts), wrap it in herbs and lettuce, drown it in fish sauce and spill it all over your face while you flip off the cutlery bucket.

Your hands will stink for a good week after a meal here, but they’ll stink of victory. Victory over knives and forks.

Where
1/324 Chapel Rd South, Bankstown

When
Mon-Thu 9am-7pm, Fri-Sun 9am-9pm

How much
From $11

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