Tom Phat
184 Sydney Rd, Brunswick
(03) 9381 2374

Man, I’ve been eating out lots lately, especially going out for breakfast every weekend seemed to be a tradition now.  This weekend we went to Tom Phat, a place that many people have raved about.

Tom Phat had a really nice big space which doesn’t make you feel cramped at all.  The service is friendly and laid back- the guy simply pulled up a chair to take our orders, enthusiastically explaining everything and patiently waited for us when we couldn’t decide.  I love this laid back vibe instantly.

Asian inspired brekkie is hard to find in Melbourne, and with an array of tempting Asian brekkie like black rice pudding w/ mango and yoghurt, scrambled eggs with roti, Uncle Ho’s grilled pork chop with fried egg and rice, coconut bread with grilled banana & coconut lime jam I was dizzy with choices.  What to do?

In the end I gave into temptation and ordered 2 things (all for myself!): black sticky rice w mango & jaggery yoghurt $9 and wok kingfish w rice eggs curry leaves, cherry tomatoes & lime $15.9.

The black rice pudding looks awesome but it was a bit too sweet for my liking.  Thanks goodness the mango and yoghurt are actually quite sour so it kind of balanced the flavour a bit better.  Dr. Hot Guns said that Birdman Eating’s Black rice pudding is way better.  Mmmmm I guess I will need to check them out soon.

To be honest I reckon Black Rice Pudding is quite hard to stuff up (I mean how hard can it be if even I can make it?) so maybe I should have ordered something a little bit different, like the coconut bread w/ grilled banana and coconut lime jam $9 that Dr. B ordered.  While the texture of the coconut bread is quite crumbly I still really love the combination of flavours.  The dish doesn’t seemed to be too sweet and the fragrant of the coconut made my mouth water.  It was a serious case of food envy there!

My wok kingfish w rice eggs curry leaves cherry tomatoes & lime came.  This dish is basically fried rice with fish, atopped with cabbage and rocket.  I wasn’t sure whether they did have cherry tomatoes in the fried rice cos I couldn’t see any, but the flavour of the fried rice itself was good, with just the right amount of saltiness of fish sauce and lovely curry leaves to make the flavours pop.  The cabbage and rocket mixture had some of the palm sugar dressing, and while I like their idea of using the palm sugar to balance out the saltiness of the fried rice and the bitterness of the rocket, the chef was a little bit heavy handed on the sugar and it overpowered the whole dish a little bit.  But the biggest issue with this dish is actually the kingfish itself, which was overcooked and a bit tough.  Overall I would say this dish was better than average but it does have some room for improvement.

Hubby is an unadventurous soul so he ordered the Tom Phat brekkie with fried (instead of the normal poached) eggs, bacon, mushies, tomatoes, avocado… you get the idea $16.9.

I looked on with disdain as he tucked into a normal big breakkie which you can get anywhere but that’s kinda the good thing about Tom Phat- it caters for people like Hubby.  That said however I think hubby is a bit sad it didn’t come with hash brown, like, you know, the normal big brekkie. *rolls eyes*

I asked him how it was and he shrugged and said it was alright, nothing extra special about it (I mean, how special can a boring big brekkie be?) but did say that the toast is a bit hard.

Overall, I would say this is an above average experience but since I am still intrigued by their menu I wouldn’t mind coming back to try some more.  I shall report back afterwards! 6.5/10