Authentic Thai and Laos food promised on the window - I've seen that before, I thought to myself. Having experienced home Thai cooking with some old friends, and using that as my Thai food benchmark I am often disappointed in Australia. Pun Thai is nicely decorated with comfortable seating and a very welcoming waitress. We were the first customers for the evening and our first choice of table was no good because the bench back was too high for the waitress to see us, she explained. Next we sat in another booth type arrangement but there was an overbearing smell (from the furniture?) so we moved again. We ordered green paw paw salad, Tom yum, and special fried rice, as well as jasmine rice. I ordered a traditional Laotian sausage. The fried rice was good and tasted fresh, with large pieces of chicken in it. The green pawpaw salad was not subtle and average. Unfortunately the sausage was just that except chopped up and served on a bed of iceberg lettuce. There was some sauce, but it wasn't very tasty. In fact I noticed that most mains were served on lettuce, resulting in an oversupply!
Unfortunately although I had high hopes for the Tom yum with succulent looking prawns floating in a creamy coconut broth it was far too sweet. The prawns were not very tasty, the best Tom yum I've tasted uses whole big prawns in the shell, and doesn't use coconut. Mushrooms were plentiful but ordinary. So unfortunately, although generally fresh tasting (they have photos of their garden on Facebook) it didn't live up to my expectations. Nor did the drinks menu and knowledge of the waitress. There is a lot of competition in Adelaide and some really buzzing tasty Asian places, I think they will have to lift to survive. read more