Mamamon Thai Eatery: funky, fiery and authentic - Vienna Würstelstand

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Mamamon Thai Eatery: funky, fiery and authentic

“We’re serving up all the dishes we miss from home with little modification,” Pian, young and Thai-born owner of the 8th district’s new neighbourhood family-run Thai place, tells me. She has a personality larger than her stature, and same goes for the intimate confines of her Mamamon Thai eatery. This place is both fiery and funky. And serving up some of the best home-style Thai cooking in the city.

You may recognise the brand or the faces from your summer days at the Donaukanal, where the Mamamon kitchen crowd have been serving up from a street cart at the ADRIA for the last 5 years. But now they have a home, which will undoubtedly become the home of a many Thailand groupies and foodies.

One of the stools at the bench tables by the window becomes my perch. The place is full, but there’s only about 10 people here. It’s intimate, but this suits the Mamamon experience. The chilled atmosphere and the large windows prevent it from feeling cramped, as you don’t mind brushing and bumping up against your fellow diners who also seem to feel the ease of a Thai breeze on a balmy night here. Some have already compared it to any small eatery they’d experienced on Bangkok’s infamous tourist haunt of Khao San road. Mamamon has its own personality, independent of the Thai kitsch.

From the one cook with a mighty smile in the open kitchen behind the bar comes a platter of Thai-style tapas in front of me. The intricate balance of colour, spice, seasoning and quantity is in all of it – the homemade spicy beef jerky, the fermented pork with fresh ginger and a pow-bang-boom sour, spicy sauce, the Northern Thai sausage, the pepper dip and the pickled and spiced vegetables.

I order a Chang beer and I feel like I’m an insider having been one of the thousands of tourists that have been to Bangkok and learnt the word, sawatdii-khrap. Then I imagine all the other people with the same notion and feel like one of the numerous hairs crowded inside my nostrils. And then I start thinking about plucking some of them out when nobody’s looking. Between the nose hair plucking and the chili infused food, I look like I’ve just sat through the film Titanic (yes, there’s no shame in having cried at this). How did we get here? From Thai food to Titanic. If they had served Mamamon’s Thai food on the Titanic all those people would have died a hell of a lot happier, with Mamamon Thai in their belly. Ok, now we’re back.

These random thoughts go well with the moment I realise the familiar funk and soul classics being played in the background have Thai lyrics to them. Pian explains to me that it’s a popular Thai brand of Funk and Soul born in the time when American GI’s were based up in Northern Thailand. I’m being educated.

The education continues as I read through the guidelines of how to eat the food ‘Thai style’ which are scribbled on a poster on the wall. I’m also told sharing dishes is also a normal practice at the Thai dinner table. But I don’t want to share the delicious bites with anyone.

I peck at the sticky rice in the bamboo container with my hand, roll it into a ball, dip it in one of the various sauces, and swallow.

I don’t touch the condiments (sugar, chilli, chilli infused shallot oil and fish sauce) on the table in the pink plastic carry holders which one sees on every restaurant table in Thailand. There is no need for them, unless you seek the severe burning sensation.

The diverse menu lists all the favourites, including the pop star of the Thai kitchen, Pad Thai. Mamamon have earned a well-earned fame for this dish during their time on the Donaukanal.

But it’s the Khao Soi curry that has me fogging up the window in front of me. The tastes of the pale, yellow coconut curry from the North – around the Chang Mai region – has arrived here to the middle of Vienna unadultered and full of the flavour it’s famous for; along with a tender chicken leg shipwrecked in it and submerged noodles. It’s thrilling, and the spice of the original dish remains unneutered.

While the favourites will stay on the menu, Pian has plans to expand and change it up. Along with a daily changing curry, her strategy is to integrate the foods she misses from home, including some fire breathing curries for the hardcore lovers of the dish.

If you see a lady in there wearing a pink cap who reminds you of Mamamon’s logo, you can safely assume its Pian’s mum who the place is named after. It’s a family affair here where the cheeky friendliness, the big smiles and laid back attitude Thailand is known for, inflates this very small eatery into being a Mamamon-th presence amongst Vienna’s Thai restaurant scene.

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