Tuckshop Tamada brings third-generation Thai food to the city

Posted on 18 April, 2024

Tucked away on Bible Lane in Civic (next door to Akiba and where Flash Eats burgers used to live) is a sparkling new lunchtime curry-stop.

But Tuckshop Tamada (meaning ‘simple’ in Thai) also brings some rich traditions to its fast and affordable curry menu.

Eighty-six year-old Nith Chantharasy brought her children to Australia in 1983, and with very limited English, carved out a new life for her family by starting the Thai House restaurant in Weston Creek. It proved popular, quickly earning a rusted-on clientele for its complex flavours of sweet, sour and salty across a menu of authentic Thai food.

Beef noodle salad and prawns in tamarind sauce with a Thai milk tea (addictive, we promise!)

Nith’s daughter, Sou Yota, watched her mum work hard and, blessed with Nith’s tenacity, started her own restaurant, Thai Spice, in Woden with her husband Panya in 1999.

Sadly, Panya died in 2007 and Sou decided to sell the restaurant to new owners.

Back in the kitchen, Sou Yota learned to cook from her mum.

But this year, encouraged by her daughter Natsha and son Oran, Sou agreed to start a new chapter in the family’s culinary history, bringing back her mum’s recipes with a modern twist and opening Tuckshop Tamada—an affordable, authentic, and scrumptious takeaway restaurant designed to bring you an easy lunch in the city.

With a soft launch this week, Sou and her chef of 20 years Num Jeamwattanasirikit are back behind a steaming wok, serving traditional favourites such as a chicken green curry, pork with chili and basil with a fried egg, prawn choo chee curry, and a spicy pumkin curry for the vegos.

There’s also a chicken larb, a Thai beef noodle salad and prawns in tamarind sauce. All curries come with rice.

Snacks include chicken satay sticks with peanut sauce, pork and prawn cakes, among others.

Chicken satay and pork with chilli and basil.

Nat said that while many of the techniques and flavour balances had been handed down from her grandmother, Tuckshop Tamada also had a hint of modernity thanks to the beef brisket massaman curry (always a best-seller) and enoki mushroom cakes.

Adding a little something sweet to the menu are a selection of Thai drinks including Thai milk tea, Thai lemon tea and Chrysanthemum tea.

“It’s great to see my mum start a new restaurant here in the city,” said Nat, who works nearby in a Public Service department, but didn’t mind waiting her turn in line for her lunch yesterday.

“Our family has always been passionate about food!”

With satays priced at $10 and all the curry mains priced at $15 (except for the prawns which cost $17), Nat hopes that the Tuckshop Tamada will prove a popular pit-stop in the city.