Overview
During its Sydney run, Longrain was a must-visit for fans of Thai cuisine. In Melbourne, the Victorian version has proven the same, as has the Tokyo offshoot in Japan. Brisbanites can now head to Short Grain instead, with former Longrain co-owner, founder and Executive Chef Martin Boetz setting up his latest venture in Fortitude Valley.
Short Grain marks a homecoming for the Brisbane-born kitchen wiz, who had a 14-year association with Longrain in Sydney and a seven-year link to its Melbourne eatery. Since then, he's been behind The Cook's Shed on the Hawkesbury River in Sackville in New South Wales, before giving Brisbane a new 60-seat Thai restaurant inside Marshall Street's Stewart & Hemmant building.
This isn't just a place to sit and eat, either. Making its home inside an old clothing factory, Short Grain also features an Asian food store, as the brick building also once housed in the 90s. So, patrons can stop by for dinner or Sunday lunch, or pick up ready-to-go meals and house-made sauces.
If you're dining in, you'll find arched windows letting light into Short Grain's section of the heritage-listed spot, banquette seating and wooden tables lining the space, and art by Vicky Lee.
On the menu: Thai dishes aplenty, wine to match and a small dessert selection. For now, on a lineup that'll change seasonally, think: chicken skin with smoked trout and green mango among the appetisers, plus caramelised pork hock paired with chilli vinegar on the mains list.
The culinary highlights also include red chilli nahm jim oysters, hot and sour squid, salt and pepper cuttlefish, and soy-braised quail. Yes, yellow, green and red curries are also on offer, the first with beef, the second with mackerel and the third with pork belly. And for something sweet? Choose from duck egg caramel custard tart made with salted pork-fat pastry, black sticky rice with mango and coconut tapioca with caramelised pineapple.
To wash your meal down with, the vino list includes four bubbly drops, six whites, one amber, three rosés and chilled reds, and nine reds — with a focus on Australian wine, but also tipples from France, New Zealand and Germany.
And, for taking home, expect not just curry sauces made and bottled onsite, but condiments and dressings. Short Grain is also selling The Fermentary's wares and acting as the only Queensland spot to get Gewurzhaus' spices.
Find Short Grain at 15 Marshall Street, Fortitude Valley — open Wednesday–Saturday from 5pm–late and Sundays from 11am–4pm.