Yum Club is a hit of sound, smell and colour. Poppy Isan music pulses from the speakers, the unapologetic tang of fermented ingredients mingles with meat on the hot grill, and red plastic stools and tables sit beneath custom fluro basket lanterns in a dining room out back.
Co-owners Rowena Chansiri (of Hot Listed Surry Hills spot Ama) and first-time restaurateurs Alisa “Nana” Loangpaseuth and Rujirada “Mai” Wongswadiwat want it to feel exactly like the som tum shops of Thailand’s Isan region. The area in the northeast shares a border with Laos. Som tum (papaya salad) is a signature, falling into a broad range of salad-y dishes called “yum”, all built around a similar spicy-sour dressing. At Yum Club, you order from a yum cha-style checklist, marking what you want and how much.
Chansiri sees a gap in Sydney, despite its large Thai population. “We see a lot of som tum shops and Isan shops [in Melbourne], which we don’t actually see here,” she says. “A lot of restaurateurs try to please the wider audience and make things convenient for people. I want Isan to be real Isan.”
At Yum Club, the line-up of yum can be ordered up to spice level three; level one was already medium spicy for this Broadsheet writer. You can also add a funky, deeply savoury hit of pla ra, a fermented fish relish, a condiment diners in Isan and northern Thailand are used to.
The tum sweet corn swaps green papaya for sweet corn, tossing it with tomato, snake beans, tiny dried prawns and roasted peanuts in a classic Thai dressing of chilli, garlic, lime, fish sauce and palm sugar – perfectly punctuated by the sweet pops of corn. There’s a herby tangle of vermicelli noodles, hunks of mackerel, green beans and onion, crunched up with toasted rice and a light dose of pla ra – it’s the kind of flavour that keeps you coming back for another bite again and again.
Yum Club has a dedicated fried and fire-grilled list, too. You can order skewers individually, alongside dishes like fried larb, balls of the zippy, fatty pork mixture fried until crisp, with a spicy wallop swinging through at the end. That dish, Chansiri says, is rarely seen in Sydney. All grilled dishes come with a house nam jim jaew sauce for dipping. Sticky rice is a som tum shop regular, and it features alongside noodle dishes.
Dishes arrive as they’re ready rather than in a set progression, and Thai beers like Singha and Chang come in ice buckets for the table. There are also Yakult and chrysanthemum Margaritas, each available with or without alcohol.
The team met while working at Chansiri’s Ickle Coffee, each with a different connection to Isan. Chansiri grew up in Bangkok, living with her family above a hair salon run by people from Roi Et in Isan. They took her under their wing during her primary school years, and she became known as an “Isan kid”. “I basically grew up eating Isan food,” Chansiri says. “I’ve had a super high chilli tolerance since I was young.”
Wongswadiwat was born and raised in her family’s som tum shop in Buriram where her mother, Muay Nattapon, still works today. She brings many of her mother’s recipes to Surry Hills, adapting them with ingredients available in Sydney. Loangpaseuth grew up in Luang Prabang in Laos, and brings her own Lao food references and front-of-house experience.
“We’d always hang out and go to Mai’s house to make som tum and grill meat,” Chansiri says. After that, Yum Club felt like the natural next step.
Yum Club
Shop 1/265 Crown Street, Surry Hills
Hours:
Wed to Sun midday–10pm
@yumclub.sydney
yumclub.com.au
Dining and Cooking