3 Hippos, Canley Heights
12 July 2008
9 Comments
As an avid Thai food lover, I’m always on the look out for new joints offering authentic but not pretentious Thai/Lao food. Whilst driving down Canley Vale Rd, H and I noticed a new brightly lit restaurant packed with patrons waiting to be seated. Refusing to join the forlorn looking faces in the harsh cold night, deciding to return once the excitement of the new shop died down.
All through the week, H had massive cravings for pies and hot dogs at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels, which was satisfied on Friday night after work. On the drive home from Harry’s, we realised that the queue at the restaurant spotted a couple of weeks ago wasn’t that bad. Even after two pies and a hot dog, we quickly parked the car. Before we knew it, H and I were seated in a modern setting restaurant browsing through the menu.
Som Tom Lao (laos papaya salad)
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Som Tam Lao (Laos Papaya Salad) $8.00
Som Tam Lao is a salad made from pounding garlic, shrimp paste and chili into a fine paste, then slowly adding grated green papaya and tomato. The flavour is then finalised by incorporating fish sauce, brined little crabs, lime and sugar. For this occasion, we asked that our salad be served mild on the chili meter. The chef skilfully combined the right quantity of sweet/sour/hot/salt to produce a mouth numbing number
Complimentary Cabbage, Lettuce and Mint plate
The crunch and sweetness of the lettuce and cabbage is used to neutralise the burning sensation from the papaya salad.
Pek Kai Tod (Fried marinated chicken wings) $6.00
Fried chicken wings are one of my vice, if it’s in the menu, it’ll be on our table. Unfortunately this time the chicken wing was fried for too long, therefore drying up the flesh. The inclusion of the saccharine dipping sauce did nothing to ease the unsatisfactory dish.
Despite the great service and generous portion, 3 Hippos is one restaurant I’ll have second thoughts about revisiting in the near future considering the many Thai restaurants offered throughout inner western Sydney.
3 Hippos Thai/Lao Restaurant
3/219 Canley Vale Road
Canley Heights, NSW 2166
Ph: (02) 9755 4688
Linda (author) || 
Anne P || 
Howard
Monique || 
Cynthia || 
I think you need to try a bit more than the som tum and chicken wings before you dismiss this place la. the quail was rather nice as was the rice ball salad.