The Thai Food at Sway
The Sunday afternoon crowd was winding down when I got to Sway, a restaurant just south of downtown Austin. It sits on 1st Street and has plenty of room for large parties and even counter seating for people running solo like myself. My internal clock was still in California time, so the lunch hunger kicked in at 2pm. I read about the food here and wanted to give it a try.
Being one of the few remaining customers, the service was attentive. I didn’t have to wait long for the food either. And having a seat at the counter by the open kitchen, I had courtside seats to the making of my dishes. All pretty good, but my advice here is to come with a party. There are so many interesting dishes on the menu. Get three or more friends to share the dishes and you won’t end up like me. That is, wondering what the rest of the menu was like.
Overall the food felt like an Austin version of Thai food. I’m not exactly sure what that equates to but I do know you won’t see dishes like this in any other restaurant around the U.S. They’re pretty unique, i.e. the addition of the Scottish egg. I will need to come back to figure out the influences.
Sway
1417 S 1st Street
Austin, Texas 78704
+1 512-326-1999
swaythai.com
Verdict: Not a place for traditional Thai food, but rather for a Western take on the classics. For that, it’s worth a try.
One of their signature dishes that was made up of rice, braised pork shoulder, crispy egg, and nahm prik pla. I really liked the dish. The egg was a perfect runny to help mellow out the savory pork. I do wished they had more rice and took advantage of the claypot. Just imagine if the bottom of the rice was crispy! Total yumz.
I was actually hoping the dish would be on the small side. It was almost a full-sized dish, complete with a lightly breaded softshell crab, with a crispy egg, green nahm jihm, and Thai gribiche. The dish was a bit on the salty side which is probably due to all the heavy hitters. Tasty overall though. $14USD
Within minutes of ordering, the waiter brought over this little shot. It was a tamarind based soup with drops of chili oil for heat and roasted pine nuts for texture. Not to be taken as a drink shot. I learned half way through that it was just too hot.