Sandwich bar by day, one-man-show Thai restaurant by night. It's an odd one, but it works. Well, at least for now, while nobody knows about it.

Chef Joe Kitsana (you might remember him from his Phamish days) has bought the old Kings Lane Sandwiches site. And while you can still get your chicken schnitzel on white during the day, at night he's stepped out with a menu of Thai classics. Thai fish cakes are golden, moussey puffs glistening with sweet chilli sauce, hiding under a nest of coriander, green onion and deep fried shallot – and some sneaky B-side hits.

What reads as pulled beef brisket on the menu translates as something like a northern Thai style beef wellington on the plate. Puff pastry holds shreds of beef brisket, amped by an extremely hot satay style sauce covered in toasted peanuts. It's the salad of mustard greens that lifts it up, adding some much needed acid and freshness.

While the skins on the steamed crab and prawn dumplings finished with strands of young ginger and bathed in black vinegar could stand to be a little thinner, there's no getting around the steamed deep sea bream being one of tastier things I've eaten in recent memory. Tender fillets of bream are poached in coconut milk and young coconut then covered in a herb salad of Thai basil and mint, coriander and green onion, fresh and deep-fried shallot. It's simultaneously delicate and sweet, packing a verdant wallop of heady, citrussy fragrance.

Even honey and lemon chicken gets a makeover – here the crisp, sweet skin is covered in sesame seeds, lifted with thin slices of pickled carrot and green onions. It's everything you remember about that much loved guilty classic – the sweetness, the tenderness – only here it's all care and no cornstarch. Chase it up with a side of stir fried greens and some rice and pretend you're not eating meat for dessert.  

Speaking of which, coconut ice-cream, made by hand (not even hand-churned, but hand scraped), starts off as fresh coconut milk Kitsana smokes using a "tien ohb" – the Thai incense candle made of herbs and dried flowers, wrapped in wax, and traditionally used to give Thai sweets a smoky edge. The ice-cream, light and creamy and covered in toasted coconut, is brought to the table under a glass cloche revealing a billow of smoke from the candle. It's quite the showstopper.        

I daresay once Kitsana gets some serious foot traffic he's going to need some help in the modest little setting. But for now, revel in the fact that the chef is executing a menu this delicious while flying solo.

Bottom line : Steamed fish ($25.50); Honey chicken ($19.50); Coconut ice-cream ($12)