Brisbane restaurants: Same Same, Fortitude Valley review

Reviewer Tony Harper has named his favourite restaurant of 2019 — ‘a very, very exciting place to dine’ — and he reckons it’ll be a hard one to best in 2020.

It’s possibly a bit late in the day but here it is – my favourite new restaurant of 2019.

Same Same is from the team behind the now closed Longtime, but this incarnation is more honed, prettier, just as atmospheric but in a more civilised way.

It’s a grown-up version. And even though I loved so much about Longtime, this is way, way better.

Same Same, Ada Lane, 46 James Street Valley. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

For starters it lives in a slicker space, in a subset of the Calile Hotel complex in James St. The design is beautiful and minimalist, not yelling Asian of any sort, but supremely comfortable, gently moody and very contemporary. There’s shades of Honto in its genetics.

There’s a long cigar of a bar, but it isn’t a bar, it’s an open kitchen with stools arranged along its length like a teppanyaki or nigiri bar, but on a more grandiose scale.

It’s the prime place to sit if you are a single or pair.

Same Same, just like Longtime was, is Thai … sort of.

It’s what I call pop-Thai, taking classics like larb, curries, noodles, rice and salads and kind of irreverently morphing them into something more anglicised and often more delicious.

And it takes Americana – tacos, burgers, wings – and gives them an Asian overhaul. The result can be electric.

Prawn larb taco, lettuce, shallots, red nahm jim. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

Take the prawn-larb taco ($9, above). It’s loaded with creme fraiche, which is almost as far from a Thai ingredient as it is possible to get.

And the larb claim is fanciful. But imagine big, crunchy, taco-shaped prawn-crackers filled with prawn meat basted in just enough nahm jim to add some wonder, then some greens and that big dollop of creme fraiche.

It falls to bits in moments, but it tastes so damned good it really doesn’t matter.

And a betel leaf ($4.50) – perhaps a bit more mainstream – with sticky pork, Vietnamese mint, pineapple and peanuts.

Coconut and turmeric curry of Moreton Bay bug, kafir lime leaf. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

The truest dish we try is a very good rendition of papaya salad ($18), packing some heat and wonderfully sour, crunchy and fresh.

And from five curries on offer we choose Moreton Bay bug in a coconut and turmeric sauce ($39, above) – rich, silky, complex and a great foil to the salad. It’s decadence meets acid.

Too much time has passed since I took a look at the Longtime menu so this might sail very close, or it might be fully overhauled.

Great venue but restaurant falls short of the fancy gang

Beaux Rumble: All the right ingredients, but something missing

More relaxed than Aria, but is the food as good?

Either way the spirit remains the same – heavily Thai influenced but cross-pollinated and teamed with imagination and art.

Perhaps the surrounds make it seem better, perhaps I’ve ordered more wisely, or perhaps my memory is playing tricks, but I can’t recall Longtime wooing me this thoroughly.

And everything else seems better.

Elements of green curry; coconut & lime parfait, rice puffs, lime curd. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

We arrive early and the place fills around us, raising the noise level from kitchen bustle to a gentle din. But service doesn’t falter, and – noisy or not – it’s decorous.

What the Same Same team has done is create a restaurant within a lovely space, ticked the boxes of food, drink and hospitality, then stepped up every aspect … and up … and up.

It’s a very, very exciting place to dine.

SCORES OUT OF 10

Food: 9 Drinks: 8

Vibe: 9 Service: 8.5

SAME SAME

Ada Lane, 46 James St,

Fortitude Valley

Ph: 3188 1418