Featuring: Sukhumvit Soi.38, Ragi’s New Deli, The Caledonian…

THE opening of the original Sukhumvit Soi.38 in 2014 was a terrific tribute to the famous street food market in Bangkok, now long closed due to redevelopment. Co-owner and chef
Terry Intarakhamhaeng built a strong reputation serving street food snacks and dishes that could not be found on other Adelaide Thai restaurant menus.
Later, now named just Soi 38, his restaurant evolved to source recipes from regional and remote parts of Thailand, ethnic minority groups and hill tribes, some from historical records and others handed down through his family.
With a move to much larger, more elegant and sophisticated premises in Pirie Street last year, Soi 38 has truly come of age, with one of the best curated small wine lists in the city and a menu that has moved well beyond the simple style of the original restaurant, though still faithful to the authentic culinary traditions of Thailand.
“We really wanted to elevate it and showcase the dishes of Thailand’s regions and history,” Terry says. The new Soi 38, like the original, is long and skinny on a corner site, but that’s where the resemblance ends. A wall of glass on one side provides plenty of light, facing a long open kitchen. With it curvaceous, vaulted ceiling and beige and terracotta hues, its modern and very stylish – just like the dishes Terry now puts on his menu.
While some of his early signature dishes remain, such as pan-fried chive cakes, sago peanut dumplings and pad thai, the menu now features less familiar regional dishes that, with few exceptions, uses English names and descriptions rather than Thai names – hence red goat curry with yam bean and lolot leaf, or torched dry-aged kingfish with salsa, and chargrilled beef with prik noom and cucumber salad.
One of the best ways to enjoy Soi 38 is to takes its ‘Tour of Thailand’, a fixed course menu of three main courses, each from a different region, starting in the north at Chiang Mai and ending on the beaches in the south.
Soi 38, 74 Pirie Street, Adelaide. Open for lunch Tuesday to Friday, dinner Monday to Saturday. Phone (08) 8223 5472.
It’s a measure of chef and restaurant owner Ragini Dey’s popularity that her loyal customers have not only followed her around various city locations, but also enabled the substantial expansion of her Ragini’s Spice restaurant to include the cleverly named neighbouring Ragi’s New Deli.
One of Adelaide’s most experienced Indian chefs, Ragini opened her first restaurant 33 years ago, and become even better known through the frequent appearances of her Spice Kitchen at events and festivals such as Tasting Australia and Womadelaide.

There are grander Indian restaurants in Adelaide, but none display the extraordinary knowledge of the breadth of Indian cuisine – and deliver it so well – as Ragini. The daughter of an Indian airline executive, her family travelled extensively throughout India when she was young, providing the basis for her encyclopaedic knowledge of Indian regional cuisines. While most Indian restaurants stick to a particular regional cuisine that they know the best, Ragini’s dishes take you through the whole sub-continent.
Her other particular skill is her impeccable use of spices, not just a blast of chilli heat, but subtle flavours shining through adding new dimensions to each dish. All of this can be found in her New Deli menu, in dishes such as saffron almond chicken korma, or dopaza; slow-cooked beef with caramelised onion and brown cardamon. Other favourites include pork cheek braised for 12 hours, with charcoal noodles, and the free-range organic lamb roganjosh.
Look for her events, such as a recent “steam express” dinner, supposedly in a railway dining car from Chennai to Kolkata, including breakfast, afternoon tea and a couple of dinners – served railway style. Fun and delicious. There’s also a spice shop with lots of good things. Ragi’s New Deli, 210 Hutt Street, Adelaide. Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Friday, dinner Saturday. Phone (08) 7222 4969.
After a long hiatus due to the pandemic, wine dinners have made a much welcomed return to The Caledonian, an historic pub next to the parklands on the northern fringe of the CBD.
To the casual visitor The Caledonian is nothing exceptional. It has a good dining room, Bartons restaurant, with above average pub food and a strong focus on high-grade steaks. A further clue might be the range of Scotch whiskies in the front bar and the solid wine list. But it is the wine-matched dinners that really set The Caledonian apart from anywhere else.
Food and wine matching dinners are pretty commonplace these days, though nearly all of them are fairly pricey and a little precious. Not so at The Caledonian. Prices have gone up a little, usually around $110 for five courses of wine-friendly food matched with up to a dozen or more wines, everything in generous quantities.
Wineries locked in include Vasse Felix and Pikes in June, Langmeil in July and a whisky dinner with Glenfarclas in September. The Caledonian, 219 O’Connell St, North Adelaide. Open for lunch and dinner Monday to Saturday, lunch Sunday. (08) 8267 1375.