Mínima is the latest venture from Mork and Benn Ratanakosol. Photo: Pewpew Studio.
Mínima, at Yarralumla shops, is the passion project of brothers Mork and Benn Ratanakosol who found success serving ‘rebellious Thai’ at their Kingston restaurant Morks.
Mínima is a much smaller, intimate venue which reflects the ‘third culture’ that the Thai-born, Canberra-raised brothers embody. This cuisine is about the myriad of Asian influences on Modern Australian food, and how Modern Australian cuisine has, in turn, influenced the Asian chefs who make up a large percentage of Australia’s hospitality industry workers.
I visited Mínima recently with the sole intention of tasting their curry laksa. Regular readers of Region Canberra may recall my single-minded obsession with searching out Canberra’s best laksa over the past few years (you can, of course, still read about those exploits), and I was curious to taste the Ratanakosol brothers’ take on one of my favourite dishes.
But instead, I found myself grappling with bigger questions: what makes a dish ‘fine dining’ or a ‘cheap eat’, and who gets to decide?
The Mínima laksa: superb. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
I’ll start by telling you about the laksa: it was exceptional. Easily one of the best laksas I’ve had: fragrant with a layered complexity of herbs and spices, richly flavoured and satisfyingly diverse with each mouthful revealing the crisp of a bean sprout or the soft, yielding bite of a prawn. Tender shredded chicken with house-made sambal created a medley of flavour and a pile of eminently slurpable noodles sat in a puddle of comforting, creamy soup. The soup is made from scratch with care using the prawn shells resulting in a deeply flavourful experience. I loved every bit of it and while I was very tempted to lick the bowl (the staff promised they wouldn’t judge) I decided I did still have some standards to uphold … just.
Many people at Mínima will experience this dish as part of a broader set menu: while I enjoyed my laksa sitting at the kitchen bar, other diners were sitting down for a longer lunch. The current iteration of the menu, Benn told me, is heavily influenced by Malay and Vietnamese flavours, as evidenced by dishes like mini banh xeo (savoury Vietnamese pancakes) and dashes of belacan (Malay shrimp and chilli sambal). But the menu changes every few months – this one will likely stick around until June – so the laksa won’t be around forever and the next menu might take in a whole host of other influences.
Here’s the kicker: that laksa costs $45 as a standalone dish. Most bowls of curry laksa will cost around half that much, and I found myself wondering why this is the case. Many styles of Asian food in Australia are often considered to be cheap and cheerful (although, I note, Japanese is more often considered ‘luxury’ or ‘fine dining’).
Why do we expect a banh mi to cost less than a bourgie sandwich filled with deli meats? They are, after all, both a bread roll stuffed with meat and pickles with a slather of mayo.
Most Italian restaurants – even casual, neighbourhood joints – will happily charge up to $30 for a pasta dish. But when placed side by side and broken down into their component parts, pasta isn’t that different from a noodle dish at an Asian restaurant.
For example: linguini pasta + sauce (white wine and garlic, perhaps) + protein (say, prawns) + herb garnish (parsley or basil) + a hefty drizzle of olive oil.
Compared to: rice noodles + sauce (curry laksa, perhaps) + protein (often a mix of many, but let’s say prawn for comparison sake) + herb garnish (coriander or Thai basil) + a hefty handful of bean sprouts.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see that linguini ai gamberi on the menu at a casual Italian restaurant for upwards of $30, and $40-plus for an upmarket joint. But a laksa costing much more than $20 starts to raise eyebrows, unless it can be “justified” (note the quote marks) by an elevated ambience, fine tableware and a chef with name recognition.
The Dickson Asian Noodle House laksa is a favourite of Canberrans and has a low price point for a hefty portion. Photo: Lucy Ridge.
We can talk about the quality of ingredients and how much is made in-house until the cows come home, but unless you have insider knowledge of how the restaurant operates, a lot of that is just guess work. And I know that arguing for food to cost more during cost of living crisis will probably be an unpopular take. Perhaps the cheap and cheerful places will keep their doors open longer than those that charge more for their meals. Who knows? Even with a solid knowledge of the industry, I have trouble predicting who will stay in business and who will close their doors.
But at the end of the day, I’m excited to see more folks like Mork and Benn push the boundaries of what we expect Asian food to be. And I’m happy to pay $45 for the experience.
Mínima is located at Yarralumla Shops, 29 Bentham St, Manuka. They are open for dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 5:30 pm, and for lunch Thursday to Saturday from 12 noon. Follow Mínima on Instagram.
