Thai Modern

You know that feeling when you walk into somewhere and immediately smell good food being cooked properly? That's Thai Modern. Tucked away on Upper Fourth Street near the city centre, it's the kind of place where locals go regularly because the curries actually taste like they should, not some watered-down compromise. The pad thai has proper char on it, the som tam arrives properly bruised and alive with heat, and nobody's pretending this is fine dining when it's clearly just really solid, flavourful Thai cooking done right. Expect busy tables most nights—the sort of busy that happens when word gets around that a place genuinely knows what it's doing.