All you can eat mu kratha Thai bbq hotpot at Capital Thai, Sydney Chinatown

What do you get when you cross Korean barbecue with Chinese hotpot? Meet mu kratha. It's a mash-up commonly found across Thailand, and guess what. You can get it in Sydney too. And it's all you can eat. Yeah, baby.

Get it at Capital Thai, the restaurant located next door to the Capitol Theatre. I bet you've walked past it a million times and never even realised. Sure they have a la carte options but head deeper into the dining room and you'll find the mu kratha buffet set-up. It's here you'll find groups of Thai uni students in the know. And now, you.


Banana prawns

The buffet is a veritable bargain. Just $29.80 for all you can eat meat, seafood, vegetables and desserts. It even includes a self-serve soft drink station, so you can pump all the post-mix soda you please.


Marinated beef

Stackable trays mean you can bring back the motherlode of ingredients for your table. Proteins include chicken, beef and pork - marinated and plain.


Tripe and intestines

If you love tripe, you're in luck here. Bible tripe and intestines are both available. Cook them in the soup for maximum deliciousness.


Fish tofu, fish balls and meatballs

Soup aficionados will want to load up on fish balls, meat balls and more.


Fishcake slices and meatballs


Green bean vermicelli noodles, egg noodles, enoki mushrooms and mussels

Grab all the noodles you want as well. We went nuts on the enoki mushrooms.


Water spinach, Chinese cabbage, baby bok choy, Thai basil and fresh corn

Don't forget your greens either. We ate tonnes of kang kong water spinach and baby bok choy. The corn cobbettes worked a treat on the grill.


Cooking pork on the mu kratha

The mu kratha is genius in design. Imagine a Korean barbecue grill surrounded by a trough filled with clear soup stock. The grill - greased with hunks of pork fat - is slightly domed so as your meat cooks, all the juices run down into the soup. That means grilled meat with a bonus of meaty vegetable broth. Nothing gets wasted here!


Drinking soup from the moat filled with enoki mushrooms and water spinach

In Thailand the mu kratha vessel is much bigger and fueled by charcoal. Here you'll have to contend with a portable gas flame, and a significantly smaller moat, but it's still a heap of fun.


Moo kratha party

There's no limit to broth refills. And everyone gets two types of nam jim dipping sauces, providing a spicy, salty sweet and sour baptism for the protein of your choice.


Fried rice and fried chicken wings

Too hungry to wait for your food to cook? They have cooked dishes too. A massive tray of fried chicken wings was hard to resist, coated in a golden batter.


Fried prawn crackers and fried wonton crackers

The prawn crackers are particularly good too. They're the proper prawn cracker type with real prawns and extra crunchy.


Chicken skin crackling

But wait until you clap eyes on the chicken skin crackling. You read that right. And there's a mountain of it!

Self-serve nam kang sai shaved ice dessert station

Your 90-minute buffet time limit includes unlimited desserts. After the heaviness of grilled meat, you'll relish the relief of the self-serve shaved ice station. Here you'll find jackfruit, grass jelly, toddy palm seeds, basil seeds, palm seeds, sweet corn and soft white bread. They even have fruit salad mixed through with chilli salt.


Adding grass jelly to basil seeds and jackfruit

Choose whatever fruit you prefer...


Adding condensed milk to shaved ice

add a mountain of shaved ice and then drizzle with condensed milk or flavoured syrups.


Coconut jelly and fresh watermelon

Need more? They have banana and sago soup, fresh watermelon and rockmelon, and my favourite - coconut jelly.

Go with friends. Go hungry. Go now.






The all you can eat mu kratha hotpot buffet costs $29.80 for adults and $15 for children under 11 years old. A 90-minute time limit applies. Additional charges may be applied for excessive food wastage, so only take what you can eat. Bookings are highly recommended.

Capital Thai
21A Campbell Street, Haymarket, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 1130

Opening hours
Lunch daily 11am-3.30pm
Dinner daily 5.30pm-1am


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All you can eat crab and prawn buffet at Mojo Restaurant, Sydney

It's back. And bigger than ever. Last year's all-you-can-eat crab buffet has expanded to include prawns as well. That means menu choice has more than doubled from ten to 22 dishes. It's in a new venue too, running upstairs at Mojo Restaurant, on the former site of Scruffy Murphy's (RIP). Did we eat our money's worth? You bet we did.


All you can eat prawn and crab menu $49.90

The new prawn and crab buffet means a price hike from $39.90 to $49.90, but to be honest, we're not complaining. It's still incredible value given the quality of food provided.

The set-up remains the same. Your table has 90 minutes to order as much as it can eat from the special buffet menu. Each dish is cooked to order, and yes, you'll be expected to eat everything or risk being charged a penalty fee for food waste.


Som tum prawn papaya salad, Thai-style

We kick off with som tum papaya salad. You'll be asked whether you want it Thai-style (clear with fish sauce) or Lao-style (darker brown with salted crabs). They'll also ask what level heat you're after - remember they're talking on a Thai scale. We asked for mild and it still tasted pretty fiery.


Som tum crab papaya salad, Lao-style

The som tum crab only comes in Lao style. Here you get to relish the salty fishy pungency of salted crab.

My biggest tip? Bring your own gloves. I'm not joking. Sure you may feel like a fool packing them into your handbag, but you'll be having the last laugh as you rip apart those crab legs with unbridled glee. And trust me, you are going to get messy.


Raw prawns with chilli sauce

Raw seafood is one of my favourite indulgences. Its glassy sheen yields a silky sweetness that is immediately lost upon cooking. And if you're worried about freshness, you shouldn't be. You should know straight away if a raw prawn is less than fresh, both in taste and texture. Here the raw prawns are simply peeled and dressed with a pounded chilli sauce, raw garlic slices and raw bitter melon.


Goi goong raw prawn spicy salad

If you like larb, you'll like goi goong, raw prawns marinated in the same fish sauce and roasted rice dressing you find on chicken or pork larb. Again it's hotter than we expect, but that doesn't stop me wiping the sweat off my brow and going in for more.


Blue swimmer crab omelette

Too hot in here? You'll want to load up on the crab omelette. The pockets of blue swimmer crab flesh are a little hard to find, but we appreciate the hit of protein anyway, especially as this is one of the few dishes that don't require crab extraction.


Steamed blue swimmer crab

Steamed blue swimmer crab is also ideal for those who prefer their chilli sauce on the side. There's a fair amount of meat in the claws. Make sure you share those crab crackers around.


Raw blue swimmer crab

I'm all over the raw blue swimmer crab though. There's something amazing about pulling the meat out from the claw and admiring its blue and uncooked hue.


Grilled king prawns

Grilled king prawns are a crowd pleaser, aromatic as it hits the table and easy for everyone to peel.


Prawn tom yum goong

We hoe into the tom yum goong soup with prawn...


Pad thai with king prawns

and decimate the pad thai with king prawns. This is a dish you'd happily eat on its own, with noodles that are sauced to expert sufficiency, without heading into soggy territory.


Prawn tom yum noodle soup

And if you didn't know the Doo Dee Paidang crew are behind this joint, you'll immediately realise it upon first taste of the tom yum noodle soup. It's got all the spicy, sour, salty and sweet addiction of your cheap eat favourite, upsized of course.

Picture a bowl that'll feed four people, and you've got some idea of how huge this serve will be.


Crab fried rice

The crab fried rice isn't as good as the one we had at Yok Sod but it's still tasty enough for us to order a second plate. Did I mention you should come in a group? I just did. We had a table of 11 adults that enabled us to eat through most of the menu. Go as a table of at least four people so you can plow through a variety of dishes.


Stir fried prawns with black pepper sauce

The fried rice comes in handy to soak up the black pepper sauce surrounding the stir-fried prawns. You'll probably appreciate the handful of green beans in this dish too.


Prawns in curry sauce

The curry sauce prawns is one of the richer dishes, a dish that's like curried scrambled eggs colliding with prawns.


Blue swimmer crabs in curry sauce

Curry sauce crab is even messier. You'll be licking that curry sauce off every crevice of that carapace.


All you can eat crab and prawn feast

Between eleven of us we managed to polish off 29 dishes. That's an average of 3.8 dishes per person. We haven't lost our buffet mojo.






Mojo Bar & Restaurant
43-49 Goulburn Street, Haymarket, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9211 2002

Open daily 10am-2am

The all you can eat crab and prawn buffet runs for the duration of crab season. Staff have indicated the buffet should run until the end of April 2019 at least, but call ahead to check. Bookings are essential. 


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All-you-can-eat seafood buffet at Talay's Thai Seafood Restaurant, Duo Central Park, Sydney

All you can eat seafood including scampi sashimi? DREAMS CAN COME TRUE. Wear loose pants and get yourselves to Talay's Thai Restaurant, now open at the new Duo Central Park development on Broadway. Just $69 will net you as much seafood as you can eat in two hours, as well as unlimited Thai milk tea. Yeah boi. Want to know what's included? Read on...


All you can eat prawns, Balmain bugs and oysters

The all you can eat seafood buffet only runs at dinner, and includes a self-serve section plus dishes you can order via tablet. That means you can hook into prawns, Balmain bugs and oysters while you wait.

NB I've included the prices for a la carte for some dishes. The prices in brackets are what you'd pay if you ordered each dish individually off the menu. If you order and pay for the buffet, everything mentioned in this post is included.


All you can drink Thai milk tea, bael fruit tea and Thai iced milk green tea

And sure, plain water is provided, but you can also go nuts with all you can drink Thai milk tea, bael fruit tea and Thai iced milk green tea. As always, these tend to be on the sweet side, so I'd suggest you fill up your glass with ice to provide some much need chilled dilution. The choice - and tooth enamel - is yours!


Tom yum soup with prawns

Help yourself to tom yum soup, definitely on the fiery side but a touch too sweet for our Thai ex-pat, the G-Man. It is filled with plenty of prawns though.


Pipi clams with fresh chilli and garlic (a la carte $13.90)

They also have pipi clams with fresh garlic and chilli in the bain marie...


Crab fried rice 

plus plain and crab fried rice.


Scampi sashimi (a la carte $6.90 per piece)

But don't fill up on the carbs because food orders tend to fly in thick and fast. Our scampi sashimi arrives on a massive wooden board, peeled for easy eating. The flesh is firm and deliciously sweet. I'm still amazed this is part of the buffet considering it retails for $90 per kilo at the Sydney Fish Market.

The tablet only permits us to order two raw scampi per diner (we're a group of four tonight) but when we ask if there is a limit, our waiter somehow sends through another order to the kitchen. I'd understand if there's a quota per diner, but it won't hurt to try your luck if you do hit a maximum order on the tablet.


Parboiled cockles (a la carte $14.90)

For most of us, eating parboiled cockles is a first. There's a stronger and chewier taste here, like a mussel crossed with a pipi, but it's a reminiscent flashback to childhood for the G-Man. Make sure you help yourself to a bowl of Thai seafood sauce for dipping too. You'll want to dip everything in this spicy, sour and garlicky dressing.


Raw salmon roll with Thai mint spicy sauce (a la carte $17.90)

The raw page on the tablet menu includes salmon sashimi (tasty) plus raw salmon rolls, doused in a vinaigrette pepped up with chilli, garlic and mint. Due to messy hands eating crab, I managed to take photos of most, but but not all, of the food we ate.


Raw peeled prawns in hot sauce (a la carte $16.90)

If you love raw scampi, you'll probably also love raw prawns. Crust crustaceans have an incredibly lush sweetness that is lost upon cooking.


Prawns and squid on the grill

Grilled prawns and squid are cooked to order. The grilled squid (sorry, no photo) was so awesome we finished the lot and then ordered another. The squid is tender with a slight char to the edges, especially on the tentacles.


Prawn cutlet with tamarind (a la carte $21.90)

What the menu describes as prawn cutlets turn out to be semi-peeled prawns. We tried the prawns with garlic as well as tamarind. They're equally tasty, with firm and sweet flesh.


Thai style steamed blue swimmer crab (a la carte $22.90)

We feast on steamed blue swimmer crab, served Thai-style in that it comes with a side of Thai seafood sauce. Ask for crab/nut crackers if you don't find any on your table.


Making fresh som tum green papaya salad  in the kitchen

And it's not a Thai meal unless there's som tum, or papaya salad involved. Mercifully the som tum is pounded fresh to order in the kitchen, ensuring the papaya is well macerated in that tangy fish sauce dressing.


Green papaya salad with fermented crab (a la carte $11.90)

You can order the papaya salad Thai-style or Lao-style. The latter includes fermented crab that creates a darker fishier dressing. We tried both, although the fermented crab version always gets bonus flavour points from me.


Spicy pickled crab salad (a la carte $16.90)

Highlight dish is this spicy pickled crab salad. That means raw blue swimmer crab with som tum papaya salad and pickled crab. As I've waxed lyrical before, raw crab is unbeatable. If you're worried about the crab not being fresh, as with all raw food, you should immediately know by smell, touch and taste.

The raw crab is firm but sweet. And it pairs so well with the spicy som tum papaya salad.


Crispy fried soft shell crab with garlic (a la carte $21.90)

If you're craving fried seafood, they have that too. We gorge ourselves on the fried soft shell crab with garlic, a crunchy tangle of batter and crab. We also munch our way through serves of the deep fried crispy salt and pepper squid (a la carte $14.90) as well as deep fried squid with garlic (a la carte $14.90). The latter is particularly good, with a knobbly crunchy batter.


Deep fried whole barramundi with garlic (a la carte $24.90)

Still hungry. You can order whole barramundi steamed, grilled or fried. Nobody's going home hungry.


Sticky rice with fresh mango and ice cream

Dessert isn't listed on the tablet menu but it is promoted on each table. We definitely have room for sticky rice with fresh mango and ice cream, served in a martini glass. There's a distinct saltiness to the sticky rice and coconut, saltier than what you'd expect in a dessert, but it works brilliantly against the sweetness of the mango and the cold scoop of ice cream.



Bookings are recommended for the all you can eat Thai seafood buffet, currently available for dinner at $69 per person (as at November 2018).






Talay's Thai Seafood Restaurant
Duo Central Park
Shop 5, Ground Floor, 38 Broadway Chippendale, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8067 0721

Opening hours
Monday to Friday 11am-10pm
Saturday and Sunday 5pm-10pm

All you can eat Thai seafood buffet dinner $69 per person (as at November 2018)
Bookings are strongly recommended


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All You Can Eat - Korean BBQ at Se Jong, Sydney
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All You Can Eat - Thai crab buffet at Yok Sod, Sydney (crab season only)