Jasmines Cafe & Thai Restaurant serves Thai food at 43 Hakiaha St in Taumarunui, in the Ruapehu district, and holds a 4.3 rating from 685 Google reviews. Thai cooking turns on balance: sweet, sour, salty and hot held together by lemongrass, galangal, lime leaf and fish sauce. A good kitchen adjusts the chilli to order, so say how fierce you want it — mild at a Thai restaurant often still bites. Tom yum and fresh-tasting curries are fair tests of any Thai kitchen; when those come out bright and punchy, the rest of the menu tends to follow. In small country towns the local Thai place is often family-run and quietly becomes a standby for locals and travellers passing through. On Hakiaha Street, Jasmines sits squarely in that tradition, and a rating that strong across hundreds of reviews suggests it has earned a following of its own.