Latymers to The Begging Bowl - a Thai evolution - Jan 2013

A good few years ago now, the food trend du jour was for Thai food in pubs. Don't ask me why, I wasn't involved, though I do remember it involving pre-prepared easy dishes and just enough fried stuff to make sense alongside a couple of pints. In these fast moving days of lusty tattooed young chefs preparing robust local food in every spit and sawdust boozer in zones 1 and 2, that seems pretty old hat.

Thankfully for the food historians, there are still a few working examples of the lazy predecessor to the gastro pub. The Windmill on the Cut in Waterloo is one (though the clientele and the actors spilling from the nearby theatres mean it's still one of my favourite pubs in London, albeit not for the food). Latymers in Hammersmith suburb Brook Green is another. Pre-prepared tasting sauces, frozen veg and factory spring rolls, old sticky rice and tough fatty duck all reared their heads. This is food you'll keep eating for a while afterwards, and not in a good way. 

Thankfully, within London at least, there are enough people out there who manage to cook decent Thai food, taking it out of its inauspicious start to provide a solidly egalitarian lunch or dinner option. Around the capital I'd note a few worth popping into; Rosas (Spitalfields and Soho), The Pepper Tree in Clapham, Thai Corner Cafe in Dulwich, Brixton Market's Khaosarn and Spicy Basil in Kilburn (an old favourite on trips to the Tricycle Theatre). 

And there's now another one to add to that list it would seem. The Begging Bowl in gentrified Peckham enclave of Bellenden Road. 

Its bright, open corner location opens up wonderfully in the early January light and large open windows and outside seating will be a godsend in the summer and will near double its capacity. Fashionably small wooden tables and communal bench seating are lovely, but we were left with little room for the multiple small plates of food (yes, that again) once water and a cute little pot of Jasmine tea were stacked up. 

There's not much delineation between plates that would be starter or would be main other than the price, so it helps if you're happy sharing. Prices vary from £5.50 to £12.50 and with a recommended 2-3 plates per person it can get pricy for a neighbourhood restaurant. Thankfully they include the rice in that price. While there are a few staples featured, there isn't a focus on the thick curries many will associate with the region, instead more is made of subtle and steamed melanges of exotic vegetables, herbs and fruit like galangal, morning glory, krachai and the rarer members of the aubergine family. On our trip there weren't too many dishes on the regularly changing menu, but still enough to construct a reasonable selection from. 

One of the best Pad Thai dishes I've had was a smashing demonstration of how unctuous and satisfying this often bland noodle dish can be. Soft and pillowy pork belly in a light peanut sauce came with a sharp papaya salad, though the portion size was a little disappointing for the price. The only disappointment were a handful of satay pork skewers, cooked, but not charred, and without enough texture or flavour correspondingly. 

There's easily enough here to bring me back, and it's a fantastic new local spot for the local lads and ladies who lunch. Given Bellenden Road's firmly cemented position as an extension to East Dulwich's Lordship Lane, I don't think that they've got anything to worry about.

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Birthing pains? Naamyaa Cafe - Jan 2013

You can almost hear David Attenborough's hushed and breathy tones describing the place as he peers unobtrusively through the window..."Carefully created.. And lovingly placed next to a recently spawned Jamie's Italian for shelter and contrast.. Small and comparatively week now, but within years this will be a force to reckon with. Under an anonymous new build office block here in the Islington foothills, we are present at the birth of a chain..." It'll go great at the start of the next series of Human Planet.

Naamyaa (or N-U-M-indecipherable squiggle as the sign would have you believe) is, or certainly what feels like, a new concept being rolled out by Alan Yau. Many of his creations have become chains over the years; Wagamammas, Busabi Eathai, Yauacha, the mighty Hakkasan and ChaCha Moon (actually, scratch that last one... It's the black sheep of the family in so many ways) and while Wagamammas may have blossomed into mediocre provincial ubiquity, it's a damn site better than most high streets could have offered even 15 years ago.

The menu at Naamyaa Cafe, created in partnership with Michelin starred Thai specialist David Thompson (he of Michelin starred Nahm fame), is an odd one if you're in search of a new, or specifically Thai, experience. They cover a broad gamut of South East Asian dishes, many offered as shared or small plates, alongside a handful of international offerings such as burgers and European salads (it's styled as an all day Bangkok cafe, this appears to be a 'thing that those establishments offer, much like the culturally curious Indian railway cafes that inspired Dishoom).

So bring it on... 

Walking in to a bright airy space of light pines, gorgeous orange pictoral tiling and cool pistachio green banquettes, one of the first things you notice is that Naamyaa smells of food. In a good way. Food that makes me hungry. Food I want to eat. 

Pulling up a pew at the large bar overlooking the open kitchen (that'd explain the smell then) I skimmed through the menu before succumbing to menu Tourettes and ordering the smell that had turned me on as I walked in. I get the purpose of open kitchens in showier restaurants, where there's genuinely a sense of wonder about what the white clad magicians are doing with their exotic ingredients, less so when you're simply watching a bored guy repeatedly prep clingfilm clad tray after clingfilm clad tray of veggies.

Despite that smell, it didn't start well. Vegetable stuffed spring rolls or Po Pia Jay were as under-filled and generic as those you'd get from a local Chinese supermarket, Thai spiced chicken wings were a generous portion and easily suitable for sharing, but slightly greasy, under-flavoured and just too scrawny. I wasn't wishing I'd nipped into Jamie's next door, but I was starting to bemoan the fact I hadn't gone a little further down the road to Exmouth Market for my scran.

Thankfully, it was saved by the laksa, a deeply intense and flavoursome bowl of hearty spice. £8.50 is a pretty reasonable price for a dish of this quality, one so overfilled with yielding strings of braised chicken, silken noodles, crunchy beansprout and fried garlic that I struggled to finish it. I know that laksa isn't specifically a Thai soup, though versions are served throughout the region and this one is a triumph.

Expectations finally met if not exceeded, I'll certainly pop back in to sample a couple of the other rice and noodle mains if I'm in the area. On the second half of this showing, I won't have a problem recommending Naamyaa, though you might want to wait until one pops up closer to you. It won't be long.

    

Another bite of Brixton Market - Feb 2012

As a little foodie cluster, Brixton Village has more than enough ethnic treats to satisfy even the most diverse of foodie. The main problem will be deciding what to go for. Personal highlights include the excellent Honest Burger, Franco Manca (the slew of other, newer openings have thankfully made seats here easier to come by) and Federation's excellent coffee. 

There's a pleasant mix developing between new and old Brixton. The newly opened food stalls complement the peacock finery of the African clothes stores and feel at home alongside the butchers and veg stalls elsewhere. A soundtrack of dub, reggae and itinerant street preacher permeates and there's thankfully little sign of the depressing corporate homogeneity that has neutered Spitalfields, Borough, Camden and the other markets. Brixton does it differently.

Mama Lam is another often mentioned treat, more an appeterif than a main meal, they do a selection of freshly made Chinese jiaozi or potsticker dumplings, a couple of other fried lovelies and intense, flavoursome noodle soups. The tiny outdoor tables are a trial in the winter so grab a place at the counter and watch their Chinese mama deftly roll and fill the little dough parcels, poached then crisped off over hot heat. Fillings include beef, pork and vegetables, five satisfying and fresh buns will set you back a few quid.

A rarer street food is served at Okan, big hearty pancakes from Osaka called Okonomiyaki. Hefty, hearty giant rosti cakes, made with a cabbage and noodle base held together with a sloppy batter, served with a variety of umami rich toppings and fillings. They taste better than they sound and the theatre of them being prepared on their sizzling short order grill is both evocative and famishing...

As well as the three or four places mentioned recently, there are a number of South American places I've subsequently noticed now on my list, a good looking Thai, jerk stalls (though I have my Peckham affinities here) and a selection of other bakeries, grills and goodies alongside non food related retailers old and new school. The continual evolution and ad hoc nature of the place will hopefully bring new places to the market to sink or swim based on satisfaction rather than longevity of lease or depth of corporate pocket.

The finished product

 Looking in at Mama Lam

And the resultant pot stickers

Suda - The Siamese Rice Bar - Oct 2011

Where: Suda, Covent Garden
With who: The Insiders
How much: Starters around a fiver and most mains are £8 - £9. Very good value for the area
Come here if: the queues are too big for Jamie's Italian and you need somewhere after your Saturday afternoon shopping 'up in town'

OK. It's not a promising start... A newly spruced commercial 'quarter' opens out of the Covent Garden alley between disappointing up-market Mexican Cantina Laredo and Jamie's Italian, the latter begrudgingly acceptable but for the tourist horde on their daily pilgrimage.

Led here by an old friend with prior knowledge, I wasn't feeling it as I walked through the glorified shopping centre and into the enormous black box of a restaurant. The feelings didn't dissipate as I waited in the puzzling space somewhere between a bar, a tourist information centre and a cattle barn. Enormous sacks of different types of Thai rice lie around, interspersed with Thai tourism brochures. Amiable staff mill around with odd cocktails and authentic costumes avoiding your eye, it's like being at giant tourism industry trade fair World Travel Market. Upstairs it's a little more like a restaurant, and a huge one at that. Light beech Carl Hansen chairs add an odd Scandinavian feel to an otherwise quite industrial barn of a space. The staff remain, upstairs many more to service the swathes of empty tables, rabbit in a headlight like gazes while zipping around the space. Suffice to say I'm already not looking forward to this.  
 
The menu goes someway towards allaying those fears. It's (very) cheap for the area and a relatively traditional menu in style. Starters shared included very good chicken satay, with its sticky and spicy peanut sauce covering soft smooth chicken, Thai style calamari and cigars of minced pork and prawn in wanton wrappers. Tastewise the spare ribs were fine, but the watery sauce didn't really work as a shared starter.
 
I next went for a namtok ped som tum, country style duck served with som tum salad and sticky rice. A neat touch mentioned in the menu advises that you can have it as hot as you like, and, like a boy, I asked for the 'spicy' version. Som Tum salad is one of those fragranced specialities that I tend not to order in Thai restaurants, saving space for a hearty massaman curry instead, but here I'm glad I did. Green papaya salad, made with carrot, tiny dried shrimp, fish sauce and some firey chilli, I wouldn't recommend having it anything other than regularly spiced though, it cut through the rich fatty duck well, along with most of my faculty for taste. It's a shame that despite the 'Rice Bar' moniker and the Visit Thailand display downstairs, there weren't more different styles of rice. A rice tasting menu would have been amusingly different, though not likely to appeal to the legions of tourists and shoppers they need to get through the doors to sustain the location.

   

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Banana Tree Soho - a whistlestop tour of 'Indochina' - Oct 2011

Where: Banana Tree, Soho
With who: The International Traveller
How much: £25 a head for two courses and a drink (on this occasion we were anonymous guests of the restaurant - see below for caveat)
Come here if: you need a spicy blast of Thai heat but want to play on the safe side.

Following in the footsteps of other 'alright to like it' chains Wahaca, Byron and Cay Tre, The Banana Tree Canteen has opened its doors on the lucrative corner of Old Compton and Wardour Street. They've stripped back a relatively new concrete clad build to reveal, surprise shock horror, a bland concrete interior, complete with a ceiling full of air con and shiny piping. Unnecessarily New York. 


The menu takes you on an interesting twirl round Indochina, an accurate description, if slightly colonial and not a word you hear oft used to describe the Thai / Viet / Malay cuisine on the short snappy list. Like trailblazing neighbour Busbai Eathai (they of the legendary hour long post work queues) it's aimed squarely at the office crowd. There's a good mixture of sweet and spice, nothing too challenging, and you'll get away for £25 a head, perfect for that leaving lunch or a postscript to a few drinks.

A selection of mainly fried dim sum style starters thankfully feel homemade, or at least freshly made, and skip the sacherrine sweet MSG chilli toilet cleaner that often accompanies such dishes. We pulled little morsels of salty porky flesh from their bones and hoovered up moist and juicy minced chicken 'moneybags' - deep fried in bulbous wonton wrappers, pleasingly large, and definitely more than Monica from HR could cope with in one mouthful. Steamed dumplings were sadly less successful. Waterlogged, still born gzoya in an acrid burnt sauce.

Mains were pleasingly meaty, coming in two principle variants - the marinaded to dark almost bitter perfection meat, a char-grilled blackened chilli pork and a blackened beef both fell into this category, or the softer strops of al dente noodle curled round various sauces. The meat arrived punctuated with pillowy mixed vegetable rice and more dipping sauce, they had enough heat for the casual chilli hound, though not enough for me, lacking as they did the kick from the missing, surely obligatory, bottle of Sriracha sauce.

Cocktails are a bit of a let down sadly, in an All Bar One kind of way. Overkill of nutmeg gave (too much) Oriental flavour to a watery Mai Tai and the freezer cold lychees in a second were just nasty. That being said, I'm sure I'll be back, it's a sufficiently above average offering in an everyman kind of way and sometimes frankly, only a Thai can satisfy.

*Caveat: The bulk of the cost of this meal was comped and offered to me through the PR. As in other situations I accepted because I wanted to try the food here and am a big fan of Thai food. I was given a voucher to redeem for a portion of the meal at the end of my visit. 

 

All Thai'ed Up... Sept 2011

On bad Thai puns - This was going to be 'Tale of Two Ci-Thais' with the opening line of "It was the best of Thai's, it was the worst of Thai's..." I then had a creative disagreement with Dr Vole. She thought Suits and Thai would have worked better, but shouldn't a day in which I'd ended up eating Thai twice not be a excuse for a Dickensian pun or two? I stood my ground for a bit and then she came over the top with the title of All Thai'ed Up, appropriately enough for a day of prior engagements...


Anyway, we'd had a Thai dinner date that had been pre-arranged, then I found I had to take some clients out for a Thai lunch and so dear reader, I ate them both...


Mango Tree - Victoria

   
The venerable Mango Tree came first. It's a popular one with our guests who work locally and one of few decent, reasonably affordable options in Victoria. That being said, a two course business lunch with soft drinks and water only still came in at £40 a head. It's a relatively soulless barn of a space under a large hotel / office building, light and bright enough on the sunniest day of the year but little ambience delivered by the large plate glass windows staring out on the traffic choked Grosvenor Place. The decor feels a little scuffed and tired round the edges these days, and the confusing, tatty menu piles three special menus on top of the banqueting options on top of the a la carte. The £17 set lunch needs to be asked for separately however.


I went for two from their seasonal Street Food Festival menu, unsure of what this was linked to but the options looked interesting enough. Kai Nok-krata Tord or Quail egg Wanton was a bit of a one trick pony. Pleasant enough, though a little cloying after a while, the portion containing six of the little orbs, hard boiled and fried in wanton skin, my anaemic chilli sauce had me eying a neighbours satay avariciously. The satay and associated chicken skewers were pronounced quite as good as anything my colleague had eaten recently in Thailand.


My main was more interesting, deep-fried sea bass with a mango salad. The former came a touch over-fried for my taste, the accompanying chewy mouthfeel tasty for sure, but killed the sea bass a little. The green mango salad worked alongside, a cooling mix of crunchy matchsticks contrasting with the heat of the fish. Elsewhere they didn't seem to compromise on flavour for pedestrian local taste buds either. Other dishes receiving plaudits round the table included a robust Massaman Lamb Shank curry, thick, creamy and almost aggressively spiced with the soft lamb falling off the bone.   

      

Wines are fairly punchy in their ambition. I'm not sure I'd waste a premier Bordeaux on such spicy fare but if you would, then they're all here and priced as you'd expect. There's plenty around the £18 - £30 mark too though the professional workers (or those with bosses) weren't able to imbibe.


Overall, it's difficult to fault the food that we had, though I might chose differently next time. Big portions of fresh and authentic, well spiced Thai banqueting specialities. But you'll pay handsomely for the privilege and if not stuck in Victoria with no escape I wouldn't necessarily travel for it. The ambience, decor and tightly packed tables rule out romantic rendezvous too. If you're craving expensive Thai in Victoria, Michelin starred Nahm on West Halkin Street is also worth a thought.




@Siam - Soho

   
Getting my eating boots back on a few hours later, we headed out into a Soho night and a Thursday crowded night. You can't miss the throb on Frith Street with crowds outside The Arts, Barrafina and Moolis merging in the quiet road. If it's dispiriting to open a restaurant next door to Koya you can't tell from @Siam's smiley staff. The smashingly simple Japanese noodle bar has achieved Rolling Stones popularity, as evidenced with a queue that stretches down the block.


Inside @Siam is clean, appropriate and fairly generic. Other than the smiling staff smartly dressed in their matching monikered black and tartan shirts you could be in Soho Thai, Thai Square or any of the other small chains.


There's the whiff of 'new' around the operation (appropriately so, as it is) and so a few bits around us don't quite work. There are people waiting for their bill, others being given wrong courses, but it's all dealt with so well by those happy staff that you don't notice anyone caring too much. Perhaps as they get busier they'll tighten up, but there are plenty of places in Soho that have built a reputation on being cheerfully shambolic (Balans, I'm particularly looking at you here).


My starter of prawns in a breadcrumb batter on a bed of iceberg wasn't the greatest of starts. The Thousand Island-style mayo drizzled over the top didn't add much and the flaccid prawns didn't dazzle either. Dr Vole's chicken satay was much better (why I should occasionally order what I want to eat, rather than what looks most exciting on the menu) with soft and moist char grilled chook and a poppy homemade satay sauce.


The main was a house special of Weeping Tiger, soy marinaded thin slices of beef steak served with a great little dipping sauce of deepest sour and sweet. If I were being picky, I'd say it had rested a little too long and was cut a little too thick, but it was simple food done well. A mineral crisp, almost sharp Gavi de Gavi went well with the meal, one of the stars on a smallish list.

    

I'm a fan of Thai food generally. As opposed to some of it's South East Asian neighbours, there's a good mix of fried and chilli and interesting textures without the challenging 'mouthfeel' of some of the more robust regional cuisines. Spicy Pad Thai or a good homemade Green Curry is a blast of pleasure when cooked at home in the evening, but I always go for something I can't do myself when I'm out and too often end up disappointed.

Caveat: The meal at @Siam was comped and offered to me through the PR company. As I will rarely turn down a meal - much less a free one - I have been happy to accept a couple of these, going incognito and reveal myself (with a letter, calm down at the back) at the end of the meal. 

Rosas - Thai in Spitalfields Apr 2011

Where: Rosa's, two branches, Shoreditch or Soho
With Who: Most recently with Miss Jones
How much: starters around £6-£8, mains between £11-£14
Come here if: you need a quick spicy hit of authentic Thai or are angling for a reliable dinner option in two very busy locations

I'm a sucker for Thai or Viet food. Often claiming it's a healthy option, I'll quite happily drag people along to Pho or Rosa's in Soho every day of the week.


Despite the extensive menu here, I always get menu tourettes in Thai restaurants. This goes double for starters, no matter how many times I think about the Poo Nim Thai Herb (Deep-fried soft shell crab topped with Thai herbs, shallots and spicy fresh chilli sauce) and it's chewy salty fresh goodness, I end up with their, admittedly excellent, fried and fresh spring rolls.


Mains are similarly exciting, and are definitely worth pushing the envelope for. Pad Thai, Green Curry, Jungle Curry and a few other staples appear reasonable, but other than a passing graze at a prawn Pad Thai, I've always diversified and dived straight into their excellent char grill and stir fry options.


Big flavours and big dishes. For just under £8, the beef sirloin 'salad' Yam Nuea Yang is a substantial enough main, with strips of juicy meat soaked in a tart, peppery marinade. The Pad Kra Pow is another good value option under a tenner, capable of being charged for more than that. A dry dark and extremely spicy take on the popular peasant dish, often made with minced meat, here with strips of tender beef or chicken it's a winner. Another signature dish well worth recommending is the Nuar Kwang Pad Prig Thai Dam, a mouthful of a title as long as the description. Silky stir-fried venison, soaked in a tongue humming peppery sauce. If there were one dish here that I just had to keep going back to, this would be it.


They're both light, bright locations and suitable for casual business lunches, pre-theatre (especially when you consider the queues at frankly over-rated Soho neighbour Busaba Eathai) and dates, however can get noisy when busy. The staff are friendly often very much so, but aware when busy that table turning means extra bunce. At £25 a head, it's not the cheapest option and shouldn't be viewed as such, but it's a good quality, authentic and interesting place to casually dine.

A review of so-so Thai Silk - Feb 2011

Where: Thai Silk, Waterloo

How much: £9 gets you a very good value pre-theatre meal, you'll get away with under £20 for (most) other 3 course combinations 
With who: Dr Vole
Come here if: you fancy relatively subdued Thai food prior to a show at the Old or New Vic

Needing a bite to eat before a horrifically pretentious evening at the theatre, Dr Vole and I fancied something different to our standby choices around Waterloo and headed to Thai Silk (the clue's in the name) down the tiny tree lined walkway of Joan Street, just behind Southwark tube. 

I've always been a fan of spicy, aromatic and (whisper it) healthy Thai cooking, though have struggled to find anywhere that really hits the mark. I'm aware that there are a fair few in London, including Alan Yau's gourmet chain Busaba Eathai, but none of them (with the possible exception of Clapham's Pepper Tree) have really done it for me. Sadly, I don't think I've found the holy grail here. 

The cavernous space has been fashioned into a restaurant and a bar out of a double railway arch and should be capable of holding a good few hundred at a time. The atmosphere is edged by a strong lemon smell, slightly off-putting at first. Slightly more incongruous are the large flatscreen TVs. Ideal for the party of lads not wanting to miss out on Man Utd's shock defeat to Wolves, but it didn't really help create any sort of authentic Thai vibe. 

Arriving at 6.30, we were only offered the set menu. I don't know whether that's an assumption, or the only thing you can order at that time, but it looked good value at £8.95 a head, and had several dishes both of us found interesting enough not to ask for the a la carte menu. The starters came as a sharing platter. More M&S than Iceland, it still felt close enough to a pre-prepared set. The chicken satay skewers were pleasant enough, though the fish cakes were flaccid and greasy and the fried spring rolls relatively uninspired. The mains were substantial. Two big dishes each came with a heaped pile of noodles, rice and a large side plate of steaming oyster sauce braised vegetables. You certainly get value for your money. The chicken Green Curry was certainly chock full of chook, piles of tender, braised protein in the coconut and lemongrass infused sauce. Pleasant enough, it just didn't really deliver the kick it should. The other main was a wok fried duck dish served with greens. Again a hearty portion, just lacking in the rich flavour you'd hope for from a dish like this.

It's a shame, as the price and location puts it firmly into the hidden gem category, but the food just didn't have enough oomph to make me want to return.

The Pepper Tree, Clapham - Feb 2011

Where: The Pepper Tree, Clapham Common

How much: Starters and soups all less than £4, noodle, curry and Pad Thai dishes around the £7 mark
Come here if: you want good value, authentic food and can cope with waiting for it.

 Batting on manfully in the face of flu (or a slight cold as Dr Vole would have it) let to a night of slight over consumption and a fight on two fronts against both drippy nose and incipient hangover. Banished from the house again, I needed a quick blast of chilli heat and went for an early lunch at The Pepper Tree.

It's a simple and popular little Thai joint opposite Clapham Common tube station. Very pared down (almost unfinished) white walls, the long bench seating and communal tables are packed solid most evenings. 


At 12:30 on a Saturday I shared it with a couple of Clapham happy families and a pair of joggers fresh from the common. Ignoring their uncommonly good Pad Thai, I briefly flirted with the idea of a deep and cheap bowl of Tom Yum soup before settling on the chicken Pepper Tree curry, their spiciest dish, guaranteed to blast away my ills.

A side of sweetcorn cakes didn't set my world (or tastebuds) alight. They are fine, nothing more. Slightly overfried and a little too doughy. The treat comes with the Pepper Tree curry, exactly what the doctor ordered. Foolishly skipping the rice, I plough straight into my bowl, nearer a soup than a curry but packed with flavour. Lemongrass, Thai basil and tamarind provide the backup complexity to a punchy peppery heat. Chicken, krachai (a mild ginger-like root used in Thai and Indonesian cooking) and bell peppers cook in the heat with Thai aubergines and green beans retaining their bite and adding texture to the bowl. It's not complex, but boy is it satisfying.

Busabi Eathai

Where: Busaba Eathai, Bloomsbury

How much: Three main courses and a side to share came to £44. Most mains hover around the £10 mark.

I've always been a little amazed by Busaba Eathai. Ten years after do no wrong restaurateur Alan Yau first opened the first branch on Soho's Wardour Street, the crowds still line up outside the reservation free communal tabled Thai eateries. We arrived at 7pm on a Friday night and waited 20 minutes outside before being given a menu. There were a few people who had sorted the system and nipped in to 'meet friends', there were also a couple who seemed to be treated as VIPs and managed to queue jump somehow. It's not a system I'm a big fan of personally, though the fact there was a queue throughout means that it must work for some people. We ordered finally 45 minutes after arriving. It would normally have been way too long for me to wait.

We went for three mains and a side to share. The Green Curry beef was ok but the large amounts of a vaguely tasteless vegetable along with the beef felt more like filler than anything else. A grilled ribeye was thin, though well cooked and tender, and went well with the sour tamarind sauce it was served with. We both felt let down by the alleged 'crabmeat' rice, which other than a couple of rather incongruous mushy tomatoes and a lonely looking spring onion was nothing more than a bowl of plain rice. I'd have been badly let down if I'd ordered that as a main course on its own. The Thai calamari was excellent however. Perfectly cooked and seasoned. 
Despite the shared tables it didn't feel too intrusive or loud. That being said, we were on a table with a large group and did feel like we were intruding on their party. Other comment would be that on the large communal tables the central sauces felt far too far away so that you were intrusively leaning over people to get to them.

The menu seemed a little smaller than I remember. There didn't seem to be much by the way of starters, though I get that they may not be culturally appropriate. Having checked with their website I see that there aren't any desserts and while fresh fruit couldn't appropriately be served year round, there are a number of Thai desserts that would have rounded it off nicely. It was a good meal, but not worth the 45 minute wait.