… ok maybe not for breakfast. But if there is one cuisine that I can have continuously without getting sick of it, it would have to be Thai. Pad thai, to be specific. So last night, when we were looking for something to eat before heading to see Star Trek (which by the way was awesome, guys), what did we do? We did Thai.
I’m a strong believer that you can judge a good Thai restaurant by its pad thai, and believe me, I have been to some shockers. I was once served a pad thai at “a restaurant” which appeared to not have been cooked in any pad thai sauce at all, and boy were they lucky I had take-out and was safely in the confines of my apartment before discovering this abomination… needless to say, “that restaurant” is now hideously blacklisted.
In search of good Thai in London (with the boyfriend in tow, who is equally if not more addicted to pad thai than I), we’ve discovered a little gem located on Charlotte Street, London’s mini food haunt in the West End. Siam Central – which I love so dearly but doesn’t even have its own website, making me feel the urge to offer my own web expertise, although my expertise is more like web trainee and they could do much better with a monkey’s uncle… but I digress…
Siam Central not only does good amazing pad thai, it takes your culinary experience one step further with a creative tapas menu, offering healthy steamed dumplings to perfectly flash fried fresh tofu and the ever sumptuous tamarind duck. Designed for sharing, Siam Central dishes are small to mid-sized, but priced very well, so go ahead and indulge your inner glutton by ordering two (or more!) dishes to each person.
Not quite as homely and definitely far more impersonal than Siam Central is Mango Tree, located a stone’s throw from Her Majesty’s pad. The food is tasty (they used to serve an incredible lobster pad thai, which appears to no longer be on the menu), but wow their trump card is the killer cocktail list, so if you’re making a night of it, this is the place to be. Hint of the century: Mango Tree almost always has a special on Toptable, so don’t pay full price!
Update 17-June: Mango Tree does in fact still serve lobster pad thai. I inhaled a whole serve in under 5 minutes last night.
| Good Thai in London | Good Thai in Sydney |
|---|---|
| Siam Central | Sailors Thai |
| Mango Tree | Thai Riffic |
| Busaba | Thai Pothong |
| Thai 33 | Chedi Thai |
