Suda - Covent Garden

Deciding against booking a table during our last regular meet up, NS and I found ourselves wondering around Covent Garden. Heading towards the direction of Soho but not quite there yet when we stumbled upon Suda. Beckoned by the large open front windows and the possibility of refreshing cocktails, we were sold.

Perched on a high table at the front of the house, we ordered cocktails and a plate or two (or 5 in this specific case) just to get us going before we moved on to dinner. About 15 minutes in, our drinks hadn't arrived but the first of our food had started trickling over from the kitchen. And there kick starts my impatience ... I hate it when my food arrives before my beverage. It goes against my acknowledged order of events when it comes to restaurant dining. I know the bar wasn't mad rush busy, I have a great view of it - perched high as I am right in front of it. The drinks do finally arrive (with nary an apology from the waitress for its late arrival!) and well, well ... what else could get me simmering a little more? The Thai Pimm's, so penned as "traditional Pimm’s with a Thai twist! Pimm’s with fresh Thai ginger, mint, holy basil with sliced orange, cucumber, topped with lemonade" (£6.50) on the menu was warm, flat and decidedly lacking that Thai twist. An utter waste of time!

The Pla Meuk Tod Prig Klue - Thai style calamari with sweet chilli dipping sauce (£4.95) was the first to arrive and looked decent enough. I liked the look of thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves encased within the batter but too bad the crispy batter hid a shameful secret underneath - rubbery squid.

The Satay Gai - chicken satay sticks with peanut sauce (£4.95) was fine but I've had better. However, point be made that this is coming from a girl from Malaysia. It would be a sorry state of affairs if I claimed the best satay I had was this dish. It was fine. No more.

I was particularly looking forward to the Gae Yang Som Tum - Grilled lamb chop with lemongrass and chilli dressing, served with Som tum salad and sticky rice (£8.50), since Suda boasts of a som tum bar. This is another dish I can only best describe as "fine". Despite the meat looking rather limp (thanks to a good bashing with a mallet?), it was pretty tasty (down to a good amount of time spent in the marinade?). The som tum was .... forgetable. I really do not recall how it tasted so I can only deduct it wasn't bad enough for me to remember or that good either.

The grilled prawns in the Yum Som-o Goong Yang - Pomelo salad with kaffir lime juice and grilled prawn (£5.50) were actually rather nice. Nice fresh crunchy prawns were unfortunately let down let down by the star of the dish - the pomelo salad. There were pieces of fruit in that salad that were out of the freezer frozen. It thawed in my mouth, adding an interesting crunch along with the peanuts.

By now NS and I didn't know if we should laugh or cry or outright refuse to pay. The food was going from bad to worse and to say that the service was bad would be unfair. It was just that the staff tried so hard and in doing so, didn't actually give very good service. For example, after we ordered I asked if I could keep a copy of the menu with me. Sure, no problem. But every time I put the menu down, one of the staff would try to grab it off the table. I went through the my explanation of wanting to keep a copy with me to 3 people before I gave up. At this point I was very to move on but NS relented into giving them another chance by ordering another drink (a much faster turnaround time for this drink - things were picking up), when much to our surprise another dish arrived - chicken wings with herbs (also known as pandan chicken). We had forgotten all about it and till this day, the taste shall also remain forgettable.

Shall I be returning? Oh no, I shall not!

Suda
23 Slingsby Place, St Martin’s Courtyard, London WC2E 9AB

Rosa's - Soho, London

The first time I went to Rosa's I left my camera charging at home and couldn't stop kicking myself for being such an idiot. So I promised myself I would return - not just to take photos, mind ... but also because the food was rather tasty and deserved another visit. Persistently on Timeout's list of Top 10 Cheap Eats in east London (mind you this was in the day before the branch in Soho opened) and I've been wanting to try it out but was way to lazy to head all that way east. So all the better for me when they opened up in central London. I know there's been quite a bit of criticism about how the quality had dropped dramatically over the last few years but hey, I'm none the wiser. On this visit it also tickled me to drag my friend Rosa along (childish, I know!).

Perusing the menu, I realised I had forgotten that Rosa doesn’t take too well to anything spicy and is no fan of coconuts either. The 2 things so entrenched in Thai cuisine. No worries, there had to be something that she could have – sticky rice – safe and definitely had no spice and no coconut. Interestingly it was not until recently that I realised quite a few people don’t like coconut milk/cream. I guess growing up in Malaysia I just took it for granted that people just ate it – nothing to dislike. Ooo … I do remember thinking it was the oddest thing when I found out an old boss of mine not liking bean sprouts! She would laboriously pick out every bit from her plate before she started eating. Imagine! And she lived in Malaysia too where nearly every noodle dish comes with a handful of bean sprouts. Anyway, I diverge from Rosa’s meal. For her main she chose Gai Pad Cashew Nuts (£8.25) – innocently described as stir-fried chicken and cashew nuts with mixed peppers in oyster sauce. So Rosa digs in – first bite “emm … nice”, second bite, third bite …. Then she starts sniffing. A little at first and then a bit more.

“Are you OK, Rosa?”

“Noooo … this is spicy!!!!”

So I peer at the dish. It still looks incredibly innocent. I shove my fork in and taste a bit.

“Don’t be silly, Rosa. It’s fine.”

I shove my fork into the dish again (I’m notoriously greedy and would never say no to an extra titbit). Then it hit me. Uh ohh … there’s some heat coming through. Peering at the dish again I realise that the little dark specks throughout the dish were not innocent bits of blackened veg but bits of lethal dried chilli. Poor Rosa! I dare say she was not a happy bunny (no worries, we went for cake after, which cheered her up immensely).

I would say this to Rosa’s though …. If you’re going to add chilli to a dish, just say it on the menu! Put a little chilli sign next to the dish. You do for all your other spicy dishes.

I went down the boring route and ordered what my dining companion had on my first visit a few months previously - Gaeh Yang Char (£10.50) - grilled rack of lamb served with spicy dry chilli sauce and cooled steamed vegetables. I really enjoyed this dish on my previous visit and then it hit me … I probably only enjoyed it so much because I only had a few bites. Faced with a whole dish – 3 large pieces of grilled lamb covered in creamy coconut gravy – I realised what a wimp I had become. Oh I finished it alright … along with the steamed veg sitting at the bottom of the meaty heap – steamed cauliflower and carrots (I’m still not sure what they mean by “cooled steamed vegetables” – cool against the spice of the gravy or the veg was hot once upon a time when it came out of the steamer and now it isn’t?). But I was almost whimpering by the time I swallowed my last bite. It was a mountain of food and this wasn’t even counting the steamed rice I had ordered on the side. I offered to share my meat with Rosa – she likes lamb, she told me so – but my offer was kindly declined.

“It’s covered in coconut sauce, Justine.”

Ah, yes. I had almost forgotten. She did accept a piece – a conciliatory gesture. She did point out it wasn’t cooked through. Yeah, I know …. It was an extremely bright shade of uncooked red in the middle.

“I think the English like to eat their lamb a bit rarer than you or I, Rosa”.

She simply nods. From one foreigner to another.

Rosa’s Soho
48 Dean Street, London W1D 5BF

The Great Thai Cafe - Fitzrovia, London

SM and I stumbled upon this great little Thai cafe in Fitzrovia (which according to Wikipedia is the area situated between Marylebone and Bloomsbury and north of Soho) about a week back and I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I've loved it so much that I've been back twice since. On my 2nd visit I actually planned a meeting I had in the area to finish at lunchtime so I could grab something from my new favourite Thai cafe. It's nothing fancy. If you blink you might even miss it. But the prices are reasonable, service very efficient and the food is pretty darn good. My knowledge of Thai food isn't excellent - my one and only visit to Thailand was when I was about 12 to the painfully touristy Phuket but I do know what I like and I liked the food at The Great Thai Cafe.

SM went down the usual route and got a chicken Thai green curry (less spicy, please) (£4.95) and garlic fried rice (£2.50). The chef definitely did her (yup, she emerged from the kitchen downstairs halfway through our meal to greet a regular customer) best to tone done the spice level as requested but all the flavours were there - slight tingle of heat, fragrance of the lemongrass, lime leaves, coriander, fish sauce and creamy from the coconut milk.

I went with the Thai boat noodle soup with sliced pork and pork balls (£6.50). Beef is probably a lot more traditional but I never say no to my favourite pork balls. The soup was heartwarming with the flavours of star anise, cinnamon, soy and fish sauces really coming through. To top it all off a teaspoonful of crispy minced garlic. Happiness in a bowl.

To ensure that I got my 5 a day (or rather out of curiosity) I also ordered a portion of som tam (Thai papaya salad) (£5.50). I must have had this dish a few times over the years but it has never clocked in my brain. So I will consider this my first experience with this dish. Any good? It was bloody hot! My tongue was on fire (I forgot to ask for it to be made with less chili - those damn bird's eyes kept staring right at me!). Yes, despite the tongue numbing heat (I've become more of a chili wuss the longer I stay away from Malaysia) the other flavours were there - sweet, sour, salty. I noticed that the green papaya was bulked up with cabbage but hell, I'm not so much of a purist to mind.

The bill came up to just over £20 with 2 drinks. Pretty good I thought. And the food appeared bubbling hot and delicious about 10 minutes after ordering.

The 2nd visit was for a lunch takeaway (sorry no pics) was from their Express Lunch menu (all main dishes for £5.95 served with steamed rice). I could have ordered from the menu but I stuck with the chicken Thai red curry mainly because ready and warming in a bain marie by the counter. It was so yum ... I definitely had more than one envious colleague that day.

The third time was for dinner with SM again last night. I was feeling low and down after a disastrous yoga session and needed some comfort Asian food. And lo and behold, where was The Great Thai Cafe? One street down. Yay! We shared a portion of special fried rice with pork, beef massman curry and minced pork omelette. No photos I'm afraid. Just a few well fed, satisfied oinkers.

The Great Thai Cafe
57 Great Portland Street, W1W 7LH London