Restaurant Review: Thai Orchid

The boyfriend and I have decided to embark on a nostalgia tour of the restaurants we ate in when we first started eating out, in that stage just after graduation and getting your first job, when you realise you finally have this thing called "disposable income" that everyone else has been talking about. As tastes expand along with wallets, these restaurants seem to slip off the list of places you visit regularly, so we wanted to go back and see if they're as good as we remembered.

First on the list was Thai Orchid, a favourite of my boyfriend's about ten years ago, but not visited since. And the first thing that struck me was that it looked like we'd actually gone back in time those ten years. There is an almost Baroque fear of the white wall, the empty space: ornate dark wood carvings are everywhere. Stylish topless mermaids swim in a "tank" by the door, and small elephants gallop across our table. The waitresses are all attired in an interpretation of traditional Thai costume, columns of vibrant colours and gold thread drifting around the space.

We tried to order a mixture both of more widely recognised dishes, together with some from the specials menu. Our starter of pork ribs fell into the first group, but they still managed to disappoint. The meat was actually overcooked, something I hadn't previously realised was possible in a spare rib, so was exceptionally dry. It was dressed with a meagre amount of incredibly sweet sauce, which had begun to congeal where it had been sitting under the lights on the pass. Our other starter, a chicken satay, was fine, but unexceptional. 

We were a bit more adventurous with our choices of mains, and when the Seafood Phad Phed arrived, we thought this strategy had paid off. This was a generous mix of prawns, squid, mussels, and battered white fish goujons in a hot, sour and herby sauce, including plenty of Thai basil. Overall, the dish was warmingly spiced, but it also contained some very spicy chillis. They were too much for me, but my partner loved them. On the side we had a dish of Phak Phad Prig, stir-fried mixed veg, which were freshly cooked, still crunchy, and came in a pleasant light garlic sauce.

The rice, however, was the highlight of the meal. We'd ordered the Khao ob Gati, jasmine rice cooked in coconut milk with pandan leaves. It was heavily aromatic, sticky, and rich, in a nourishing, comforting way, like eating rice pudding as a child. We could have eaten bowls of the stuff on its own, and left happy. Unfortunately, we didn't.

The Northern Thai Steak appeared on the specials menu, so we expected it to be something unusual. The menu description promised garlic and sesame, but what arrived at the table was a sweet and sour sauce straight out of your local cheap Chinese takeaway. We were so appalled that we actually had to check with the waitress that we'd had the right dish delivered; she assured us twice that, yes, this was the fillet steak with garlic and sesame. It was fillet steak only in the strictest definition of that phrase, i.e., it didn't have a bone in it, but the meat was extremely tough and sinewey, nothing like the soft slices we'd expected.

Sitting next to us all evening had been a dessert trolley straight out of the 1970s, the highlight of which appeared to be a Angel Delight topped with crushed-up Crunchie bars. We felt it was safest avoided. Nostalgia, we've found, can sometimes be pushed too far.