THAI EDGE
VerdictF 6/10 (Far too much sugar in food. Elegant décor, though)
One weekday lunch time in June 2008, some friends and I went to Thai Edge for lunch.
It is a pretty expensive restaurant, but for weekday lunch time, they offer two-course set lunch for £7.95. As I have heard good things about it from a few friends, I decided to try the lunch deal first to see if it is worth going for the dinner.
The décor is simple, modern, and elegant. There are some Thai statues here and there, but not in an ostentatious way as in Kinnaree.
These are complimentary prawn crackers. Different from the usual ones we see in Chinese restaurants, they are nicely spicy and we liked them. They were served with sweet chili sauce, which also is spicy but very sweet and sugary as well.
The lunch menu consists in choices of 6 starters and 8 main dishes. Main dishes are served with rice, if you don't order fried rice or noodles.
This is tom yam soup I had for starter. This one contains prawns, but can be made with either chicken or vegetable.
There were 4 or 5 large-ish plump prawns and in good quantity. It was hot and sour as tom yam soup should be, but it was also a touch too sweet. Thais , as Chinese and Japanese, do put sugar in their savoury dishes, but here the taste of sugar was too eminent. I won't say it was disgusting, but the excessive use of sugar disturbed my tongue.
As alternatives for starter, there are coconuty tom kha soup, glass noodle soup, Thai spring rolls, spare ribs and satay. One of us ordered spring rolls that consisted in two small spring rolls with some toke salad on a small plate, and it looked rather poor in quantity.
The main arrived when we finished about a half of the starter. They did provide us with a plate-warmer, but it was far too early. We were four people and the table got over-crowded with all the four starters and four mains at the same time.
This is the green curry with pork that I ordered after having asked the waiter which was the hottest main dish. If you don't like pork, you can choose either chicken, beef or veggie only. I am not sure if this photo does justice, but the portion is pretty generous.
The curry was in fact hot, but, at the same time, again very sweet. It wasn't the natural sweetness of coconut milk, but it was sugar. It is extremely unfortunate, as if they had not overdone the sugar, it should have been more than acceptable.
In the curry, besides pork and aubergine promised in the menu, I found also pea aubergines and round pale-green vegetable tasting like firm courgette or small tinda (I found these in the market, and they were labeled 'young aubergine'). I absolutely love exotic vegetables, and these were satisfactory for me.
The rice was served in a large bowl, meant to share between four of us. Can you imagine how heavy it was? No? I tell you, it was heavy and it was difficult to serve. Not good enough for a restaurant of this class. However, this fragrant Thai rice was well cooked.
This is another of main dishes: stir-fried beef and veggie. This was suffering from excessive amount of sugar, and althogh the ingredients were fine, difficult to eat for me.
If you don't order drink (they provided us with tap water without any fuss), after the addition of automatic 10% service charge, you pay £ 9 for two course. Considering I pay as much for two-course in Chinese cafes in Chinatown, in value wise, it was pretty good.
Evidently the British people do like their Thai and Chinese food pretty sugary, so if you are British, the chance is that you like the food here. But for Japanese like us, that degree of sugariness is almost unbearable. Personally I will not go back to try their a la carte menu, if anyone tells me that the a la carte cooking is totally different. Shame.
