Thai Kitchen 101

It had been a while since my last visit to Thai Kitchen 101, a great Thai restaurant that specialises in north eastern cuisine, and an odd set off events set this encounter into action.

A drunken night at Mandalay Way on the Edgware Road, a small no thrills restaurant that I heartedly recommend you all visit, but make a reservation, it’s small and very popular.

That night we arranged for us ex and those current workers of a company, who I shall not even mention their forbidden name to eat at somewhere else, and Thai Kitchen 101 kept coming up. No idea when that will happen, hopefully when Boat Girl gets back from Central Asia.

Then a few days later I was invited to another ex and current workers do, this one I’d never worked at, but this was the wife’s one. She’s current, but there were many ex. Confused. Well this Thursday I am off to another ex and current workers do in Battersea, Argentine style.

Anyhows apparently the wife wanted to eat at Thai Kitchen 101, so shamelessly and making me the bad guy in this story, said I would only go if we ate at Thai Kitchen 101. It worked though, damn she is devious. Proud I am.

So this Friday night after a few beers in Chiswick, we ended up in drabs at Thai kitchen 101 and its flamboyant pink décor.

To cut a long story short, I ended up ordering for most people, because 1. I’d been to Thailand and 2. I’d eaten at Thai Kitchen 101 before. So basically I ordered what I wanted to eat. Brill.

So some mixed starters were ordered before I got there, and yes the crab cake was still as greasy as last time. Worrying. 

So if memory serves me right I ordered in no particular order a large portion of Tom Kha chicken soup, Som Tum Thai Pu, papaya salad with home made salted crab, Sok Led Ped, duck slices with chillies, lime onion, toasted ground rice, coriander and fresh mint, curried soft shell crab in a mild yellow curry sauce, red chicken curry, chicken Pad King and someone threw in a Pad Thai as well. Plus on other parts of the table there was a duck curry and a grilled sea bass, which our end did not get to try. Oh and La Cubana had fried rice. Well she is Cuban.

I’m still trying to find fault with any of the dishes and I cannot. It was a perfect marriage of tastes, flavours and textures and everything went with each other.

But the laab was awesome and I hadn’t eaten one since my last trip to Lao. So bloody good. The crab was in a lovely thick muddy sauce and was bordering on heaven to eat. The quantity of Som Tum they have is a testament to the variety there is to Thai cuisine that we really know nothing about. But thankfully we have Thai Kitchen 101 to teach us.