Tom travels to an atmospheric new venture that brings the authentic taste of to
The smoky nam chub ‘growls with gapi and roasted chillies’
There’s a small curry shop, in the southern Thai city of Nakhon Si Thammarat, called Raan Kao Geng.Like a thousand other similar establishments, it opens on to the street, with a few plastic tables and chairs, the ubiquitous television blaring in the corner. At one side are a dozen metal trays, filled with curries and stir-fries of every heat and hue. Along with a huge cooker filled with rice.
You choose, eat, sweat furiously (this being the south, chilli levels move from incendiary to downright insane), pay and leave. Everything is cheap, freshly made, and, without exception, thrillingly, breathtakingly good.
Plaza Khao Gaeng is another southern-style curry shop.But rather than being situated in some sultry Thai backstreet, it’s actually bang smack in the middle of London’s West End, at Arcade Food Hall Centre Point. With a British chef at the helm, Luke Farrell, who grows all his own herbs and spices in a tropical Dorset greenhouse.
Hmm. Still, this is the newest opening from JKS, the folk behind the likes of Gymkhana, Bao and Sabor. And they’re a class act. The restaurant sits above a vast hall that already simmers and seethes with punters, selling everything from Indonesian and Nepali street food to Nashville hot chicken.
But from the very first bite – fresh tiger prawns with bitter sator beans – we realise there are no concessions here to timid Western palates.The rough, pungent edges are left very much intact. A fierce, floral and fragrant pork klua kling is Thai 101 level, and ซื้อบ้าน both dishes are made with complex, fresh-pounded pastes of brow-beading intensity.
A smoky nam chub (or relish) growls with gapi (shrimp paste) and roasted chillies, with cool slices of cucumber and cabbage providing much needed relief.
But it’s not all about the heat.Braised pork belly is spoon-soft, luscious and joyously rich, while a miang Phuket, wrapped in fresh betel leaf, is all about the gentle chew of coconut, cashew and palm sugar.
Farrell sure knows his stuff. I’d go as far as to say when it comes to Thai food cooked by non-Thai chefs, this is getting up towards David Thompson level.With buckets of icy cold Singha beer, and the most gleefully heady of atmospheres, you could almost be back in Thailand. All that’s missing is the torrid heat, ever-present pong of fag smoke and diesel fumes. And the tuk-tuk’s incessant beep.
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p class=”mol-para-with-font”>About £25 per head.Plaza Khao Gaeng, 103-105 New Oxford St, London WC1,