Date Night At Thaikhun -

If you have been following me for a while you will already know just how much I love and rave about Thaikhun. You may have even seen my previous review of when I went with the family for the launch of their new Children’s menu. So I have reviewed how great it is to go as a family, but this time we had the rare opportunity to go there for a date night, just the two of us. This meant I even got to have a cocktail…or two and we could relax, take our time and enjoy stuffing our faces.

For those of you who don’t know, Thaikhun (meaning ‘your’ Thai restaurant) transports you across the world to Khao San Road. The decor is amazing and is bursting at the seams with hand picked bric-a-brac and the food is street food with Thai inspired cocktails. A visit to the restaurant is an experience and the atmosphere is really unique, you really do feel like you are no longer in the UK. It is a very new chain of restaurants as the first one opened in Manchester in 2014 and they already have restaurants in 10 locations up and down the UK. Aberdeen, Bath, Glasgow Silverburn, Guildford, Manchester, Metrocentre (Gateshead), Nottingham, Oxford and Southampton. My nearest restaurant is the Metro Centre which is about 30-40 mins from me. Although it is a little distance we happily travel there and it has become one of our favourite places for food.

When we arrived we were greeted by the General Manager, Mike. He is very welcoming and he got us sat straight down at our table. We went for food at 6pm on a Saturday which was a nice time to go for food as it wasn’t really busy. All the staff were smiley and welcoming (they always are when we go in there) and I was so happy to be back. I didn’t even hesitate to order a cocktail and I knew exactly what I was going to have from the moment I got there. A ‘good time girl’ which is, to put it simply, heaven in a glass. It is made up of Vanilla Vodka, Butterscotch Schnapps, pineapple juice and passion fruit liqueur. I would like to say I tried some of the other cocktails but I just love this one so much that I actually went for round two and ordered it again. Sie isn’t so much of a cocktail guy so he went for a Singha which is a Thai Beer. So we were definitely starting our date night the right way!

One thing I notice when going for food at Thaikhun is that they regularly change the menu, so it never gets boring. They keep a lot of the popular things on there but add lots of exciting new things. I remember last time I ordered chicken spring rolls for a starter and I remember them being amazing. I saw they still had spring rolls on there and was going to order them until I spotted the Tod Man Khao Pd (sweetcorn cakes) which sounded amazing! They are flavored with red curry paste and aromatic kaffir lime leaves, served with sweet chilli dip. They were so tasty and although had a bit of a kick they were far from being really spicy which was good as I am not the best with super spicy food. They had so much flavour in each little cake and I loved the bowl they came in. Sie was equally impressed with his starter which was the Tod Man Pla (Thai fishcakes). They were also flavoured with red curry paste and also fine beans, served with cucumber relish and sweet chilli sauce topped with peanuts. A lot had gone in to those little cakes and although I didn’t taste them, Sie can certainly vouch for them being awesome.

For our mains I did actually go for something I’d had before, but it just goes to show how good the food is. Although you want to try all the new stuff you enjoy your food so much that you want to eat it again! I went for the Khao Mun Gai Thod which is Crispy chicken with either a coconut or ginger rice. I went with coconut which goes so well with the crispy chicken. I remembered when I ordered it the first time and I saw it, although it was beautifully presented I was confused why there wasn’t some kind of sauce on it. I was thinking, surely just crispy chicken with rice will be a bit plain. How wrong I was! The secret is in the coconut rice, it is really sticky soft rice and the coconutty taste is the flavour for the dish. There is a little pot with a sweet chilli sauce and when you dip your chicken in and combine it with the sticky coconut rice the flavours really come together. It is far from plain that is for sure! I know I need to try other things on the menu but I do really enjoy this dish and it is so far my favourite. It is also great for people like me who are just not that great with spice. It is a nice mild dish that even children could enjoy, although they do have an awesome kids menu!

Sie ordered the Moo Prik King which is Pork belly red curry and he chose jasmine rice to go with it. The dish is steamed and roasted pork belly, wok-fried with green beans and red curry sauce. He said it had quite a kick to it but that the spice was just right. Everything was cooked to perfection and the portion sizes were more than enough. This dish looked really nice and colourful and when I asked Sie what he thought of it his response was ‘delicious with a bit of a kick’. He would definitely recommend it to anyone so that’s a big thumbs up from him. Although he did say if you don’t like spicy food then it may not be for you and something milder may be more suited. Good job he loves spice and lots of it!

We didn’t think we could fit in dessert but after Mike (the GM) started telling us about some of the beautiful desserts we decided to try and find the room! He recommended the Thai Bounty which is a chocolate fondant with coconut ice cream. With me being a big chocolate and coconut fan (I love bounty bars) this sounded right up my street. Sie decided to go for the Thai Waffle which came with Green Tea ice cream, which seemed perfect for him since he loves waffles and never stops drinking tea! My dessert was just heaven and the fondant was all gooey and oozed chocolate from the middle. Just talking about it makes me want to eat it all over again. The ice cream was really nice too and went really well with the chocolate fondant and it really did remind me of a bounty..but even more tasty! Sie said his waffle was absolutely amazing and the ice cream was peculiar but in a really good way. He said its really nice and different which he loved. He certainly didn’t have trouble fitting it in despite being full and its rather generous size teamed with the copious amount of chocolate sauce all over the top. I could definitely go for just dessert and cocktails one time which would be amazing if I didn’t want a big meal.

Again I was not disappointed when visiting Thaikhun and the staff in the Metrocentre really do always make it a very pleasant and enjoyable experience. I would actually go as far as to say this time around was my favourite which is amazing as I have always had the best time when visiting there. I would definitely say that the staff and the general manager made it an extra great visit this time. I didn’t even have an empty drink for 2 seconds before being asked if I would like another one. The food came out so quickly and was cooked to perfection and the service was just generally great.

Thaikhun is a great environment for a chilled out date night and also as a fun place to take the kids in the day time. I also love going in for just a few cocktails with the girls after a bit of shopping so it really is for everyone. I love that the staff will chat to you and it’s not like being served by robots. The decor is fantastic and I always spot things in there that I didn’t notice the last time as there is so much to look at. It is also great for photo ops and selfies with the bric-a-brac dotted around and their Tuk Tuk outside! After our most recent visit Thaikhun is still firmly up there as one of our favourites, so if you have one near you, go check it out!