Khun Pakin Thai, Hammersmith

You think I'd have learned by now, quite honestly. The rule is, if I enter a Thai restaurant and it's full of Thai people, I do not ask for anything even approaching a 'medium' heat. I like to think I can take quite decently spicy food on a good day, and never shy away from some of the hottest (within reason) dishes in Mexican or Indian food, but the levels of heat applied to even the most entry-level Thai dishes can be astonishing, and humbling.

Of course, it having been so long since I had been exposed to truly authentic Thai spice levels, I had let my guard down. Like the pain of childbirth (so I'm told), the agony of a chilli bomb fades as time goes on, and it had been so long since my last visit to a truly dangerously authentic Thai experience (the Heron in Paddington) that I had somehow convinced myself I handled it pretty well (my friends with me that night will remind me: I did not). Khaosarn (Clapham Junction) I love you, but you have quite sensibly noticed your catchment areas consist largely of people not really accustomed to the full chemical attack of a genuinely Thai-spiced laab, and while the food is easily enjoyable, it all ends up being, well, quite Clapham-friendly.

Not so a Khun Pakin. On ordering the main courses, you are asked where on a scale of 1-5 we would like the spice level set. With serene assuredness, we replied 4. An expression somewhere between surprise and concern flashed across our server's face.

"4 is very hot, I would recommend 2."

Clearly, she was judging us based on the fact we were the only two non-Thai faces in the room and needed to be protected from ourselves. We'd show her.

I and my dining companion exchanged knowing smiles, then turned back to the server, "OK, let's compromise. We'll have the tiny pickled crab salad and raw prawn salad in a 3, and the deep fried pork neck (seriously, how spicy can pork neck be) as a 4.", then with a raised eyebrow and wry grin for extra dramatic effect, "Do you think we could cope with that?".

She paused for a second, presumably weighing up how much energy she could put into persuading two smug idiots not to damage themselves vs just getting on with her evening serving a rammed pub. She chose the latter and trotted off, shaking her head slightly.

First to arrive were mu ping, skewers of grilled pork with lovely highlights of charring from the grill, tender and glistening with a complex sweet glaze. Effortlessly easy to enjoy, and a superb example of their kind, they were nonetheless not quite the rollercoaster of fire and flavour we were bravely preparing ourselves for. We rolled our eyes at each other at the naivety of our waitress. Didn't she know we were seasoned food adventurers, with stomachs of steel? Was this it?

Next the pork neck. First impressions were of a beautifully tender fillet in a crunchy tempura-like batter, sliced atop a colourful salad. The pork itself was faultless, greaselessly fried and boasting perfect textures, but the salad and associated dressing completed the dish, offsetting the grease and crunch with sweetness and what at first seemed like quite a mild heat. At first. The first few mouthfuls were pleasant but unassuming, a bit like a mildly chillified vinaigrette. We were seriously considering getting up and asking if they'd not changed the other for our own good and downgraded the chilli level. Then, within a minute or so, all hell broke loose. The chilli heat built from mild to hot to severe with terrifying speed, and we went from one minute laughing about the patronising server to something similar to that diner scene from Dumb & Dumber.

It was, as we had been told perfectly clearly, way too hot for us. Gasping for beer and tears streaming down or reddened faces, we ploughed on, partly because we could sense a room full of bemused Thai eyes on us but also, despite the pain, it was genuinely brilliant stuff. Tiny pickled crabs were exactly that, crunched whole to release complex seashore flavours involving sea urchin and seaweed, alongside a good hit of earthy brown crab. They were woven into a papaya salad that also hurt to eat, but in a good way.

Raw prawn salad used clearly excellent live (I assume) prawns, with a smooth, solid texture of healthy animal and another colourful and distressingly hot salad. The latter stages of the meal were spent in kind of feverish panic, desperately trying to hide our sweaty, panting faces from the rest of the room, most of whom were knocking back the same stuff as if it was a McDonald's Happy Meal. As a final humiliating act of retribution, we were forced to pay our bill (£27 a head, very decent really) to the same person who'd tried to talk us into downgrading the chilli levels initially. She took a good long look at the broken individuals in front of her and finally asked, with a deadpan expression, "how was your meal?". "You were right, I'm so sorry" was all I could croak in return.

Don't let our stupidity put you off though. If I went back to Khun Pakin (and I very much hope to), I'm going to order everything at spice level 1, which I'm sure would still pack a punch but be less likely to trigger a full cardiac arrest. And it will still be brilliant because this kind of intelligently constructed, imaginatively sourced food (really, where else are you going to get tiny pickled crabs?) is always worth the effort. There's a special whole blue crab salad which you have to order a week in advance which I spotted with some measure of jealousy being delivered to other tables. There's a whole other menu section of soups and curries that we didn't even try. You could have a lot of fun here, working your way through it all.

Just don't do what I did, and please accept the sage advice of your server who is, after all, just making sure your memories of eating at Khun Pakin are of the superb fresh seafood and expertly fried protein, and not gently sobbing as you attempt to douse the inferno in your mouth with yet another cold beer. Consider myself chastened, and duly reminded that when it comes to authentic Thai food, the best places don't hold back, and nor should they.

8/10

River Café, Hammersmith

Some restaurants have regulars. Some restaurants have fans. Some restaurants inspire the kind of loyalty that have customers happily queuing down the street for just the chance to spend money within their hallowed walls.

But surely there's only one joint in London inspires a kind of fervour that's best described as cultish. How do I even begin to write a post about the River Café, probably the closest thing London has to a restaurant sacred cow, whose customers regularly describe the place as "the best restaurant in the world" without fear of being rebuked, and whose staff are so fanatically loyal a stint of 5 or more years is normal in an industry where most people are doing well to last 5 weeks. The merest mention on Twitter I was headed there for dinner prompted a dozen feverish replies whose terrifying subtext - "say something bad, I DARE YOU" - could hardly have been more obvious.

So I approach the following with some tripidation. Let me be clear from the outset (he says changing the locks on his front door and booking a flight to Rio) there was nothing I ate that could be described as disappointing. When you get lovely fresh ingredients, cook them according to years of international top-flight experience and serve them with a smile, well, only a real curmudgeon would feel the need to sit down and pick fault. But if the best Italian food is about cooking great ingredients, simply, surely that rustic approach should be reflected even slightly in the prices? Since when did a meal for two of pasta, grilled fish and dessert cost nearly £300?

Maybe it's just my Hedone Complex flaring up again. I had just heard so many breathless superlatives about the place beforehand that my own experience, when it did arrive, would struggle to match the place I'd invented in my head. I sat there baffled, uncomprehending, despondent. The famous "cevenne onion and pear" tasted like what it was - a boiled onion on a plate, with some pear shaved on top. Scallops were scallops. Chocolate tart was chocolate tart. I was prepared to believe - still am - that I had some part of my brain missing which renders me incapable of distinguishing merely a "very good" ingredient with a "world class" ingredient, but if that's the case, I can't be the only one?

Langoustines at the River Cafe, then. A grand fan of six of the finest Scottish beasties, smoky from the grill, served with a pile of salty agretti (that's saltwort to you and me) and drizzled in (presumably very good) olive oil. They were absolutely perfectly cooked, not too dry or too watery, and each lump of tail meat came away from the shell as a satisfying, bright-white whole. Now there's nothing the River Cafe can do about mother nature, but each animal contained about a teaspoonful of meat, and the plate cost £30.

Asparagus next, and here a more generous portion - eight spears, sat on a pleasant cheese sauce, under grated parmesan. They were nice in the way that asparagus are often quite nice, insofar as they taste of asparagus. If you like asparagus then you'd probably like these. £19.

At some point some artichoke hearts frito arrived, which were very pleasant too. Surface dry as a bone, inside soft and moist. If you like artichoke hearts, then... etc.

OK, so admittedly the pasta courses were more impressive. Crab and chilli spaghetti has a marvellous texture - bouncy and with a good firm bite - and there was lots of crab. Nettle panzotti (sort of folded ravioli) had an equally accomplished touch. Each were lovely, rustic plates of traditional Italian food, technically faultless but still rather... familiar. I mean to say, if you went to a good Italian restaurant you'd expect the pasta to be good, wouldn't you? What you might not expect is for five vegetarian ravioli to be £17...

I'm sorry to keep going on about the numbers. Plenty of you will not mind paying the extra for what many undoubtedly consider the best Italian food in the country, and I honestly wish I felt the same. I am aware we have it easy in London - competition, and the fact that we still have a lot of "selling" to do when persuading British people to eat out, has traditionally kept prices relatively low and forced wily restaurateurs into more inventive ways of making a profit - turning tables in no-reservations places, for example, or using cheaper ingredients in more innovative ways. £30 starters and £60 main courses are something approaching normal in Paris, and even a restaurant where the starters "are around the €140 mark" finds its bookings sheet full.

But this is not a 3* Parisian temple of gastronomy serving lobster and caviar ten ways and with thirty members of staff for each customer. This is a riverside Italian in Hammersmith, serving grilled meats and fish and pasta. And while prices for the first couple of courses were merely uncomfortable, the cost of each one of the secondi at River Cafe could have bought you an entire four-course meal in most other trattoria in the capital. A whole roast pigeon did indeed taste lovely, pink inside and with a great salty, browned skin, wrapped in speck and on top of a slice of bread soaking up the roasting juices. It was, undoubtedly, a very good pigeon dish, the kind of thing you'd happily pay, I don't know, even up to £25 for. This was £37.

Three big, soft scallops, grilled to a perfect browned crust and surrounded by broad beans, chilli and rainbow chard, were also a fantastic eat. And I don't know enough about where to get the best scallops, or what makes a "perfect" broad bean to know exactly how much these raw ingredients cost. All I can tell you is that I know how much a dish of scallops, broad beans and chard cost in most other restaurants I've been to, and that figure has never threatened to approach £36.

The "chocolate nemesis" cake is apparently famous. I tried a bit of it - tasted alright to me but then I'd never normally order chocolate cake in a restaurant. I preferred my lemon tart, with its grilled top and lovely smooth fresh lemon filling. This was a half portion for £4.5, and though maths was never my strongest subject at school a quick calculation estimates the price of that full pie to be about £60.

Oh I do remember one of the cheeses being particularly impressive - a Robiola goat's milk cheese from Piemonte, all pungent and gooey. And the bill lists three scoops of ice cream which I don't remember at all, but that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen.

But maybe I'd better stop there. It is not that the River Café is a bad restaurant - it clearly is not, and the staff should be rightly proud of everything they've achieved over the years (except perhaps Jamie Oliver, but I won't get into that now). But all these achievements in service and sourcing and wine - oh yes, the wine; the lovely Emily O'Hare, who I first met at a charity dinner a year or two ago, presides over a fantastic list and her enthusiasm when talking about it is infectious - is overshadowed by a pricing structure that goes all the way up to the bumper of "we saw you coming" then accelerates past it screeching with laughter and flicking you the Vs into its rear-view mirror. It's a shame, but as I say, this may just be me, as I was in Hedone, blank-faced and uncomprehending as everyone else around enjoyed the time of their lives. Well, good luck to 'em. I'll be in Donna Margherita.

7/10

101 Thai Kitchen, Hammersmith

I had almost given up trying to find decent Thai food in London. In fact, more than that, I had given up. At one time I had a (short) list of potentials that I'd collected from recommendations and review sites and I was quite prepared to travel far and wide in the mindlessly optimistic hope that eventually I would come across something worth paying for. It always seemed so odd that while Indian/Pakistani, Vietnamese, even Malaysian cuisine had at least a couple of restaurants that did them justice, all London had to fly the flag for Thai food was a few branches of Busaba Eathai (tame, but OK), Patara (OK but expensive) and Nahm (hugely expensive and still just OK). Where were the Thai restaurateurs doing for their cuisine what Mien Tay were doing for Vietnamese or Tayyabs for Pakistani? I assumed there must be somewhere out there, but successively more depressing experiences in places like South Norwood (I wasn't exaggerating when I said "far and wide") eventually got the better of me and I stopped trying.


So why, after all that, did I find myself in Hammersmith on a damp Saturday night, risking further disappointment? The main catalyst was a thoroughly dispiriting press trip to a flashy new Thai restaurant/bar in Fitzrovia called ORA, where we nibbled on starters that looked like something Kerry Katona might advertise followed by hardly very exciting mains that (I learned later) would have pushed the price per head to around £50. The owners, judging by the "no expense spared" decor, bespoke cutlery and overblown branded reception area (perfect for being spotted in Heat magazine, I imagine) are probably far more interested in attracting along minor celebs for a photo opportunity than providing a value for money dinner, and although sadly they are hardly unique in holding these priorities, it doesn't make it any less annoying. And it was after I'd slunk away home from ORA, sick from soggy crab cakes and sweet cocktails, that my determination to finally find a Thai restaurant worth the money was reborn. Harnessing the power of Twitter, and the phalanx of supremely well-informed and well-travelled foodies that lurk there, I booked a table at 101 Thai Kitchen.


I know this shouldn't really mean anything, but I couldn't help being pleased to see a number of what looked like Thai families amongst the boisterous crowd inside 101 Thai. In all likelihood there's no reason why Thai diners shouldn't make as poor a choice of restaurant as anyone else, but even so, it served as a Sign. We browsed the large menus helpfully appendixed with a pictorial guide to all the ingredients (some more necessary than others - I'm quite happy to discover what sator is, but I'm already quite familiar with garlic thankyouverymuch) but in the end made most of our choices based, yet again, on tips from the Twitterati. First to arrive were the Isaan sausages, which had a pleasing loose texture and sweet caramelised skin. They were served with some simple Thai greens, and some dry roasted peanuts. Yes, those dry roasted peanuts, like you get in the pub. A bit odd, you might think, but who doesn't like dry roasted peanuts?


Laab is a kind of meat salad, a traditional recipe from Northern Thailand (so I'm told) and very nice it was too. In this case the meat was duck, but also included a healthy smattering of offaly bits which provided texture and some added complexity of flavour. It was surprisingly fiery too, shot through with a healthy handful of red chilli and who knows what other spices.


The star dish overall was this fried sea bass, served whole but helpfully filleted into two gorgeously crispy halves. The flesh of the fish was moist and delicately sweet, with the colourful salad topping consisting of shallots and red chillies and bean sprouts amongst, I'm sure, much else. On the one hand this was a fairly straightforward dish but it is never easy to cook fish this well, as anyone who's ever had a mushy overdone specimen can tell you. The flakes of sea bass fell apart with the gentlest of prods, their crispy coating working addictively in the mouth. Very good indeed.


Along with our food arrived a selection of greens - just plain vegetables, carrots, iceberg lettuce, mint - and a bowl of pork scratchings. No, not some kind of traditional Thai pork, or exotic Asian preparation, these were Mr Porky's. You could either criticise a bowl of Mr Porky's pork scratchings for not been authentically Thai, or just shrug your shoulders and roll with it. We opted for the latter.

I suppose, in the end, much of what makes a good restaurant is very difficult to put your finger on. The food at 101 Thai Kitchen was excellent, of course, but there was something about the honest presentation and bold colours and flavours that I just found irresistible - the character of the place just shone. This was probably helped by the service, our waitress being so friendly and helpful that if she'd presented us with trays of Iceland brownfood and sweet chilli dip we would probably still have enjoyed ourselves. But homely details like the hilarious appearance of pub snacks masquerading as authentic Thai ingredients (no pictures of them in the glossary, I notice) gave the whole experience real charm. I am happy, not to mention relieved, to report that the long search for a good Thai food in London is over, and for only £25 a head with a bottle of wine. Other restaurants in London may have the engraved cutlery, bespoke uniforms and tabloid photo opportunities, but 101 Thai Kitchen has the heart.

8/10