Entertainment | Restaurant Reviews | Totally Thai
Totally Thai, Market Place, Warwick
Totally Thai was certainly something totally different for both myself and my wife.
I like a good curry with the best of them, but nothing quite prepared me for what was in store.
Convinced all things Thai were green and made with coconut milk, I let my guard down and foolishly decided I was brave enough to experiment a little.
I immediately dispensed with any thoughts of ordering wine on this occasion - always a bad idea when eating something spicy. You may as well be throwing battery acid down your throat for all the flavours you will be able to taste beyond curry powder and chillies.
Instead, I was an adopted Thai for the night, so only Bangkok beer would do.
Starters were deceptively tame (on the mouth burning scale).
My Kanom Jeep - steamed pork dumplings with garlic and water chestnut, not a hunk of metal on wheels as it sounds - was both succulent and tasty, while the Thod Mon Pla (spicy fishcakes with cucumber and peanut dip) ordered by my wife showed little resistance in the face of her wild fork stabbings.
A couple more Bangkok beers later and I was a self-proclaimed native. But my newly discovered ‘expertise’ in the field of Thai food was about to leave me high and very dry - in the mouth department at least.
The sexy lady across the table (ah, the beers are working) plumped for the Thai equivalent of sweet and sour chicken, Kai Pad Prik Pow - by the look on her face, the final product was a disappointment considering the somewhat dubious-sounding, though exotic name.
I ordered Kseng Phet Ped Jang - roast duck in red curry paste with vegetables, coconut milk, tomatoes and pineapple. Sounded pretty innocuous to me, but how wrong I was as my face began to bead with sweat.
Hot - this would be banned in hell! While my wife delighted in my spicy suffering, I was rapidly unbuttoning everything that still left me half decent. The only problem was, it was so tasty that being the dense bloke I am, I continued to shovel forkfuls of this explosive substance down my throat.
We would have had coffee after my wife successfully detonated her chocolate mint bombe, but the cool air outside was my only saviour. It was a great meal, however.
If only the service had been a little sharper, the decor a little less takeaway-land and my pants made of sterner stuff, Totally Thai would have received top marks.
Rating: 4/5 (Reviewed September 2001)
