Addie's Thai

Addie’s Thai has offers Bangkok street food in a two level setting: the basement has a lounge bar and tables, and there is a further dining room on the ground floor. It is a sister to the Churchill Thai Kitchen in Kensington, and has been operating since 1987. The owner, Mr Addie, had cooked previously as head chef at a luxury hotel (The Imperial) in Thailand. The premises have an unassuming entrance (shared with a dentist) in a parade of shops near Earls Court tube. Inside there is a lounge bar downstairs and a long, narrow dining room on the ground floor. This has quite tightly packed tables with a low ceiling, wooden floor and no tablecloths. There were a lot of Thai diners amongst the clientele on the evening of our visit.

The menu is lengthy, with for example ten different options for the classic spicy salad som tam. The more modest two page wine list started at £14.95 and did not bother with pesky details like vintages. It featured wines such as Anakena Sauvignon Blanc from Chile at £14.95 for a wine that costs around £6 retail, Waterstone Bridge Reserve Chardonnay at £16.95 for a wine you can buy for £7, and Bodega Lurton Malbec at £17.95 for a wine that costs around £8. We drank Singha beer at £3.50 a bottle.

Steamed pork and prawn dumplings (kha nom jeep) with sweet soya sauce (£4.75) was enjoyable, the dumplings having soft and supple texture, when so often they can be hard and dried out, the filling reasonable (13/20).  Tom yum goong soup (£4.75) was a good rendition of this famous dish, with prawns and mushrooms that were not overcooked and a rich blend of spices, the lemongrass flavour coming through well, the kaffir lime leaves and additional lemon adding acidity, and enough chilli to lift the dish without numbing the palate (13/20).  Som tam (£6.95) had raw green papaya and the usual hot sauce of chilli, lime juice, garlic and fish sauce, the acidity balanced by a little palm sugar and cherry tomatoes; this version was served with good fried soft shell crab (13/20).

Deep fried whole sea bass (£13.95) was rather less interesting, the batter rather pale and not crisp enough, though the fish was cooked fine (12/20). I preferred salt and pepper crab (£9.95), fried with red and green bell peppers, garlic, shredded carrots and a little chilli, all the elements cooked well (13/20). Panang curry (kaeng Panang at £6.50) had a decent coconut milk-based curry sauce with lime leaves, but suffered from seriously over-cooked chicken pieces (11/20). Fried tamarind prawn (£9.95) was rather better, the prawns cooked properly but not of very high quality, served with a sauce flavoured with garlic, red chilli and coriander, the tamarind lending a sweetness to the dish (12/20).  Pad Thai (£6.95) was well made, the texture of the noodles good, cooked with egg, prawns, spring onions and beansprouts (13/20).

The bill came to £34 a head, including service (which was perfectly pleasant and efficient) and drinks, for more food than we could finish. I very much enjoyed Addie’s Thai, the cooking overall between 12/20 and 13/20. This is not somewhere for a leisurely evening, but the food was generally of a good standard, and the price very fair. In a city full of mediocre Thai restaurants this certainly stood out from the crowd.