Review: Plaza Khao Gaeng, Soho

Plaza Khao Gaeng hit the spot in so many ways.

They’ve gone all-out to echo the street food markets of Bangkok, with tables wrapped in brightly coloured plastic tablecloths, little metal boxes with your eating implements in and stacks of bowls and plates in pale blue or pale pink. This would all have been so much pastiche if the food itself hadn’t done an even better job of conjuring the bright, fiery, sour-sweet flavours of Thai street food.

We kicked off with the only “starter”. Miang Phuket is just a little pile of sticky sweet, fragrant, nutty, fiery, tangy gubbins that you wrap in a fragrant leaf and then scoff, like a tiny herbal fire taco. Luckily they do some classically refreshing cold drinks to go with; a snake fruit soda is bright pink and eerily flavoured if you’re not familiar with snake fruit. My iced coffee is sweetened with condensed milk, which always makes everything better.

The rest of the dishes come out in a fluffy. There’s slow-braised pork belly in a broth of the most amazingly warm and earthy spices, a gooey piece of meat absolutely permeated with flavour. The beef massaman is an equally yielding bit of shoulder cooked in another heart-warming gravy with only a hint of fire. It’s the sea bream that brings the heat. Two beautiful pieces cooked in a fragrant oil packed with chillies, garlic, kaffir lime, holy basil and who knows what other spices. It’s fierce but incredibly satisfying and I can taste it hours later. Finally, a dish of morning glory stir-fried with chillies in a sauce of fermented soy beans. The smoky-umami flavour of this humble vegetable side added a whole extra dimension to the meal.

You’ll pay less than £25 each for lunch, and you’ll instantly mark it as a place to come back to whenever you want some proper Thai food. Or you’ll drain five cups of tap water and stagger out sweating and realise you never want proper Thai food. Up to you!