Plonk yourself down at the new Plaza Khao Gaeng site at Borough Yards in south London and, as shiny laminated menus are pushed into your hands, you’ll be told: ‘Just to let you know, this is a very spicy restaurant.’
They’re not lying. My wife went fully nonverbal for a good 45 minutes while tucking into red curry prawns, while I had an out-of-body experience via a whole deep-fried seabass covered in fresh green peppercorns.
What they fail to warn you is that once you start eating, you won’t be able to stop. The food is at once dangerously spicy and hazardously moreish. It’s alive, vibrant and so packed full of flavour. Despite the sweat gathering on your forehead, you just can’t stop eating.
The Miang Pla, a sausage of fish, pork and peanut wrapped in a betel leaf with a little pinch of galangal (an aromatic root used in lots of Thai cooking) ticks every single box on the chart of food-I-want-to-eat-all-the-time. It’s salty, sour, spicy and packed full of savoury funk.
It’s a DIY dish: you can control the ratio of green chilli to galangal, coconut salad to sausage. Just scoop up a piece of the meat and make yourself a little betel leaf roll-up. A perfectly balanced, complex, tongue-numbing plate of food.
Dinner at Plaza Khao Gaeng is a carnival of spice, not for the faint-hearted and completely, utterly delicious. But be warned: once you try it, there’s no going back.
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