Sawadee

Ever since I was a kid lists have held fascination for me. Top 20 Footballers’ Series Cigarette Cards; Top 6 Girls in My Class I Hate; Top 10 Railway Locomotives I Want to See Before I Die (aged 10!), I compiled lists endlessly, sharing them with my closest friends. As a grown up I became a massive fan of the radio programme ‘Desert Island Discs’ wherein a celeb or Otherwise Interesting Person was metaphorically marooned and allowed to take six favourite records to keep the spirits up while waiting for rescue. Among the Top 10 T-offs of My Life, that I never became an OIP and got invited on the programme sits securely at Number 4.

From time to time I play a variant which I call ‘Desert Island Cookbooks’. Here I cheat a bit; I mean, what bloody use would Elizabeth David’s ‘French Provincial Cooking’ be on a tropic isle? But on the list it goes, at Number 3 or 4, vying with Jane Grigson’s Charcuterie and Pork Cookery. At Number 2 sits Alastair Little’s ‘Keep it Simple’, a book I’d commend to every home cook and more than a few restaurateurs. Perennial Numero Uno is ‘Thai Food’ by the Australian chef David Thompson.

That this book was written at all is a minor miracle. David arrived in Thailand by accident, when a travel firm cocked up his holidays plans and offered Bangkok as The Only Possible Last Minute Destination – not even a top 5! There he ‘quickly became seduced by the people, their culture and cuisine’. He must have, he stayed three years before returning to Sydney to found Darley Street Cafe in the insalubrious suburb of King’s Cross. Later, his Sailors Thai restaurant became a diners’ icon. In July 2001 David opened Nahm in London’s Halkin Hotel and a mere seven months later it became the first Thai to get a Michelin Star.

‘Thai Food’ opens with a history of Thailand, its culture and cuisine, before moving on to ingredients, which occupy no less than 45 pages. Recipes follow. After perusal you come to glimpse that maybe Thai cooking involves more than chucking chillies into a bowl of broth. Enlightenment finally dawns when you realise not only that Thai food at its best is a complex interplay of taste, texture and seasoning, absolutely sublime. At its worst, as tasted in European restaurants offering food more sham than Siam, it can be dreadful. Dumbing down is a common crime but a minor one compared to the wilful disregard for appropriate ingredients.

When I go in search of Thai food in Ireland I never hold out much hope of a Wow Factor. Certainly not on a wet Thursday in Terenure. But one thing you can be sure of in a Thai restaurant is the welcome. Not for nothing is Thailand called ‘The Land of Smiles’ and, at the Sawadee, the staff couldn’t have been nicer as we dripped rain over their carpet. Our soaking coats were taken and we were shown to a table for two where Sibella persuaded the waiter to light the candle, despite his mild protestations that it wasn’t yet dark. Romantic or wha’?

I ordered – and here I’ll lapse into phonetics as my Thai is, frankly, shit – ‘tom yam goong’. A spicy, slightly sour soup with juicy prawns lurking at the bottom, which I always save till last. Made right, I love it. This one was okay but nothing special; it didn’t have that jazzy vibrato that a really good tom yam goong exudes – like fireworks spasmodically lighting up a dark night. Sibella went for prawns too – spicy, filo-wrapped and really tasty.

Her green curry of fish was superb. Succulent flaky cod, cooked just enough, leaving the sea-sheen intact. I hovered over the red beef curry and the duck breast dish before landing on the mussaman curry of lamb, a dish I cook at home using a simplified version of David Thompson’s recipe. ‘Mussaman’ means ‘Muslim’, a style of curry said to have arrived in Siam with the first Persian envoy to the royal court, hence the name. It tends to be slightly viscous in texture and highly seasoned with tamarind and palm sugar. The Sawadee version was not just highly seasoned – it was overloaded with palm sugar and the lamb was stringy and flavourless. I wouldn’t mind betting that it had only recently been introduced to the sauce. We shared boiled and fried rice, both good but the plain boiled better complemented the food.

The wine list was brief, commonplace and sourced from one supplier but it did contain a gem. Thai food is notoriously hard to match to wine. Riesling and Gewurztraminer have their adherents but, for me, nothing beats Pinot Blanc and the Hugel ‘Cuvee des Amours’ 2005 proved the perfect foil. About coffee,
what is there to say after last week’s rant, except the espresso was not nice. Although the Thai guy in charge of the machine made fluffy cappuccini with real brio, Sibella wasn’t tempted.

So there it is. One stand-out dish, one very good, one okay and one a no-no. Rather better than average for a Dublin Thai and well worth another visit.

Sawadee, 94 Terenure Road East, Terenure. Tel: 492 5035

The Damage: €90, 2 starters, 2 mains, 2 rice, bottle of wine, coffee

Ambience: ***1/2

Service: *****

Quality: ***1/2

Value for Money: ***1/2

Overall: ***1/2