Grabthai in City of London, Westminster

Had an underwhelming experience at Patara Soho. Started and mains were tasty, albeit a bit more expensive that most Thai restaurants, until we got to dessert. We got the orange chocolate tart, and it was like they just poured ready-made chocolate sauce into a ready-made tart case. Service was also so-so (we were downstairs). They didn’t leave tap water on the table, and it was hard to get the waiter’s attention to get more ware

Ok, I loved Jane Tira--I mean, loved this place so much that we used it for our informal wedding dinner last year! As locals, we'd been going for years. It was always known for delicious, authentic food; friendly service (though a little slow at peak times); and very reasonable prices (for Soho). The moo ping here? It was to die for.When we visited two weeks ago, we saw some new faces but the decor looked the same--until we saw the menu. Weirdly enough, the branding appears to have been kept intact, and the website is now a bizarre mix of factoids and literal transcription of the menu items. I asked the waitress if Jane Tira was under new management, and she seemed confused; when I asked if this was new ownership, she said yes, but the food (and I quote) "is more better." Reassuring? Not really, as the food had been excellent before.Still, we ordered our 'don't feel like picking' from what we knew had been solid choices in the past, so we'd have an easy comparison. We went for the moo ping and corn cakes to start, then I got tofu pad see euw and my spouse got chicken pad thai.The starters took quite a while, but came nicely presented. Unfortunately, that was as good as it'd get.First sign nothing good was to come: everything was served with lemon wedges. I'm not sure why they couldn't find limes, but big sour Persian lemons are absolutely not the right accompaniment to Thai food (and yes, they were definitely lemons).Corn cakes: claggy, horribly doughy, not enough corn, too thick, not a single hint of kaffir lime leaves--which give the corn cakes their nicely aromatic flavour. Served with tragic bottled sweet sauce rather than the home-made nam chim kai we used to get.Moo ping: cold (!), limp, no grill marks, tough; the dipping sauce tasted like a weird combo of bottled sauce and discordant spices, it should have been nam jim jaew, which had previously been lusciously smoky.Pad thai: okay. uninspiring, with almost too much veg and not enough chicken, which itself was very dry. there didn't appear to be a drop of tamarind in the sauce at all, and certainly no shrimp paste, which made the whole dish taste flat.Pad see euw: I actually had to send this back, which I almost never do, because it was so charred as to be inedible--I'm not talking about 'a few noodles caught at the edges', I'm talking 'all the soy sauce was put into a hot wok and went past caramelisation into actual carbonisation, then more liquids were sloshed on top to loosen it, and all of that became the sauce' levels of nasty. A rookie mistake, and so bitter that it was impossible to swallow. I mentioned this to the server, with my apologies, and he looked a little confused; 'oh, you don't like it?' Look, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't be enough of a jerk to send it back. I said that I suspected the soy sauce had burned and hadn't been added at the right time, or perhaps the chef had been distracted, but he didn't seem overly concerned about the feedback. I asked him to perhaps just bring me tofu pad thai instead.It was as flavourless as the chicken, and the tofu wasn't even crispy. About the only consolation was the amount of toasted peanut, because I couldn't even douse it in lime juice--since I only had a giant wedge of unripe lemon.So run, don't walk, away from this place. Some developer has taken this well-loved Soho staple and turned it into some of the worst attempts at inauthentic Thai we've ever had the misery of eating.At the moment, your best bet is Rosa's a couple streets over, though the moo ping isn't a strong point (the curries, however, are excellent) or, if you want something a touch lighter, Viet Pho at 34 Greek Street, which does a pretty decent pad thai and really, really good Vietnamese food.

Nothing is exceptional in this place but it ain't bad either. Simple, well priced Thai food. Service is ok. Drinks are overpriced.

Always a fantastic meal at Spicy Basil on the A5 into London town ! Had the Pad Thai this time and it was flavoursome and fresh. Also had a coconut water drink which added a spash of the tropics to the meal

I eat here a lot.Its a no nonsense basic good value tasty Indian "cafe". The bread is made on site and they have a good range of curries and kebabs