The best restaurants serving Thai food in Hendon Barnet London

I have a friend whom I meet occasionally when he comes to London. He eats at kosher restaurants and on such occasions, he and I used to go to the White Fish restaurant in Hendon – excellent menu, tasty food, well presented; great atmosphere too - there was a ‘buzz’ about the place. Last night, we were disappointed to find that it was closed and even more so when it looked as though it had gone for good. (I only hope that I was wrong.) Its satellite branch opposite – the White House Express - was open though. I had been there before occasionally and it was fine, though without the wide-ranging exotic menu of the main branch opposite. We decided to go there instead – BIG MISTAKE!!! From the outset, the reception was ‘functional’ rather than cordial. We were seated at a table, on which there were a couple of battered menus that had seen better days. The choice was very limited – great if you liked chicken or hamburgers but tough luck if you wanted anything like the comprehensive choice of the White Fish restaurant opposite. I ordered the famous Yemenite Soup – a flagship item at the main branch – and shwarma as a main course. The choice of side dishes was minuscule; mainly just rice, mashed potatoes or chips – just the thing you’d expect at a middle-eastern type restaurant!!! I ordered the shwarma with trepidation as it is normally pared down from a vertical rotating roasting spit and there was no sign of it in the normal place behind the counter. When the soup arrived, it was only slightly warm – not hot. It had to be sent back to be heated up. Then the shwarma arrived. It too was not hot – only slightly warm – but I didn’t want to make a fuss so I started eating it. It had clearly been re-heated (or re-warmed, to be more accurate) and it tasted awful – scraps of meat dating from who knows when. I had ordered rice and mashed potatoes (faux de mieux) and the portions were generous, each of them presented in soup bowls. The rice was just boiled, with no additional flavourings and the mashed potatoes brought back resonances of school dinners. I left most of the food and when we got the bill, there was an optional service charge added; we told the waiter that we opted not to pay it and he looked shocked and said that he had to take the bill back to amend it. At this point, I would expect the matter to be reported to the manager, who would come to speak to us and ask why we were dissatisfied. None of that – and in any case there was no sign there of anyone resembling a manager. So the waiter brought back the amended bill and we paid. I felt really sorry for him as the service had been average, not excellent. I told him that it wasn’t his fault; it was the poor quality of the food. Then he suddenly became professional – he apologised profusely, said that we should have told him earlier, and hoped that next time we ate there things would be better! Dream on. There’s no chance that we would go back there, first because of the poor selection on the menu, but also because I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be any opportunity to go back. It will be a couple of months before my friend would be returning to London and, with the White Fish flagship having sunk, I don’t think the lifeboat will last very long. Hendon and Golders Green are chockful of kosher restaurants and, much closer to my and my friend’s home, there’s always the Met Su Yan kosher Chinese restaurant in Edgware – outstanding in every way.