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Sunday 11 January 2015

Ted goes begging ...



 … and I didn’t even need a bowl as they gave me one, in fact they gave me several, and they were all very good looking.  The Doll accompanied me on my last venture out to Peckham on the promise that we would go to the “Begging Bowl” a restaurant that’s all about Thai street food.

The Begging Bowl is the owned and run by chef Jane Alty.  Jane is an experienced and talented chef who turned her hand to Thai cuisine when she went to work with the legendary (and very possibly just the nicest bloke you will ever meet, and I don’t say this lightly because a) I have met him and b) he is Australian after all …) David Thompson – the man who almost certainly and singlehandedly rescued Thai royal cuisine, and then went on to write the definitive recipe book on the subject – BD (Before David) nothing was ever written down, recipes were only handed down orally to new chefs. 

Jane worked with David at his Michelin starred restaurant “Nahm” in London (as an aside Nahm London is now closed but Nahm Bangkok was just voted the best restaurant in all of Asia late last year) and collaborated closely with him on his Thai Street Food cookbook, a type of cuisine that she really relates to. So it was with no small expectation level that we set out for the Begging Bowl.

The restaurant is a good take on a street food "sit down", nothing too fancy, but all about the food.  So how was the food Ted (ie get on with it!!) did it live up to your expectations ??  … certainly did!!
Everything we had was imbued with the right degree of heat and layers of flavour, while being clean and fresh at the same time.

From the green papaya salad with sticky pork ribs, char-grilled baby squid, red curry of Suffolk
chicken with the baby “pea” aubergines, it was all just what I really wanted to taste and savour, and the neighbours salt crusted fish looked excellent as well.  The menu is coloured coded with the price of dishes so it's easy to see what its going to cost you up front ... something that ceases to matter pretty quickly after you have had the first dish to be honest, as you just want more and more (well I did anyway!!).

There are some Asian inspired cocktails to imbibe and the wine list is well chosen, good choices by the glass, and the wines really do compliment the food (a bit of a rarity for Asian cuisine in general in my experience honestly).  Next time I will come back with a few friends and we’ll eat everything on the menu … like the table next to us did on the day we visited – I suspect it happens at lot!!!

5 comments:

alestedemadrid said...

MMMMmmmmmmmmm

Sharon said...

Oh my gosh, this sounds heavenly to me. I adore good Thai food and everything you mentioned sounds wonderful. I just had some Thai food earlier this last week at my favorite place here in Phoenix. Now I want more!

William Kendall said...

It certainly sounds like you enjoyed it!

Jack said...

It does look great.

AND, there might have been another very rare hint in here about the Doll, who is the most mysterious CDP blogger I follow regularly. It took me about two years to decide that the Doll is, indeed, female. Now I suspect that she is an Aussie. (I always suspected she is not a native Londoner, and the recent long absence supported that thesis, but I didn't have the evidence.)

Angie said...

What a feast!! I'll have the Stir fry of deep fried tofu, shiitake mushrooms, yam bean & green beans, thanks.

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