Thailand Restaurant comes highly rated in guides such as Time Out and Hardens Restaurant Guide 2007, so my expectations were fairly high. Unfortunately, they were not met, not in terms of the food, anyway.

The restaurant itself is on one of the main roads in New Cross, opposite Goldsmiths college. Inside it’s fairly dingy and kind of cheap and cheerful looking, although the plastic wrapped seat covers do it no favours whatsoever. I am not put off by appearances and the menu gave me cause to cheer up. A menu with Laotian, as well as Thai food, was a nice surprise and with dishes having names such as Crying Tiger, Angry Lamb and Volcano Chicken, things were looking up.

We ordered the mixed starters to share, which were a good sized portion. It consisted of one of each of the following; prawn toast, chicken satay and a fish cake. In addition there were about 6 pieces of vegetable tempura, which weren’t that great, being a little too greasy and the batter too thick. The other pieces of starter were fine.

The main courses we ordered were Stir Fried Prawn with Chilli (for her) and Angry Lamb (for me). We shared a plate of Crispy noodles with Prawn, Pork and Tamarind sauce and a bowl of plain rice. The Angry Lamb was good, but not spectacular, being spicy and having a nice tangy flavour. The Stir Fried Prawn was fine as well, but nothing special. The crispy noodles had a good flavour, but again were a little too greasy.

If you want a cheap and cheerful place too eat, then you won’t go far wrong with the Thailand Restaurant. It has an amazingly good value Happy Hour Meal consisting of a starter and main course with rice for £3.95, from a selection of 8 starters and 13 main courses. Happy Hour is midday to 2pm and 5pm to 7pm. Our food and drinks bill came to £44, although £18 of that was drinks.

I am tempted to go back, as I’m sure it has more to offer and I can’t see how two renowned publications can get their reviews so wrong, but perhaps I’ll just order a take away from there instead.