TANTALISING THAI TREATS | CHAOPHRAYA [AD]

September 5, 2022

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ll know that I have a particular love for Asian Cusiune. I was kindly invited to Chaophraya to try out their outstanding menu.

*I was gifted £60 towards my bill in return for honest social media reviews*

ABOUT CHAOPHRAYA

Chaophraya has been gracing us with their presence since 2004 and have continued to grow over the years. The business was founded by Kim and Martin who label themselves “Partners in life and in business”. Kim is the big inspiration of the restaurants, first starting up a Pad Thai cart back in 1993. She managed to expand, running several food carts before winning awards for her Pad Thai recipe. This is the same recipe that they use now!

Now they have 6 restaurant locations; Aberdeen, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds and Newcastle.

STARTERS

NEUA DAD DEAW // Palm Sugar Beef; Marinated beef strips with a sriracha dipping sauce

MOO PING // Grilled Pork Skewers; With a tamarind chilli sauce

TACO GAI // Chicken Thai Tacos; A Chaophraya “must have” starter! Red curry and coconut milk chicken, served on soft rice flour tacos and topped with crispy shallots

MAINS

Overview of the Main meal dishes at Chaophraya

PAD PONG KA-REE // Seafood Curry Stir-Fry; Scallops, king prawns, squid, and New Zealand mussels, stir-fried with onion, celery and peppers in a Thai curry sauce

WOW. Each bite was ram-packed full of flavour with a subtle hint of spice. The seafood – vegetable – sauce ratio was absolutely spot on too. It was enough sauce to need rice/sides but not too much that it drowned the ingredients.

GAENG PED YANG // Roast Duck Thai Red; Served the classic Thai way with our classic sauce with pineapple, cherry tomatoes, grapes, strawberries, lychee and Thai basil

Stephen described this as “the best red curry I’ve ever had”! Duck isn’t something he would usually opt for but he was incredibly happy that he did as it was cooked beautifully. It was complimented well by the flavours of the sauce and surprisingly the fruit too.

SIDES

KHAO NEOW // Sticky Rice

EN MEE LUAK // Trio of Steamed Noodles with Fried Garlic

FOOD OVERALL

Neither of us could find any faults with our food what-so-ever. Each dish was served piping hot, jam packed with flavour and it was a much bigger portion than we were expecting. It was really nice having the mix of both rice and noodles on the side as it added more dimension to our dishes.

SERVICE

We had Fergus serving us majority of the night and he was lovely. We made him aware that Stephen had a nut allergy and he was more than happy to point out that majority of the menu could be made without nuts. A lot of the time in Thai food, nuts are a garnish rather than an ingredient so it was wonderful to know that we wouldn’t run into any issues on that front.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON CHAOPHRAYA

Stephen and I thoroughly enjoyed our meal at Chaophraya and are most definitely going to get back at some point to try other dishes. I would point out that it is a pricier option to go. Our total bill for food and drinks (2 beers, 1 cocktail, 1 gin and lemonade & bottled water) came to around £110. We paid the remaining £50 ourselves. Whilst saying that, it is important to remember that it is an experience that you get when you pop in too. The decor is absolutely beautiful in itself!

Big thank you to Chaophraya and the team for having us and treating us so well.