Erawan — Restaurant in Lewes

This is a tiny hidden gem of a restaurant, albeit very tiny. The food here is excellent, some of the best prepared Thai dishes I've eaten anywhere, the room is kept warm even on the coldest winter days and the staff are extremely friendly, attentive and courteous.

The restaurant seats maybe 18-20 people at a push, more like 10 to 15 with elbow room. Because of this there are two strict seatings; one before 8pm and one from 8pm, so if you book the early sitting expect to be moved on if you aren't finished and out by 8, as the venue doesn't have spars space (or even standing room) to accomodate the gueats who's seats you will now be blocking.

Be warned though, the wood-hewn bench type seats look authentic and add to the atmosphere, but they're not comfortable with a full stomach, so you probably won't want to sit on them for more than a couple of hours anyway.

Strangely, the restaurant has a tradition for you to bring your own alcohol, as it was not licenced for along time, though they do supply soft drinks if asked. I believe you can buy alcoholic drinks at the shop next door if you haven't brought your own along; overall this is strange, but quite novel and cute.

Prices are remarkably reasonable with 5 adults costing £126 for two courses (starter and main; we skipped dessert as despite the average size portions the food is wholesome and very filling). Obviously there were only a couple of soft drinks in that price as the group brought our own wine.

If you like Thai food you need to eat here, but book first, as the change of a walk-in table is...

I've ben to Thailand on several occasions and eaten in many different thai restaurants the World over snd this place fits into what I'd call 'a typical English Thai place' . Suspicions were raised that they had a very small restaurant with 49 different items on the menu, my experience is that with a menu that size you are immediately on the back foot as a restaurant to deliver that much variation. We ordered 3x starters , a tom Kha and 1 main, a drunkard curry. Lets break it down. First they brought l the food at once, forgivable I guess but the to be told we'd asked for that when we hadn't was a bit odd, but let's forget that as the food is the main thing.

The 3x starters, out of 3, two of them were not what was described and clearly frozen food fried to order, tempura prawns were processed prawns in breadcrumbs and the duck spring rolls, ditto. They had a neatness and blandness that can only be ascribed to being frozen and generic. The chicken satay was .. probably frozen but whether it was or not it was boring and not grilled, microwaved/heated up. The mains, tom Kha and drunkard curry could only be marked as 2.5 or 3 out of 5, not great, not awful.. just OK.. and no holy basil despite it being listed. My advice to this place is cook 15 things well rather than 49 things to a...

This is by far the best and most authentic Thai food I have experienced in the UK! My wife is half Thai and has lived there and even she was amazed at some of the dishes available here that we haven't found anywhere else except Thailand itself. Its a BYOB, which we didn't mind at all. There is a corkage fee but it wasn't over the top by any means. The staff were lovely and were very quick to accommodate anything we asked for, including things like providing small bowls so we could share a larger soup like a starter and other random requests. If you are a fan of Asian food or especially Thai food and can get over to this restaurant I cannot recommend it enough! The venue is small, however, so it's best to book in advance as there's no guarantee you could get a...