The Great THAI Restaurant — Restaurant in London

This is one of our favourite drop in places to grab Asian food. It's a really small corner located in Fitzrovia, not the most obvious spot but I promise you it's worth checking this place out.

It's tiny but humble restaurant has a cosy and has this warm welcoming environment. It does live up its restaurant's name "The Great Thai", they serve pretty authentic Thai food here. Portions are generous, tastes delicious, decent price for the location, good and fast service. I love this place.

You would pay an average around £10-£15 per pax (including drinks) depending on what you order. So usually, we (2pax) would order a 3 course meal and drinks which would include something of the below:

Tom Yum Soup (slightly spicy) with prawns and mushrooms £6.95 with chicken and mushrooms £5.95 there's a vegetarian option

Pad Thai with chicken £8-ish vegetarian option available

Seabass fish Garlic Seabass £12.95 deep fried (recommended) Ginger & Soy £12.95 steamed

Thai iced tea £2.95 Side white rice £1.90?

That would give you an average what you'll order. The portions for the pad Thai is pretty big. The meat here is fresh, especially the fish. Highly recommended for couples and threesome, if you have anything larger than that you might want to call them for reservations. They serve wines and alcoholic beverages too :)

I wouldn't say it's the most kid friendly area, but it's a safe environment...

I've visited to this place just an hour ago (around 4p.m. 5th of June 2014) My experience here was terrible for following reasons.

First of all, when I went into this restaurant, the servers were sitting on the table eating, and not greeting or giving me a help for a seat. I understand 4p.m. is pretty late for lunch and it is a reasonable time for workers to have their meal, but the way they treated a new customer, and receiving food order while sitting and eating was not nice.

Secondly, their meal portion and taste weren't that great, while the price was not cheap. (though the food decoration was ok) If you are looking for a just good Thai food, I would seriously recommend you to visit Siam central which is located near Goodge street station/Tottenham court road station. They will provide you with much better food with high portion in a reasonable price (during their express lunch time)

Third, and finally they asked cash for the payment. I was intending to pay with debit card since I had no cash within my wallet, so I was forced to go to the nearest cash point to pull my money out. (They also asked me to put any valuables on the table while I go out to get the cash) You may well ask why I did not bring a cash before going into the restaurant, but that is because they did not label 'Cash only' clearly on their window or on the menu or else I would have not eaten at this place.

I will never visit this...

I should have known better (a Thai mini-chain near Oxford St) but, I was hungry, had an urge for som tam and grilled meat, and was still about a mile from the reliable Lao Cafe. Plus it was 11.30 and this place was open already… I took my chances after seeing their Isaan menu.

On walking in, one of the staff immediately barked at me that I could only have the table for 1 hour. Great start.

I then made the mistake of asking for “kor moo yang” rather than “moo yang” and was told to only order from the menu. I explained my error and then ordered the som tam pu (from the menu, ironically) and was told they couldn’t do that, as they didn’t have the the little field crabs available. (I agreed to have it without the crabs and just pl raa and got charged an extra pound anyway…)

I asked for Thai spice with the som tam and it had decent heat. It could have done with some more lime juice for balance in my view (and to make it less dry), but that’s a matter of taste. It was also pretty expensive at £10.95 given the size. The pork was tender and marinated fine but came topped with sesame seeds randomly. The sticky rice was quite hard and dry. Came to just over £30 with service. And the service remained prickly for the duration…

Overall, average at best. Given the service this falls into the “avoid”...