Old-school Review/ Fay Maschler / Evening Standard: Farang: Spice, rice and all things nice

This old-school review has been pulled out from the archives. It is amazing to see what the restaurant looked like when we took it on all those years ago. We have still kept the old San Daniele floor but unfortunately the pizza oven is no more, we replaced it with a triple wok burner. The legend that is Fay Maschler came in and wrote these lovely words about our food and her voice spread far and wide. This review marks a pivotal moment in our evolution as she brought so many new faces to our door. Click here to read the original article from The Evening Standard Online.

Plate after plate of lip-smacking and distinct Thai earn four of Fay's stars

in the Royal Institute Dictionary — the official listing of Thai words — farang is defined as a person of European ancestry. “White boy cooks Thai food” is the way Seb Holmes, head chef and founder of the north London restaurant Farang, puts it.

He has compatriots, girl and boy, in Jane Alty at The Begging Bowl in Peckham, Andy Oliver at Som Saa, Ben Chapman at Kiln and of course the big daddy, sublime David Thompson, who opened Nahm first in London (now closed) and then in Bangkok where he has taken the restaurant to currently 22nd in The World’s Top 50. More recently, Thompson launched funky Long Chim in Singapore, Perth and Sydney.

One of my companions in Highbury says that for him the phrase “pop-up” has started to induce ennui. But given that the premises of Farang the restaurant — there are also concurrent Farang street food appearances at Dinerama and Hawker House — housed the Italian restaurant San Daniele that belongs to Holmes’s stepfather Marco, the promised six-month residency could well extend. Maybe the lone stone Buddha that has popped up among the tables and rush-seated ladderback chairs can go forth and multiply.

While the pizza oven is finding a different use, the spaciousness and homeliness of the original dining room, with its wooden dressers and sprinkling of blue-and-white checked tablecloths, is very welcome. Speaking as a mother who also has a son working in catering — Ben has just bought a charming 14th-century pub, The Compasses Inn, near Tisbury, Wiltshire – I respond particularly warmly to the presence on the floor of Seb’s mum Victoria and later the limecello — her version of limoncillo made with the green citrus that renders the drink much less cough linctus.

Wild betel leaf wraps of prawn and pomegranate listed as miang bites (vegetarian option £1 less) are absolutely the way to start the meander through Farang’s small and large plates. They are cracking, crackling parcels of both expectation and delivery with a powerful chilli finish that raps your knuckles and sorts you out for what follows.

At one meal the grilled fish small plate — a relative term; servings are generous — is mackerel, at another sardines, both dressed with a wild ginger nam jin jaew (sweet and sour Thai dipping sauce) and Asian herbs. Yellow bean and Asian vegetable crispy wontons are deep-fried, friable, capacious Jiffy Bags served alongside a burnt chilli sauce with penetrable smoky depth.

A soothing counterpoint — we pick and choose among the items, although Reg attempts to keep the mussels for himself — is Cornish mussels in a coriander, coconut and sweet basil broth. The molluscs themselves are bosomy, blousy in a really good way.

“Decadent,” says one chum about the notion of half a large spring chicken and minced tiger prawn red curry served together. Another recipient praises its evocation of a Malaysian rendang, the flavours lip-smacking and distinct. The surf ’n’ turf concept is also present in pork belly and lobster lon, an assembly complete with a flourish of dipping vegetables that is defiantly both emphatically sweet and salty.

Coconut milk and cream is the smiling guide to sweeter southern and Bangkok Thai food, as opposed to the more austere cooking of the north. In an aromatic curry of braised beef cheeks there is a meeting of two minds with the large chunks of beef mined and made tender with melting connective tissue. “A massaman curry on a mission” is one verdict.

Along with unlimited jasmine rice, turmeric butter rotis are offered, which for the less dexterous and more self-indulgent make ideal mops for the sauces and a lovely mouthful in themselves. Sadly, fresh doughnut with Bramley apple and rhubarb jam, coconut, kaffir sugar and pandan custard has run out. But homemade cashew nut praline ice cream is definite consolation.

To my astonishment I discover that there is such a thing as Thai wine. Monsoon Valley wines are made from grapes grown in the Hua Hin Hills.

I have done the research for you and come to the conclusion that the Shiraz Rose at the modest price of £20.50 — the red and white blends are only £17.50 — is the best bet with the food. Chang and Singha beers and some audacious cocktails are also available. Eastern Jam — Reyka vodka, Balsazar (vermouth), homemade kumquat and mandarin marmalade, lemon – at £7.50 reads well.