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The staff at Thai on the Hill will season the dishes to
your taste |
Spice things up with a fine Thai
HAVING recently returned from Thailand I feel I know
now a lot more about Thai cooking. So I decided to try my newly
acquired expertise by visiting Thai on the Hill.
On entering the restaurant, at the bottom of Highgate West
Hill, the bell tolls from nearby St Anne’s Church were
a welcome setting to this lovely area of north London.
The roundabout seen from the windows of the restaurant with
Parliament Fields in the background has the feeling of a village
green with a pub, shops and other restaurants in the neighbourhood
– the scene is not necessarily oriental – but this
changes on arrival into the restaurant itself which displays
lovely tapestries and decorations from Thailand.
Some steps down Buddha with a lit candle in front presides over
the spacious room where marble-top tables are placed. The tables
are well-positioned, either next to walls or windows with some
in the middle of attractive hexagonal shape.
A very comprehensive menu offers a wide choice. The items are
clearly identified as vegetarian, spicy or very spicy but you
can still request how spicy you want your food to be. Obviously
they have taken English taste into consideration: medium spicy
meant medium spicy whilst my experience in Thailand was that
medium was very spicy and spicy was much too hot.
The Tom Yung Goong (£4.50) – prawns in a spicy hot
and sour lemongrass flavoured soup and the Tom Yung Hed (£3.75)
– the vegetarian version with mushrooms were both excellent.
For a main course we shared: Kang keo-wan gai (£6.95)
– chicken cooked in green curry paste, coconut milk, bamboo
shoots and sweet basil leaves, Moo pad prig (£5.45) –
stir-fry pork with chilli, onions and spring onions, Phad Thai
prawns £6.50) – stir-fry rice noodles in a Thai tomato
paste, bean sprouts, egg and ground peanuts – there is
also a vegetarian version of this dish. The green curry paste
is typical and we found that it combined well with the coconut
rice (£2.20) as was the stir-fry pork with chilli.
The prawns were the best part of the noodles. The quality was
first class and the food genuine. Lots of herbs some of which
one must chew and leave but without them the food would not
be so exotically scented.
The Thai custard and Coconut pancake (£4.50) were green
in colour, interesting looking, homemade and tasty.
The friendly staff smiled a lot and was willing to help with
explanations of the dishes. With three good glasses of house
wine (red and white), the bill came to £54.35 with service
included.
I had some bhat in my pocket which I gave to the staff. This
was greeted with real delight and even more so when true to
Thai tradition I brought my palms together and bowed my head
to say goodnight.
Thai on the Hill
109 Highgate West Hill, N6
020 8349 7818 |
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