Sino Thai Restaurant 泰華酒家 - London Waterloo

This weekend I was supposed to meet a bunch of friends, but that got cancelled and deferred to another time... So in the end, who did I contact? Miss Pinky of course. She wanted to eat Thai food. Pad Thai to be specific, after she watched the Saturday Kitchen Show Live last weekend! ¬_¬" Yeah, whatever.

Not knowing any good Thai restaurants around, we walked around Waterloo going from The Cut to Lambeth Road. There were two pubs serving Thai food, and in between a Thai restaurant (plus there's a smaller Thai place in between all the places that we didn't see until we were going home). We knew all these places would serve great food, but I think Miss Pinky wanted a slightly quieter place, to enjoy the food and not be disrupted by people in the pubs... (rugby and football fans!)...

In the end, we went into Sino Thai Restaurant 泰華酒家 (Cantonese: taai wah jau ga; Mandarin: tai hua jiu jia) in Lower Marsh Street. There weren't many customers, and it looked very quiet inside. The diners who were already inside looked like they were regular customers, or they may have stumbled into there like we did. I tried looking for some reviews today, but I'm surprised there's hardly any blog reviews (actually none at all) about this place... Not many people into Thai food???

Outside the restaurant

Menu cover

There was a lot of choice in the menu, vegetarian, seafood, meat dishes, noodle dishes, Chinese style dishes, curries... and I really didn't know what I wanted. In the end this is what we had...

Miss Pinky's food. Well she had a Thai beer called Chang, and the fried squid for starters. I know her so well because she always start off with squid, chicken wings or spare ribs!

Chang Thai Beer

Fried squid served in a boat bowl - Miss Pinky was impressed!

Then of course you know what she had afterwards... The Pad Thai... Flat rice noodles with pork. It was sweet and not extremely spicy that it will knock your socks off. It was just right. It was a big portion size. Miss Pinky took the rest home because she still has a small stomach. :D (Cheeky Geek on the loose).

Pad Thai

My food. I first had the Tom Ka Gai. This is not a very spicy soup, because of the coconut milk added into it. Thumbs up for this. I needed this to really warm me up because it was really cold last night. Next time I think I want to try the Tom Yum soup with prawns.

Tom Ka Gai

I then had a green curry Geang Kiew Wan. You get to choose your own meat, beef, chicken or king prawns. I chose beef (but I wanted prawns) so that Miss Pinky could try. I'm sure I was supposed to have Thai aubergines in this dish, but I couldn't see any... :( Disappointed... But I did like the green curry. It wasn't too spicy because of the coconut milk in it, and it tasted sweet, the beef was tender and not overcooked.

Geang Kiew Wan and Egg Fried Rice

Close up of Geang Kiew Wan

I also had the egg fried with mine, which tasted good. It wasn't too oily and had a lot going on in there (as in it was a nice sticky rice and good texture). I was quite pleased with the portion size. Very good indeed!

Close up of my Egg Fried Rice

I said to Miss Pinky, I want the full house, that meant I wanted dessert afterwards. Well, there isn't much choice: banana fritter, banana dessert or vanilla ice cream. I chose the banana dessert which came in a hot coconut cream... Aww delicious. Miss Pinky tried a spoonful, and then she had the rest of it! ¬_¬" ... I thought she didn't want any dessert...

Banana Dessert

Total cost came up to £40.10 including drinks (I should have paid extra... But let's not tell Miss Pinky that, although I did pay for some expensive drinks later in the evening).

So, if you are looking for a quiet restaurant with some soft music playing in the background, and you don't mind people passing by the restaurant looking in, plus only having one waitress doing everything... Then this may be the place for you to go to (especially for Valentine's Day... Unless you prefer the very high end of things).

***

The night was still young ¬_¬ ...
Our night ended up in two places. Waterloo Station where we saw a lot of rugby fans coming back from Twickenham, and where there's a new bar on the upper deck called Cabin. Very chic. Waterloo Station has changed so much since the Olympics... It's just amazing! I love the upstairs so much!!

Rugby fans!!

Rekoderlig Cider and Monkey Shoulder whiskey with coke   (^_^)v

Waterloo Staff waiting for passengers...

Then we ended up in ScooterCaffè along Lower Marsh, which we had seen earlier when we were looking for food. They have a cat in there... It's so cute and relaxed and it didn't mind people taking pictures... Although the place's toilets are quirky (I didn't go in because I was conscious of the people looking around downstairs... Confused Geek)! It's a very funky cafe that serves alcohol!! Another thumbs up!!

The cat at ScooterCaffe... so, so cute!! ^_^

Pacific Lager (Spanish?) and a brandy (not mine)
and my Jameson whisky  and coke!!

Ok, so my geeky rating (for the Sino Thai Restaurant): 4.9/5 (I didn't get any aubergines in my green curry)

Good points:

- Quiet restaurant

- Polite and friendly service, although there was only one person serving

- Great authentic Thai food

- Soft music playing in the background (I think they were playing Backstreet Boys - so I didn't mind!! ^_^)

- Spacious seating

Bad points:

- None, zilch! I can't think of any!!! ^_^

I would definitely come here again...

Address: 127-128 Lower Marsh, London, SE1 7AE

Telephone: 020 7401 9702
Opening times: Monday-Friday - 12pm (noon)-3pm and 5.30-11pm , Saturday - 5-11pm , Sunday - 12pm (noon)-11pm

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