This Is Not Your Grandmother's Thai

Patara was a fun little excursion last night. You may have noticed from some of my other reviews that I tend to stick to the mid-range price band when I eat out, preferring to find the best flavor value rather than frequenting trendy fusion joints or the hot new thing that are liable to break the bank and revert us to subsisting on ramen until the next payday. This isn't a food blog for the rich and famous. It's geared toward everyday people who like good food. Every once in a while, though, I'll make an exception, usually when someone else picks the venue.

Dishes were a little pricey - £12-25 for mains, with starters and sides in the £5-12 range. Add in drinks and you're going to average about £30 per person, which puts it just out of go-there-on-a-whim range. That said, it's absolutely worth the expense, especially if you've got a special occasion, like having a friend in from out of town who's been there before and gives it a strong recommendation.

We started with a round of drinks - she with the Butterfly's Kiss, I with the Long Island Thai Iced Tea, and our friend Marty with the Bobble Flower. The tea was a little bland for my taste, but had the requisite punch. Becca's cocktail was fairly mild given the advertised lemongrass and ginger flavors, but the blue curacao pool at the bottom of the glass brightened up the last few sips. I didn't ask how the Bobble Flower was, but we didn't hear any complaints.

We split the appetizers, spring rolls and dumplings. I recommend the dumplings over the rolls, which were pretty standard fare. The three kinds of dumplings each had a distinctive flavor to both the dough and the sauce that worked well with the meat - duck, chicken, or prawn. For mains, I stuck to my usual Thai barometer, the beef with basil. They had a very interesting take on, as you can see from the photos. The flavor was excellent, and the sauce unique. The unexpected surprise with this dish was that the chilli peppers were cooked through enough you could scrape the flesh off onto the meat or into the sauce, giving it that extra bit of kick that I just can't seem to stay away from. Becca's chicken-and-prawn curry with roasted chestnuts (!) was great. The standout here was the chestnut, which I can only describe as meaty. They'd been marinated and cooked until all the crunch was gone from the nut, and picked up all the flavor from the sauce. Marty's lobster and scallop curry came with what was by far the best sauce. He said the scallops were actually better than the lobster. The presentation of each dish was top notch, even if my mediocre photography doesn't illustrate it well.

I can't say we'll be back, if only because I prefer more traditional Thai dishes that are just as good at about half the price, but if you need an upscale place to impress a business partner or date, you could do a lot worse than Patara.