Thaikhun Guildford Review

Guildford is one of my favourite places. A great little cathedral city it is a wonderful host to many new, boutique and different shops and restaurants. On Thursday Thaikhun opened its doors to its 8^th restaurant in Friary Street and I was lucky to be able to attend its opening night that evening.

 For a start is it perfectly suited to Guildford but as you walk through the doors you are immediately transported to a bustling market in Thailand. Pronounced “tycoon” the restaurant is bright and busy and no other word for it but stunning. My guest admitted a startled “wow” as we went through the doors and that pretty much sums it up!

The menu is full of incredibly enticing and exciting Thai food but I was so glad when they informed us that we were in for a selection of treats as quite frankly EVERYTHING appealed on the menu and I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start.

Based around Thai Street food – download the menu here the food is by far the best Thai food I’ve eaten. We started with a Sukumvit 38 platter (actually we started with Thai prawn crackers but they would need a review to themselves!) which is a taste platter of some of their best dishes; Salt & Pepper squid, fish cakes, spring rolls and honey pork. The fish cakes were and spring rolls are literally melt in the mouth delicious and despite the fact I am NOT a fan of squid I kept going back for those salt and pepper battered bite size pieces. The honey pork was perfect to pick at and chat over and I can highly recommend this platter to share with friend. 

For the main course we had a wonderful selection of food. All served with jasmine sticky rice. Laab Moo a hot chopped pork salad which my friend couldn’t stop eating. I personally found it a little warm but wow was it good. Even hotter but I could not stop going back to this was the Moo Prik Ging a pork belly stir fry wok friend in red curry sauce. It slipped down and warmed my stomach mouth and throat but I would go back just for this dish! So so so tasty and oh so well done! Phad Thai Jay based around Thailands national dish in a veggie noodle dish served with tofu and disappeared very very quickly. And by far both of our favourites was Geahg Kiew Han Gai which is a melt in the mouth Thai green curry with fresh basil. The flavour of this dish was amazing. I’ve had in drummed into me by many friend that Thai food while advertised as spicy is incorrect but actually just full of flavours and this to me just summed up the food we had. 

A quick note on the rice is that for every portion of rice sold 5p is donated to the Thai Childrens Trust to feed underprivileged children in Thailand. Thaikhun are immense fund raisers for the charity with events continuously throughout the year. Part of the reason might be that the inspiration of Thaikhun is based around the owners life time partner owner and chef director Khun Kim who is just an amazing force of a person. Born in the back streets she was working in a café and in a real twist of fate met Martin her joint partner now in Thaikhun (visiting Thailand with friends they almost went back to their hotel than to a café and might have missed Kim)

Kim is the main inspiration behind Thaikhun and her personality and love for Thailand is evident from the second you step through the doors to the moment your leave. She has an eye for detail and creates the most wonderful atmosphere throughout your whole visit. It has created a wish in me to visit Thailand and I cannot wait to bring my husband and boys back to Thaikhun as it has firmly shot to the top of my favourite restaurants! A truly wonderful place and do do do go and visit!!!