Review of 'Pitaya Thai Street Food'

Having just visited a theatre just down the road we were intrigued by this new sight on the Strand: Pitaya Thai Street Food. We are both huge fans of Thai food so were looking forward to our meal but in the end we were disappointed.

The modern restaurant is located midway along the Strand with two floors of seating. The open kitchen area on the ground floor has a series of cooks on woks preparing the food. There are some quirky things here such as a tuktuk seating table near the door and vibrant neon on the walls.

While we were shown to a table we were asked to order at the till (takeaway is available). The menu is fairly basic with all of the core dishes stir-fried based on either rice or (udon) noodles. There are the familiar Thai curry options (green, yellow and red) and, of course, pad thai and thai salad (normally based on green papaya but here “crispy vegetables” and beef).

Drinks are rather normal with the typical soft drinks though they do have an “exotics” section that has various Thai fruit juices (wine and beer is also available). They do have desserts here too with, oddly, French-style macaroons, ice creams, sorbets and, er, cookies. We gave all of this a miss as nothing particularly struck us as interesting.

We decided on some of the more unusual options on the menu: “Nua Kao” (£10.95; “Sliced beef, prawns, Thai white rice, wok-fried bean sprouts, carrots, fried onions and Thai chives.”) and “Sie Yai” (£11.95; “Sliced beef, Udon wheat noodles, bean sprouts, carrots wok-fried, Thai chives and fried onions”).

The “Nua Kao” was ok with a good number of prawns but no real flavour to speak of.

The noodles in the “Sie Yai” (enjoyed by my companion) were perfectly cooked – slightly aldente – but otherwise the dish was also simply “ok”. She ended up adding chilli sauce in an attempt to add flavour.

If you can't see the difference in the two pictures above, that is entirely the point: The options are fairly boring stir-fry dishes that do little to stand out from one another with no particularly amazing flavours. This is completely opposite of what you might expect from Thai food, and in particular, Thai STREET food, which is full of flavour and packed with interesting ingredients and textures.

Hugely disappointing though reasonably priced and good ingredients. A funky interior, too bad the food is not as interesting.

Rating: “Average, but who wants to be average?”

Review Date: 2022-01-20

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Cuisine: Thai

Address: 419-420 Strand, London WC2R 0PS ENGLAND

Public Transport: Charing Cross

Location: London (England) - Covent Garden

Map:

 

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Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7240 9793

URL: https://restaurants.pitaya-thaistreetfood.com/london-strand/