UFRIEDA HO

a restaurant’s unique character. Still the menu photographs were beautifully presented and the setting was elegant and contemporary.

There were subtle hints of Asian inspiration, including a canvas of Erawan, the three-headed Elephant God, but no lanterns with dust-fur or a splay of cheap fans as decor props. All plus points for me.

It helped too that our waitress was friendly and super-attentive without helicoptering around our table. She apologised for being out of Thai beer (a great pity) and replaced a menu when she spotted food stains on it. She was also ready with extra chilli (just in case) and happy to find out about ingredients from the chef when she wasn’t sure.

I quite liked the quirky Thai pop songs that made the atmosphere in an oversized restaurant a little less austere.

We chose the salad pak crispy duck for starters (R92). My date thought the duck had great crisp but was a little dry. We, however, both liked the hoisin vinaigrette that gave the salad vegetables – a good mix including broccoli, red pepper, cucumber, onion and tomato – the right sweet-sour balance.

The portion was generous and would be a full meal on its own for one person.

For mains we ordered a Thai red curry with prawns, bamboo shoots, basil and vegetables (R124) and the Basil Crispy Pork (R125) with egg-fried noodles (R22) and jasmine rice (R15). Our mains were sadly underwhelming. The curry was the same old, same old. It had the requisite coconut milk balancing the heat of the red chillies, but didn’t have any distinguishing depth of flavour.

As for the pork, while the basil gave a peppery and anise twist to the dish, my partner said even the crispy crackling couldn’t save the fact that some pieces of meat were so dried out they could have been pork biltong.