Three people have watched the most recent series of the F Word and immediately texted me to say that they wanted to eat at the restaurants which have been featured on it: Rehana for Simply Thai, Sandra for the steakhouse Santa Maria del Sur and Rache for The Pheasant. Its great how a show like the F Word can generate interest in these local restaurants.

First off the to do list was Simply Thai. Simply Thai is located in Teddington so it is a fair hike to get there. But getting there proved to be the least of our difficulties with our main difficulty getting a booking! Rehana tried the supplied number quite a few times over a course of a couple of weeks and then I tried my hand too. Every time we called the line either kept ringing or was diverted to a message. Finally by sheer luck I got through to someone and made our booking for tonight.

Patria Weerapan is the chef/owner of Simply Thai. I didn’t see any of the episodes of the F Word but I read that she is a bit of a tough cookie. She practically prepares and cooks all dishes that she serves at the restaurant which, sounds great until you get to the practical application of it. There is no doubt that this one-woman wonder is a hard worker. The restaurant reached the semi’s of the F Word so I was expecting good things.

We were, unfortunately, a little late for our reservation (just over 10 minutes) however I did try and call the restaurant to let them know but, like our problems trying to make a reservation in the first place, no one was picking up. When we got to the restaurant we very nearly were turned away. The restaurant is extremely tiny (seating at the most about 35) and was surprisingly full (I think with mostly loyal locals) with not many empty tables. (In fact at least tow other groups who’d not made any bookings had to be turned away).

We were quite disappointed that they’d already given our table away after 10 minutes. In the end we had to sit at one table whilst we waited for some other diners to finish. It was not a great start.

Finally after half an hour we were moved to another table. It would be another 40 minutes after that before our first course was delivered so we entertained ourselves trying to work out which celeb was sitting at the table next to us (it turned out to be tv presenter Andy Peters). Unfortunately for the restaurant the two waitresses couldn’t handle the busy restaurant. Though they were friendly girls they were seemingly run off their feet and when combined with the fact that there is only one chef in the kitchen to prepare all these dishes efficiency was not the order of the day.

We started with Grilled Spicy Prawns and Chicken Satay. The prawns were amazing – juicy and tender and succulent. The Chicken Satay, whilst tasty, was not the best I’ve ever had but they were fine to plug a little of the whole in or stomachs! For mains we had ordered three dishes: Crispy Sea Bass on Jungle Curry vegetables (a signature dish and cooked on the F Word), Massaman Curry beef and Spicy Braised Aubergine. Strangely the Massaman Curry didn’t arrive until way after we were on the way to finishing our sea bass and aubergine dishes. All three dishes were lovely and, to my taste buds’ pleasure, slightly sweet. The aubergine was my favourite dish of the lot. Interestingly Simply Thai offer Brown rice of which we ordered one serve at first but had to order a second order of rice (Jasmine this time) as it was clear the one wasn’t enough.

By the time we’d finished our mains (around 9.30pm) I was reaching, or actually had reached, my fullness tipping point. I adore desserts however and it didn’t take much from Rehana to convince me to try something. Rehana tried the Coconut Crème Brulee and I, of course, went for the traditional Thai sticky rice pudding with fresh mango (which again was cooked on the Fword though that wasn’t the reason I went for it – I’m a sucker for rice pudding). I really liked my rice but Rehana said she could barely taste the coconut in her dessert.

Overall, food-wise, I’d say it was pretty good though, in all honesty, not exactly worth an effort for us to come all the way out from Central London. I’d reckon this would be pretty popular with the locals though. Service-wise they really struggled to cope with a full restaurant from the waitresses to Patria in the kitchen. It’s a shame because I’m sure if she got some help into the kitchen and the wait-staff to ease the strain her business would be vastly improved.