Patara is a series of several Thai restaurants around London. Apparently they are very popular as we could only get a very early 6:30pm that had to be back for 8pm at their Soho branch. It looks like any sort of modern Thai restaurant you’d imagine that does very well in South Kensington – moody lighting, nice decorations and plenty of tables with minimal space in between. Nevertheless they also have a very nice cocktail list and plenty of different things on offer on their menu.

We ended up ordering the Slow braised beef in aromatic coconut reduction with fresh lime,lemongrass and chilli, as well as Veal osso buco braised in massaman curry with lotus seeds accompanied by cucumber salsa and pita bread, with a side of Thai long aubergine sautéed in spicy yellow bean sauce with sweet basil. Admittedly all of the dishes were fantastic. Beautifully presented, complex flavours and all the dishes full of flavour. I really enjoyed the aubergine although I wouldn’t really say it was a very spicy yellow bean sauce – perhaps a bit more on the sweet side than anything.

I had the coconut ice cream for dessert (although the rice pudding is pictured above). Both were just as tasty as all the main dishes and certainly would have been happy with any of the other dishes as well.

I enjoyed the dinner at Patara, although considering what we had, the price added up very quickly. It’s not a place you’d want to go to every night, but every once in a while it’d be quite reasonable.

Name: Patara
Address: Different locations. We went to the one in Soho (15 Greek St., London W1D 4DP)
Website: http://www.pataralondon.com/
The good: Continuous top ups of tap water. Fairly unique Thai fusion with classic flavours
The not so good: Fairly pricey and tables crammed pretty close together.