LAST year a trip to Thailand opened up my palate to a feast of food that has never been matched since. Eating and cooking over there is an art form and a passion, and when you sit down to sample some of the local delicacies you can see why.
I have searched high and low for a restaurant to match the authenticity of Thai cooking and my next contender was Thai City in Hammersmith.
My entire social calender has been wiped out because of the World Cup in the past few weeks but I decided to finally cave in to my girlfriend's frustrations and head down to the King Street restaurant on Friday night.
Walking in, we were greeted by a host of empty seats. Never a good sign.
The staff were friendly and attentive. No surprise really because there were about two staff to every guest at the time.
But looking through the menu we were impressed by the reasonable prices and variety on offer - especially for my vegetarian dinner date.
She opted for the spring roll as a starter and I went for the prawn tempura. The first thing to say is the portions were massive.
Six large prawns and two broccoli florets coated in batter and four large spring rolls. But that is not a complaint because they were all gobbled up.
My date decided to opt for the pad thai - the country's traditional noodle dish - which she enjoyed but was not blown away by.
A beef massaman curry - cooked with potato and peanut - was my main choice along with a portion of sticky rice.
I went for that because it was marked up as being a hot dish. It was far from it. In fact it was bordering on mild and bland.
My one suggestion would be to make sure you flag it up to the staff if you want your meals hot.
I am in no doubt that my craving for a return to Thailand will always leave me overly critical of disappointing substitutes.
And while the food did not reach those dizzy heights, it was well cooked, light and easy to eat. So for a nice, relaxing, quiet meal out I would recommend it.
THAI CITY, 130 King Street, Hammersmith.
020 7741 3625
