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Liam Hetherington
Liam Hetherington
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4 out of 5
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52) The Royal Orchid - One Night In Bangkok

52) The Royal Orchid - One Night In Bangkok

Thailand - 25/09/09

Throughout our quest to eat Around The World In 80 Meals Paul and I have consistently found the soup to our taste. Quite frankly, we've never come across a bad soup, whether it is Russian borsch, Vietnamese pho, Moroccan harira, or Nigerian pepper soup. But the gold standard we have been mentally comparing them to has always been the hot and sour soup served at the Royal Orchid. So it was no surprise that this restaurant was always going to be our destination when it came to sampling the cuisine of Thailand.

It was a Friday night and we had a full party - me and Rebecca, Paul and Ana, Gary and Lucy, Simon and Lee. Though I should point out that the latter two are not a couple! There are a number of Thai establishments scattered around the outside edges of Chinatown - not just restaurants, but also shops, cash and carries, and karaoke bars. The Royal Orchid sits on the corner of Charlotte and Portland Streets near Piccadilly bus station. The decor is understated within - a hint of gold, a haging banner or two, a few wooden carvings, some rather nice Victorian photos of luxoriously-moustachioed Thai gentlemen in suits and bowlers. The Thai staff look the part in red silk cheongsams patterened with golden elephants. Elephants also appeared on the label of the bottle of Singha beer (�2.80) I supped while perusing the menu.

Choosing a starter was not a problem for either me or Paul; clearly we were going for the hot and sour soup, tom yam gai. Not only is this soup conceivably the best I have ever tasted, but I'm sure it must be one hell of a decongestant! This £5.00 bowl of chicken soup is served piping hot, and further the interacting tastes of fiery chilli and bitter lime juice combine to make the sort of broth that could raise a sweat at twenty below zero. Other flavourings come from lemongrass and characteristic Thai kaffir lime leaves. And it is no weak consomme either, being stuffed with mushrooms and chicken (you could also get it with prawns, tom yam gung, for an extra pound). (Honestly, I feel I should stress that it really is hot: Rebecca couldn't actually finish hers. Guess who had to take over? He he he!). Simon went for soup as well, tom kha gung, prawn and coconut cream soup, again with Thai herbs and mushrooms. And Ana and Lee shared chicken satay skewers.

There was even more variation among our main courses. I don't think any two people had the same meal - not hard when you have the choice of over 80 different dishes, and when with many of those dishes you have a choice of meats to have in it. I found choosing a dish not too much trouble. I went for the pad Thai, rice noodles fried with spring onions, ground peanuts, egg, and bean sprouts. Harder was choosing which meat I wanted it with, beef, chicken, or pork. In the end, prompted by Lee, I enquired whether it would be possible to have a mix of all three meats. It turned out that it was! So I enjoyed my pad Thai with chicken, pork and beef pieces mixed in. Lee did exactly the same, except that he had ordered the pad see ew, the traditional Thai noodles, which had the addition of a thick sweet soy sauce. Both dishes were £8.00. Paul and Ana's curries were also £8.00 each. Paul had the Thai red curry (gaeng phed), made with crushed up red chillis - the hot and sour soup was obviously not hot enough for him! Ana ordered the Mudsaman curry, a Muslim curry where the meat was accompanied, oddly enough, by potatoes. They were served their rice in a large central bowl to be dished out. Simon had ordered sticky rice separately however, and this came in a little plastic bag in a pot all of his own. And Rebecca had actually ordered a rice dish of her own, Thai fried rice with prawns (khao pad gung). Due to the inclusion of prawns this cost £9.00. Still, not a bad price for a complete restaurant main course.

There are some Thai restaurants that are self-consciously more high-class in Manchester (I'm thinking here of Chaophraya on Chapel Walks or Vermillion out towards Eastlands), but I am unable to compare the food served there with that at Royal Orchid. Because Royal Orchid has always been plenty good enough for me. When I come here I know that the food will be good (and that the soup will be great), and that I will not get ripped off for the privilege. Why travel elsewhere to find a new favourite Thai when I'm happy with the one I've got?

We did travel elsewhere once we had paid however. Round the corner onto Portland Street and down a few doors is another old haunt of ours: the Orchid Lounge karaoke bar. This is located up on the second floor above yet another Thai restaurant (the Siam Orchid - we were certainly getting through our orchids that night!). There is free entry, but it is an unrarified atmosphere, a crammed dark room, often packed shoulder to shoulder. However there do seem to have been changes made recently. Whereas in the past I have been refused admission when I have been in a group, on this visit we were greeted by possibly the most polite bouncer in the world! A second room had been opened upstairs, the bathroom was not as leaky as on previous visits, and the place was not as crowded. In fact it was curiously quiet for a Friday night. They also had many, many more songs on offer than previously, from current chart numbers, to the Jackson and McCartney classic The Girl Is Mine (long a track I had longed to see in a karaoke bar), to songs from the musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer! No Thai beer though, so we had to choose between Corona and Budweiser. And no, the tracks we requested never actually came round before we left. Which was possibly a good thing - I'm not quite sure Manchester was ready for Lee and my inevitably poor rendition of Girls Aloud's Biology.

From journal Around The World In 80 Meals! (part 6)

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