Lemongrass
By Saskia Little-Brown
It doesn’t do to indulge in too much late-onset ennui. For a start, you miss out on a lot of good clean fun, simply because you’ve been there, done some of it and can’t be bothered. So when I swept a reluctant trio of world-weary oldies, suffering to Stoke Newington’s Lemongrass for an early Thai dinner on a recent Saturday, I was prepared for gripes.
Luckily for me, given that this particular posse are hard to handle at the best of times, Lemongrass was on better form than it’s been for a while, Staff were attentive but not in your face, and the food passed more than muster. Given that, as a craven pleb, I only ever order chicken pad thai in Thai restaurants (because I like it – OK?), I needed more adventurous accomplices to push the boundaries. Having established that ostrich was indeed on the menu, the cowards failed to order it, but they did move into previously uncharted territories with the Chef’s Special Tiger Curry (a dish of medium rare beef slices fried with peppers and served with a salad and a brilliant dipping sauce, with steamed rice as a side) that Mr Not-so-BossyBoots consumed with obvious relish. Ms BossyBoots, jet-lagged from a recent holiday, claimed, as one who knows because she’s been there and has the t-shirt, that my pad thai should have had lime leaves, which she told me it didn’t. As if I cared. As if I would have known. I just munched away, happily. Himself, on best behaviour, did his mucky best with a fried king prawn dish with basil. Muttering ‘nice’ as he worked his way through his meal, was generally agreed to be a good sign. As was the empty plate he eventually pushed to one side.
As for Ms BB, she adjudged her mussuman lamb curry as good – which really is about the best you can hope for from She Who Knows. The other words she used – ‘hot’, ‘good sauce’ – are as much of an accolade as anything I’ve heard from her for about twenty years. She’s not given to embellishment, Ms BB. But she knows what she likes.
Somehow (and I suspect Ms BB here, I’m afraid) we’d also managed, most unusually, to order a starter – the Lemongrass platter for two, with fish and crab cakes, spring rolls and satay – which was excellent value and more than enough for four jaded palates. Three of us had the house white – but the fourth enjoyed what I hadn’t come across before: lychee juice. A revelation. Might just go on the wagon, if that’s an option.
Verdict: excellent value, mostly very good, the best sort of service in pretty classy surroundings. Thank you, Lemongrass. Problem solved.
Lemongrass, 58 Stoke Newington Church Street, N16, 020 7254 3454 |
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