This is one occasion where I ignored the Yelp community, and took a punt on the Green Mango. Two 1 star reviews (1 filtered) would normally put me off but a recommendation from a friend convinced me to give it a try and I was pleasantly surprised.
Green Mango is the brainchild of an English-Thai couple, Sebastian and Suchani, who met and fell in love in Thailand, and decided to bring the taste of Suchani's home country back to Brighton and Hove.
The restaurant is nicely done out, but in a simple way in contrast to a number of other local Thai restaurants that are full of glitz and glamour. There are quite a lot of tables and it was pretty busy on a Saturday night, another good sign.
I had booked on line, but due to a problem with their email system, no confirmation email was sent so Sebastian sent a text to confirm my booking. A nice personal touch.
On arrival we ordered a bottle of Chilean Sauv Blanc, although they did offer Thai cocktails which I would be interested to try on another occasion.
My friend and I were so busy chatting that the wait staff came to take our order three times before we had even looked at the menu - it's definitely attentive service!
The menu is large with your standard Thai dishes and ones that I didn't recognise. They also have a good number of specials so it was difficult to make a decision. In the end we went for the mixed starter which was your usual run of the mill selection of chicken satay, spring rolls, wantons, fish cakes, prawn toast and crackers. Tasty as expected but nothing out of the ordinary.
For main I chose the Pregnant Squid - much more appetising than it sounded. This was squid stuffed with minced prawns and chicken, served with peppers in a tamarind and chili sauce. Really tasty but a little difficult to eat with just the fork and spoon I was given, I had to request a knife! My friend went for the Pork Penaeng curry which was also delicious.
The food came with presented with fantastic seagulls sculpted out of carrots - a fine example of Thai-Hove fusion!
We had look at the dessert menu but nothing really appealed and we were pretty full up anyway so we decided to skip it. The bill was a little slow in coming but this wasn't really a problem.
It's probably not the cheapest Thai meal you will ever have in Brighton and Hove, but the food was good quality and well cooked, and the service was friendly and efficient.
I'm glad I took a chance on them and hope you will too! read more