Som Saa, Shoreditch - For me, Som Saa is not just another Thai restaurant. I knew Andy Oliver in his days in Nahm at The Halkin Hotel, a fine dining Thai restaurant. When that was closed, I followed Andy's cooking from pop up events at Climpson's Arch and The Begging Bowl to now, an established brick and mortar restaurant.
When it came to food, we had one aim: to have everything they have on the menu. Unanimously, we also agreed to avoid the not so sharing-friendly dishes such as the soups and only picked a couple of salads. Like I said, it was not just another Thai restaurant where there is a generic curry with the choice of your protein. Som Saa offered a handful salads that you might as well just have all of, curries that are just so different from each other, deep fried fish that looks like it was frozen in it's swimming action, simple wok dishes that you know need the force of fierce some fire and desserts appropriately Asian.
Dishes were served as when ready. My favourites were:
grilled pork neck with a 'jaew' chilli dipping sauce £8.50 - the meat was moist and tender soaking in a marinade of a well balanced fish, spicy, herby sauce. It was definitely a brilliant dish to start. Not only it brought back the flavours of Thailand but also the ambiance of street food eating.
whole deep fried seabass with roasted rice and isaan herbs £16.00 - nothing can be better than serving the whole fish to me. It is proper full on stuff. Deep fried like that, I ate all the way from it's tail to the head. The sauce like the grilled pork is very light and herby and well balanced.
'panang' curry of braised salted beef cheeks and thai basil £15.00 - the tender meat could convert any non meat eater in this instance and the sauce had a subtle spicy peanutty presence.
Other dishes:
stir-fried clams with turmeric, chillies and holy basil £11.00 - I love this dish except that I did had a gritty shellfish and biting into it was not pleasant because for one moment I thought I had cracked a filling. Otherwise, the flavours were great.
thai style grilled chicken leg with tamarind dipping sauce £7.50 - a dish I longed for so long since their pop up days. A good grilled chicken but I did not get the Thai style aspect if not for the tamarind dipping sauce.
stir-fried chicken and long aubergines with yellow beans and thai basil £9.00
som tam isaan £9.50 - proper spicy
grilled chicken, banana flower, and chilli jam salad £10.00 - the look of the dried chillies can put one off from the dish thinking that it was going to be outrageously spicy but it was surprisingly mild, had a bite and had the look of a tasty fried salad.
burmese style pork belly and shoulder curry with pickled garlic and fresh ginger £12.50 - the meat was so tender and delicious but was such a small cut and I thought that is was slightly on the sweet side
jungle curry with thai aubergines, grilled fish and holy basil £14.00 - the curry is quite watery and this is a personal preference but I didn't like the bitter, slightly tough thai aubergines.
Could be a wow dishes:
palm sugar ice-cream grilled banana £6.00 - the palm sugar ice-cream has quite a strong caramel and condensed milk taste. The grilled banana was way too young to be cooked so when it was cooked, still had that raw and green texture. Had it been a riper banana, it would be sweeter and more melting in the mouth.
seasonal English /Asian fruit plate £4.50 - a plate of fruits after dinner is just how it was in Asia - which is also seen as a luxury. In terms of the variety of Asian fruits it was brilliant with dragonfruit, jackfruit, longan, pomelo, rambutan, guava, mango and pineapple but the fruit themselves were not at their best because they were just not ripe enough so were not at their prime and the texture was not quite just right.
What Som Saa did well was they have proper cooking skills and a very good palate for flavours. Som Saa embraced the whole Thai essence from quite carefully thought out teas, beers and cocktails to fancy tableware to the street food style plasticware. It is still early days for the new Som Saa restaurant but they are well beyond their their pop up and residential days. read more