We ended up here by chance, mostly because it was the least busy of all the places we tried to visit on a very busy night. The environment seemed a little bit, umm.. let's say.. scattered. There appeared to be objects in hallways, construction on the bar in process with hammering while we were eating, and in general a sense of disorganization. However, the service and the meal were a very pleasant surprise. The food was authentic, tasty, with the spices and aromas you come to expect when you visit a street restaurant in Bangkok. The staff was friendly, helpful, and engaging, and did a great job. I'd certainly go back here! read more

Suda - Gluten free menu - Thai Near Me - London, XGL

All show no go! The food was average and our server Nash was beyond bad. On the line of rude. Unfriendly and curt. My meal was super hot with spices. I had a hard time eating it. I will not go here again. With so many other choices this is not one to pick. So much for my first day in London. read more

Suda - View from our sit - Thai Near Me - London, XGL

The food was decent. Really good place for vegetarians as there's plenty of choice on the menu. Seabass was pretty nice but you need to get rice to accompany it. It's not included in the dish which is annoying. A little bit in the pricey side I feel. Apart from that the staff are nice and the place feels very modern. read more

Suda - Small bites: Sweetcorn cake, filo prawn, prawn skewer and fish cake - Thai Near Me - London, XGL

See all

Suda Thai is smack bang in the middle of St Martin's Courtyard in Covent Garden and I came here for my second meal (i.e. it's free!) through Cityhawk. There is a lunch menu costing £10.95 for two courses, and we picked the Thai Style Calamari, Lemongrass golden fried chicken wings as starters, and you also get free Thai Crackers if you like them on facebook. All three came with a sweet and sour dip. Although the calamari was average, the 3 chicken wings were very meaty and also very hot (heat wise, not chilli wise), which I really liked. For mains we had Chicken thai green curry with rice and I believe I had the Stir-fried chicken in chilli & basil sauce with rice (unsure - see photo). I only had two pieces of chicken, albeit quite large, one potato and one onion in my sauce which came in a small bowl on top of a plate of food. The taste was ok although I needed more sauce for the rice!! The decor is very chic and polished, this place would be good for business lunches and in fact we saw a lot of people who obviously came to eat from the office, or tourists coming to eat in between shopping. The one lamentation is that they do not have a dedicated receptionist at the front and you may be left there to wait and may even get annoyed that no-one is greeting you at the door, leaving you to stand there in uncertainty. I spoke to CityHawk about this and they said that usually the manager would do the meet and greet upon arrival. I believe they should really improve on this because the manager is not there all the time and not only were we left there to wait impatiently, but we saw several groups of people doing so likewise during our brief one hour lunch stay. We also had problems with our Cityhawk booking which was supposed to give us the free meal but the manager had to go upstairs and check their email, before getting the bill and telling us we had to pay £10. We had to show them our cityhawk email before he would let us go! This is the first time I've had this experience, and I hope they do get this issue sorted out in future because I do not like being treated like a thief!! Decent food, but nothing exceptional here. You will definitely be full though from just a starter and a main course here. read more

See all

This place is tucked away in the strip behind Jamie's kitchen in seven dials. There's an upstairs, which I didn't see - that may be better than the downstairs - since it appeared that most that knew the place immediately headed up there. I went around 3pm on a Saturday - and for an off-time it seemed to have a very good crowd. Here were my ups and downs: Overall: The food was a mixed bag - from good to not so good. The service was bad, though it picked up towards the end. The decor was okay - and as good for families as for dates. Didn't really feel that I got a great value for my money - probably won't return. Ups: - If you want it, they have a Pre-theatre menu that runs at about 15 pounds including a glass of win. - The decor is pretty nice - sort of dark cool meets thai. - The Tom Yum Soup has a great spicy broth and very big well-cooked prawns in it. Although, the serving size was relatively small and they use cheap white mushrooms in it. - They have a full bar that includes 16 reasonably priced wines by the glass. Downs: - They are understaffed and it shows. Though my server was nice... it took forever to get basics like water (why doesn't the person who brings you your silverware - just bring a pitcher of water for the table so you get around this?), took a long time for my order to be replaced, to get refills on water, for the food to come, etc. - I tried two small plates as well - some housemade dumplings (come swimming in a chili oil sauce - the sauce was good, the dumplings themselves were small and lacked flavor), and the chicken satay - hearty portion, but they were a little dry and the peanut sauce had an odd spice in it I couldn't place that didn't fit my palette. - They don't accept apply pay. read more

Suda - Thai Near Me - London, XGL

See all

If you are a Thai fan like myself...please go and dine at Sudai Thai cafe. This place ticks A lot of boxes...atmosphere ambience food service cleanliness wine I picked this place for a catch up with old work colleagues, and as I am mostly right with most places, Sudai Thai, didn't disappoint. My friends and I were very happy, especially as we had a vegetarian in our group, who gave it the thumbs up. I've been wanting to come here for a long time and happy to review it was worth the wait. The bill was pleasantly surprising for five of us, which included bottle of wine , starters and mains. I hope I can come back very soon! read more

See all

This is a aesthetically beautiful restaurant, but the food and service let us down. During our visit, the restaurant was packed, but only two waiters were handling about 20 tables. There was a woman, who looked like a manger, but she just stood at the bar looking bored. It took a while to place our drink order and again a while to get our drinks. I ordered a cocktail (Strawberry Lovers) that had strawberries and champagne in it, and it tasted good except for the fact that it was room temperature. Thai food is by far my favorite cuisine, so this was a bit of a let down. We ordered Tom Kha (Tom Kha Gai) soup, which is supposed to be spicy, but theirs was bland. I ordered Pad See Ew (Guay-Teow Pad See-Iew Gai), and it looked beautiful, but again, it was bland, and the noodles were overdone. read more

See all

I was really, REALLY impressed with SUDA. I occasionally travel to London on business, and me and a colleague decided to stay for dinner instead of facing rush hour. We were walked from pretty much Leicester Square to the Restaurant door, we were greeted immediately, seated immediately, and served immediately. The food didn't take long to come from the kitchen (we were assured it was authentic), and it tasted amazing! The price was brilliant for Central London, and whenever I'm in Covent Garden, I'm coming here again ! I look forward to it:) read more

Suda - Thai Near Me - London, XGL

See all

Such a great place that has PLENTY of options for vegetarians. For our group of 4, service was quick and everything was delicious. The best cocktails I had while staying in the UK, I had the Suda Passion, highly recommend. Best decision we made was to order pad thai for the table. it was very good and not greasy. It was a rainy & humid afternoon so I wished it was a bit cooler inside but we survived. I tried my friend's fishcakes that were a bit dry but the sweet corn cakes?!? THE. BEST. read more

Suda - Thai Near Me - London, XGL

Saw this place randomly while hanging out with a friend. Thought we'd give it a try. Looked great. Service was lovely. Food was tasty. I ordered the Pad Thai with Grilled Chicken. My friend ordered a Masaman Chicken Curry. The food came fast and looked great. It tasted pretty good but I had a feeling.... as I do sometimes... and asked the server if they used MSG in their cooking? The answer was yes. He said that they don't add it, but it's already in the preprepared ingredients. - So, if you do want fresh food prepared wholey onsite, do not eat here. If you don't want to eat a harmful chemical called MSG, do not eat here. I find it ironic that legally all food labels have to say if theirs MSG in the ingredients, but restaurants don't have to tell you, unless you ask (and I've been lied to before). Ultimately, if you want tasty food for reasonable west end pricing, in a nice environment with nice service, and don't really care about what you're actually eating... I highly recommend. read more

Am surprised by the general negative reaction to Suda. Yes it's style is completely hollow and has less to do with comfort than going for a 'look' that doesn't really have any purpose. But we've been a few times and have enjoyed the food a lot. The service is friendly and open. Cocktails are probably one of the better ones in London (a good mix between potency and taste). And the food is also of the better variety for Thai in London. Definitely better than its sister restaurant, Patara, in Soho and it's cheaper. read more

For a minute I thought Gordon Ramsay would walk out of the kitchen apologizing for how completely inept they are here. I made the mistake of going here for lunch today. The food seems alright, but at this pace I could have hopped a flight to Asia to get it from there. It's not just the speed of the kitchen which is glacial but the bar, wait staff, and even the air seems to move slowly in this place. Not a place to go on lunch break often if you're interested in keeping your job. I've been here nearly 40 mins and still no stir fry.. I mean.. It's stir fry. Wtf! P.s when I finally got the food it was... Wait for it... Cold! read more

Visited last night unsure of where to go for drinks. My friend had recommended the cocktails here and she was right.. they were delicious and not too strong. The staff were friendly and the service was quick. We enjoyed it so much we decided to stay on for dinner. Suda has quite a vast menu with pictures to help. With two cocktails, two mains and two sides the total came to a total of £50. I ordered the seafood rice bowl with the only downside being that it was too dry. Nevertheless, an enjoyable evening. read more

In an area rife with tourist traps, I'd say Suda is pretty solid. Now, would I deliberately make the journey to intentionally go to Suda on the regular? Probably not. In fact, we ended up here because the wait for Dishoom was well over an hour. It's got trendy decor, it's gigantic. The services is not great, but not bad. And the food is decent. Tasty even. But it just seemed to be lacking... something. Perhaps "authenticity" is the word I'm looking for. I've never been to a Thai restaurant that had little wooden goats/cows/donkeys on every table with a £25 price tag hanging 'round its neck, for example. Hmm. That being said, I ordered a lemongrass chicken wing starter and some sea bass sitting in red curry sauce. Both were fairly tasty. I don't have any gripes about the food except perhaps that maybe the sea bass was on the edge of a little fishy which leads me to believe it wasn't the freshest fish ever. But the red curry sauce was fantastic and more than made up for it. I dumped all my rice into the plate after said fish had been consumed to mop up all the spare curry. The price was a bit more than it probably should be, but that's kinda to be expected in the Covent Garden/Leicester Square area. Consider Suda if you're in the area and need an escape from the regular tourist trap. Otherwise, eh. It's ok. read more

Me and my wife loved this place. The Kao soi (Chang Mai chicken curry in coconut cream was amazing, so flavoursome with with fantastic spices. She had the Name Prik Noom Sebass was fantastic too. Very authentic! We will definitely come back here again many, many times! read more

Bad service! The food was average. They gave us the wrong order, and when I ordered Thai Iced Tea, the waiters gave us something else. Bad mistake! read more

Suda - Thai Near Me - London, XGL

The main highlight Suda Thai has to offer has to be its fantastic variety of fresh fruit shakes and fruit cocktails. Each of these delicious drinks are concocted with a fresh blend of fruit and decorated with a slice or stem of the fruits themselves. The service and decor of the restaurant are also noticeably well attended to and pleasant. In fact the food itself seems rather complementary to the other factors rather than a highlight itself. The food is well presented and attempts to incorporate flavour, colour and variety in every dish but in reality it reaches better than average but not great heights. For example, the chicken wings are not marinated with flavour, so whilst they are golden, meaty and well cooked inside, the only flavour comes from the sweet chilli dip that accompanies it. The vegetarian rice wraps had uniquely differing textures, good colour and crispy ingredients but again was lacking in flavour and only fully enjoyable with the dip alongside them. I have had 2 different curries on separate occasions from Suda Thai and both yielded the same results of being palatable but the meat a bit too chunky and dry to be perfect. So all in all the combination that Suda Thai provides, of which the drinks are exceptional and the discount menus a worthwhile temptation has already warranted me to visit this restaurant 3 times within the past few months. Refreshing and subtle; a satisfying visit each time as long as you're not looking for a heavy meal. read more

See all

We were roaming in search for a food joint because dishoom and the Mexican restaurant near it was crowded. Found this thai place. There is not so much veg here as I would like ( I am a fan of yellow and masamum curry ) but to my surprise both the ice tea and veg pad thai were very good. The other veg dish had little curry to be eaten with rice which surprised us but we made do. Overall liked the ambience and food was good read more

Having returned to Suda Thai a number of times since my first visit it would only be fair to downgrade the rating to 3 possibly even 2. Both due to the decline in the standard of food but particularly the drinks. Previously the fruit shakes were fresh and flavourful, these are now bland and contain considerably more blended ice than any fresh fruit causing the drink to separate. read more

2 years ago when it was first opened, I wanted to have my birthday there but ended up going somewhere else. 2 years later my friend decided to celebrate her birthday there. It is in a very nice location and a very trendy atmosphere. The service is a bit slow but it didn't bother us because we don't want to be rushed and would rather be left alone once order is taken and food is served. The cocktails were really good. I have to recommend the Butterfly Kiss. It was delicious! Everyone else were also pleased with their cocktails. We saw a sign towards the end of the night by the toilet that if you check in on Facebook, you'd get a free Thai Iced Tea. So we all go our free Thai Iced Tea... happy days for us! The food was delicious too. The portion was right and the level of chilli for certain dishes were good. It wasn't watered down. One thing we always do is to test out their chicken satay and if a Thai restaurant failed to make a good chicken satay, we would have no hope in the rest of the food! But it didn't fail us :) Although some people had a bad experience here, I'd come here with a group of people as we had a really good time. The price is the usual West End/Busaba price and yes you can get cheaper Thai food elsewhere but a little treat to Suda Thai for a celebration is ok. read more

Beef Basil was very good, wonderful flavor and just right on the heat. The chicken Satay...not so much. It was dry and the dipping sauce bland. Service was good and the staff friendly. read more

One of my favourite Thai restaurants in London! Service is great and very fast and lots of space so great for evening parties or a quick lunch. The biggest plus for me here is the variety of non-alcoholic drinks available. I don't like the taste of alcohol and I am often only left with either soft drinks or orange/apple juice at many other places. The drinks menu is delicious, I have tried almost all of the smoothie/non-alcoholic cocktails there, and they are all yummy! Chicken Satay is one of my favourite dishes and many Thai restaurants in London have got it wrong, or have overly westernized such a simple dish. Suda Thai does a great job with this. I have been many times and will continue to do so. I have also recommended to many of my friends who have all enjoyed going. read more

We came here with their 2 courses for £10 deal. The place was very nicely decorated. Food and derive was good. Really like the refreshing smoothies. read more

See all

A modern Thai Restaurant with excellent service & absolutely outstanding food. It is the only Restaurant outside Chiangmai, Thailand that serves Kao Soi as it should be, with crispy noodles on top. chopped shallot, pickled mustard greens & chilli paste served separately so you can mix it to your own taste. read more

I have just walked out of this place after waiting half an hour and still not having my drink order taken. Ignored by the snail-paced waiters (in a near-empty restaurant) and then extremely rudely dismissed when I asked for some service. Can't review the food, never got near to it. Crap and rude service. I don't often walk out of a place but they were frankly taking the piss. read more

Very disappointing. I was expecting it to be fresh, tasty and fabulous but it was just a boring old thai which was overpriced even with the 50% off food. The duck roll house dish (£5.95) portion was terrible and the dish was served cold. Would have been nice to put this on the menu. Crab spring rolls had lots of cartiledge in them. Also, out of the 7 desserts on the menu, only ONE dessert was available. Waiters and waitresses also didnt know much about what was in the food but were quite smiley. Portions are small and its very bog standard thai food. The pad thai was tasteless and boring. The interior is pretty though and the setting is nice in the courtyard. Avoid. read more

I was here last week for a friend's birthday dinner. The restaurant is nicely decorated, friendly staff, the food is brilliant and reasonable price. Definitely I will go back. read more

The barely warm food was probably heated by their broken microwave that took them forever to prepare. Servers had strange and unfriendly attitudes. We asked for water at least 4 times, the server literally walked back and stood there like deers in headlight. If you like microwaved food and serving yourself while burning money (wasting), this is the place. read more

A great Thai restaurant tucked away in St Martin's Courtyard, the staff are extremely friendly and the food is lovely. We made the most of the lunchtime menu and had the chicken satay followed by green curry for approx £10. Generous portions and one of the best chicken satay I've tasted, none of your normal dry overcooked stuff on a stick. The only downside was that the mains were delivered to our table before we'd finished our starters. Overall, would definitely recommend. read more

Come back yesterday, the food seems as not good as before. I tried the lamb chop n it wasnt juicy as it used to be, the source was too sour. However, i still love the atmosphere and the design here. read more

Service was really bad. No attention paid to the table and we had to wave to call for the attention to get table service. That ruined everything, especially when the food was only so-so. It was also over-priced. read more

Food was subpar very average Thai food however it truly stands out as a terrible truly terrible service I actually had get up during meal and take a pitcher of water from the bar as the service was so very slow. Avoid read more

Very happy with this Thai joint...was in convent garden and was looking for a good Thai. The green curry and Thai basil/ chicken chilly garlic rice bowl was awesome, and so was the padgrapro. Didn't like the mixed satay so much. Service was awesome! read more

OK. It's not a promising start A newly spruced commercial 'quarter' opens out of the Covent Garden alley between disappointing up-market Mexican Cantina Laredo and Jamie's Italian, the latter begrudgingly acceptable but for the tourist horde on their daily pilgrimage. Led here by an old friend with prior knowledge, I wasn't feeling it as I walked through the glorified shopping centre and into the enormous black box of a restaurant. The feelings didn't dissipate as I waited in the puzzling space somewhere between a bar, a tourist information centre and a cattle barn. Enormous sacks of different types of Thai rice lie around, interspersed with Thai tourism brochures. Amiable staff mill around with odd cocktails and authentic costumes avoiding your eye, it's like being at giant tourism industry trade fair World Travel Market. Upstairs it's a little more like a restaurant, and a huge one at that. Light beech Carl Hansen chairs add an odd Scandinavian feel to an otherwise quite industrial barn of a space. The staff remain, upstairs many more to service the swathes of empty tables, rabbit in a headlight like gazes while zipping around the space. Suffice to say I'm already not looking forward to this. The menu goes someway towards allaying those fears. It's (very) cheap for the area and a relatively traditional menu in style. Starters shared included very good chicken satay, with its sticky and spicy peanut sauce covering soft smooth chicken, Thai style calamari and cigars of minced pork and prawn in wanton wrappers. Tastewise the spare ribs were fine, but the watery sauce didn't really work as a shared starter. I next went for a namtok ped som tum, country style duck served with som tum salad and sticky rice. A neat touch mentioned in the menu advises that you can have it as hot as you like, and, like a boy, I asked for the 'spicy' version. Som Tum salad is one of those fragranced specialities that I tend not to order in Thai restaurants, saving space for a hearty massaman curry instead, but here I'm glad I did. Green papaya salad, made with carrot, tiny dried shrimp, fish sauce and some firey chilli, I wouldn't recommend having it anything other than regularly spiced though, it cut through the rich fatty duck well, along with most of my faculty for taste. It's a shame that despite the 'Rice Bar' moniker and the Visit Thailand display downstairs, there weren't more different styles of rice. A rice tasting menu would have been amusingly different, though not likely to appeal to the legions of tourists and shoppers they need to get through the doors to sustain the location. read more

For complete review and photos, may I refer you to my blog http://hungryinlondon.com/2011/09/suda-rice-bar-covent-garden/ I will try to hold back and not spend 500 words telling you HOW bad the service was at the new Covent Garden Thai restaurants Suda Rice Bar (I went there in the soft opening period about a month ago after I had read the Skinny Bib's review). I am terribly delayed with my restaurant posts,so the HORRIBLE service I experienced might have improved by now. I hope it has really,otherwise Suda Rice Bar won't be around for much longer,let me tell you that much. Suda Rice Bar is one of these mixed restaurant/bar places which sometimes work but very often don'tThe interior is all about dark wood and little wood donkeys on the tables grazing on grass (see below). I spent the whole evening staring at them and wondering what the interior designer wanted to express. I still don't know if I like them or not. They are certainlyahmmm different? grazing donkeys @Suda From the name I expected the menu to be very rice oriented ,but in the end there were only 6 rice dishes on the menu,comparable to any other Thai restaurants. The menu does sound very interestingly though and there is certainly some divergence from the standard Thai fare on offer. This is hardly surprising considering that the masterminds behind Suda are the same people that are also involved with the high-end Thai restaurant chain Patara. Jumping on the small plate bandwagon,Suda Rice Bar also has a small platesection on the menu (they used to be called starters,right?). You will search in vain for greasy prawn toast or other fried monstrosities,but find light and creative fusion style dishes. The Crabmeat rolls (5.95) which were served drizzled with a sweet and tangy tamarind sauce were rather lovely. Less convincing was the pomelo salad (5.50). While the kaffir lime based sauce was gorgeous,I found it rather lazy to just dump some pieces of pomelo and some prawns on a plate without any additional ingredients. What about herbs? Chilli? Peanuts? Anything?? Green curry as a starter,sorry,as a small plate? Not a bad idea really,and the beef curry with rice cakes was the most convincing of the first course. However,Suda tries too hard to please its Western and potentially spice-phobic customers,as none of the dishes was even remotely spicy. Upon ordering we told the waitress that we wanted our dishes hot as one is supposed to be able to ask for 'Chilli on Demand'. This request appears to have never reached the kitchen(or was ignored there?). I love som tum,the famous spicy Thai green papaya salad,so I was more than intrigued by the 'Som Tum Bar' section on the menu. Apart from the conventional som tum,there were several other oriental salads to choose from. To go for the SUDA beef salad with lemongrass and chilli dressing was a mistake. Although the beef was generous and quite nicely cooked,I again resented the minimalistic approach to just lovelessly dump the meat on some leaves of supermarket bagged green salad. I thought the idea to serve pad thai with green papaya instead of noodles was ingenuous. Basically pad thai for people on carb free diet! In reality there is a reason why pad thai is usually served with noodles. The papaya variant semi-worked,but overall the warm green papaya just made the dish too watery and somehow odd-tasting. By far the best dish of the evening was the massaman curry. I usually never order this curry because it's not spicy enough for me and I am not keen on potatoes in curries either. It was something my dinner companions chose and I am glad they did:the beef was deliciously cooked,almost falling apart,and the sauce was full of wonderful rich flavours. I was terribly annoyed when apart from the banana fritters and the fruit salad,Suda had ran out of all dessert. They sounded very good,I love mange with sticky rice and I would have tried the taro balls in coconut cream. How can they run out of 4 desserts on your menu! They must have assumed that someone might actually order them? So there were some lovely dishes (the more authentic /classic ones) and questionable ones (the 'inventive'or fusion ones). Considering that it's not expensive and that we are not exactly spoiled with decent Thai restaurants in Central London,I might go back. This all depends however on whether Suda has managed to iron out the mistakes in their lazy cooking and presentation and to employ some waiters that actually succeed in looking after 2 tables without being completely out of their comfort zone. Otherwise it's just painful and not worth it. read more

Good location in the middle of covent garden and the interior is attractive and beautiful. Like their starters especially the chicken satay with peanut sauce. The beef curry was good as well but i really hope they can cut the beef smaller LOL. We had pad thai as well but Im not so sure about that. I dont know why but i just dont like the tofu in it. All the cocktail seem to be really cute and nice. We three people spent around 70 including drinks. read more

Nice staff. Excellent food. At 9 pm we waited 40 minutes for our appetizer they told us the ticket machine in the kitchen was broken so we asked them to skip our appetizer and we just had our meal. read more

I would give a negative star if I could. The service was absolutely bad. There was not much crowd and still the waitress took forever to take the order, bring the food or the check. Was charged £4 for the water even though we ordered just tap water. And to top it all a service charge was forcefully added in place of tips for serving a party of just two. Would NOT recommend this place to anyone. read more

Delicious food, great variety of vegetarian options. The service is a bit slow on a weekend night but they seem understaffed. I dont mind that much unless the food takes forever to come out when I'm starving. Nothing I'd particularly complain about and I'd be happy to return and try more of their vegetarian dishes. read more

This is an interesting place for a quick lunch or a coffee on my way to work. The service is fast and I can say these are the friendliest people I've seen. read more