Tongue Thai’d in Reigate
I thought I would jot down some lines about the arrival and our recent visit of Giggling Squid Thai restaurant in Reigate High Street.
Having had a look around the premises when it was still on the market I watched with interest over the months the issues Giggling Squid had with planning permissions, the discovery in their basement level of one of the many caves of Reigate and finally the refit and opening.
I have been to a Giggling Squid restaurant before (obviously not Reigate) so was au fait with their menu and style.
The interior has been beautifully refurbished and you can see where the money has been spent. The decor is lovely. Modern but warm & welcoming with lots of natural woods & materials, and with a few added quirky bits and pieces, like the tiffin boxes displayed on the shelves.
We paid a visit early on a Friday evening and were seated in the main area on the ground floor. There was one other couple in there. What the ‘Squid’ had in appearance, it lacked in the forethought of the ambiance when the restaurant floor is not so full and buzzing with conversation.
There was no light background music, it was in fact deathly quiet which made your own conversations uncomfortable feeling that you had to make them in a whisper.
We have eaten off a Giggling Squid tapas menu before and this time were eating of the main menu. Our choices were Salt and Pepper Squid and Yummy Duck Spring Rolls (yes, that’s the name of them on the menu!).
Both starters were very tasty with plenty of duck in the spring rolls & crispy vegetables. My squid, though very well cooked and in a light crispy batter, seemed to have had the ‘salt & pepper’ part of the Salt & Pepper Squid omitted and it was also rather chunky. Personally, I would prefer smaller pieces.
Onto the mains. Our choices were Lamb Shank Massaman Curry, Tamarind Duck, Jasmine Rice and what we though was Vegetable Pad Thai.
Everything did smell and look good when it arrived. The one thing you cannot fault Giggling Squid on is their presentation, every dish does look great.
The lamb did look like it had been slow cooked for hours, though there were signs that it may not have been as long as we thought as there were bits of fat and sinew that would normally have disappeared through a slow cooking process and it didn’t ‘drop’ off the bone.. That said the sauce was very tasty, though lacking in potatoes as it is traditionally a curry of meat and potato. Of the two potatoes on the plate, one was an onion in disguise!
This turned out to be best of the lot for our mains. the Vegetarian Pad Thai, which we misread as being a vegetable Pad Thai was very very bland and within the noodle dish were tasteless pieces of cold rubbery tofu.
I was most disappointed with my Tamarind Duck as I love Tamarind. The duck was quite dry and over cooked and lay on a bed of very wet white cabbage in large strips. The cabbage could not have been drained and my meal sat in a pool of cabbagey water and therefore no resemblance of a flavour of tamarind existed. I picked the duck off and ate that.
As we’re not ones to politely say that everything was fine when it wasn’t (it’s not fair on the chefs or the proprietors to do this), I mentioned my duck dish to the waitress. Unfortunately, her English was pretty poor and with a, “I show manager”, she trundled off. I saw the waitress and the person who I assumed was the floor manager for that area, swishing the plate around looking at it. The waitress returned and said, ” I not really know, I waitress”. Our plates were then cleared. We were then ignored for at least 10 minutes. Not asked if we’d like dessert or coffee. Feeling frustrated, I signaled to pay the bill.
The bill was brought over and we paid. Once payment had been made the server taking our bill then asked if everything had been OK. I said that I had complained about one of the dishes. To which the reply was simply, “Oh, sorry”, and then went away.
We were disappointed with our meal and we have had very nice meals at other venues. There is obviously a training issue here and of course there are always things that need ironing out with a new opening.
I have read tweets and other reviews that customers have made and a wee bit envious that their experience was better than ours but this does please me in that our experience may have been an isolated case.
Fingers crossed our return visit will put a a Thai smile on our faces.
On a side note: I have just perused the takeaway menu in case we choose to vary from our regular Thai take out from the River Kwai (across the road) and I am a little confused as to why the Lamb Massaman Curry and Tamarind Duck are both more expensive to take out than eat in. *scratches head*
Price: Starters & mains for two, plus a bottle of wine £69.00
