Thai Garden Restaurant, Rothwell, Northants

I love Thai food but it's not the easiest cuisine to track down outside of the big cities and tends to be ridiculously expensive if it's any good. The nearest good restaurant to us which offers good Thai food is the Thai Garden in Rothwell. My husband and I have been many times and I've also taken business guests there - especially ones from India, Sri Lanka and China who like things a little less 'bland' than your average hotel food.

...passing.

The Thai Garden is on Market Hill - opposite the car park and close to the zebra crossing. From the front it looks like any other small shop. The sign over the door tells you that it serves Thai, Malaysian and Chinese food.

What's it like inside?
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To be honest, it's looking a bit tired and jaded. It's got the look of any small town oriental restaurant that hasn't been decorated ... more

I love Thai food but it's not the easiest cuisine to track down outside of the big cities and tends to be ridiculously expensive if it's any good. The nearest good restaurant to us which offers good Thai food is the Thai Garden in Rothwell. My husband and I have been many times and I've also taken business guests there - especially ones from India, Sri Lanka and China who like things a little less 'bland' than your average hotel food.

Where is it?
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Rothwell is a small historic market town in Northamptonshire. You can find it easily - it's just off the A14 about half way between Market Harborough and Kettering. 'At last' you may be thinking 'a possible reason to stop on a mind numbing stretch of the A14'. I don't know the junction numbers (in fact, I think the A14 is a little lax in its numbering) but if you leave at the A6 turn off and follow the signs, you can't go too far wrong.

Rothwell itself is worth a visit - not a long one, I'll admit, but it's a nice little place and it even has its own website - http://www.rothwelltown.co.uk - which is currently promoting the highlights of the local vegetable show which took place over a month ago. I think that tells you quite a lot about the sleepy pace of the place. Despite being small it has a few little independent shops as well as a small Tesco's and Co-op and some excellent restaurants. Have a look at the church whilst you are passing.

The Thai Garden is on Market Hill - opposite the car park and close to the zebra crossing. From the front it looks like any other small shop. The sign over the door tells you that it serves Thai, Malaysian and Chinese food.

What's it like inside?
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To be honest, it's looking a bit tired and jaded. It's got the look of any small town oriental restaurant that hasn't been decorated for a while - lots of plastic plants, pictures of the 'motherland' and other odds and ends of tat.

When you first enter the bar is to one side and a seating area to the other. They use the seating for their take-away customers or, if you are waiting for other members of your party to show up, you can sit and nibble some prawn crackers and have a drink whilst you wait.

There is a lot of too-ing and fro-ing with the take-away customers so I prefer to have a table further back in the restaurant. There are three main seating areas - the area near the bar, a middle room and a back room. They are all interlinked. The back room is nearest the kitchens and has a weird double storey layout - basically, someone removed the ceiling and the floor above to create a sort of cheesy vaulted effect.

There are only about 15-20 tables in the entire restaurant so it's always busy. We had a 7 pm booking on a Friday and by 7.30pm there was only one table not being used. Book ahead - it fills up quickly.

The staff, as far as I can make out, is mostly Malaysian or Chinese. The waitresses wear the traditional Malaysian Chinese two piece suit. If there are any Thai staff, I suspect they are in the kitchen.

Time to Eat
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We had a table for two and were offered drinks and crackers as soon as our bums hit the chairs. I drew the short straw so it was diet Coke for me and bitter for my husband. We took about 10 minute checking out the menu and then ordered:
* Soup - Tom Yum Boh Taak (spicy seafood soup) for me and a less spicy crabmeat and sweetcorn for Mr Kosh.
* A single portion of Tod Mon Pla (Thai Fish Cakes) to shareAnd for the main course:

• Thai chicken curry for hubby
• Prawns with cashews and dried chillis for me
• Bean curd with Chilli and Thai sweet basil - to share
• Boiled rice.

You'll have noticed that all our choices were Thai - but there are plenty of Chinese or Malaysian options if you prefer. They have the usual classics like crispy duck with pancakes, as well as dishes like Szechuan and Cantonese (Chinese), Satay and Gado Gado (Indonesian), Singapore noodles (Singapore) and Rendang (Malaysian). I can't comment on those because I love Thai too much to dilute my choice with anything else.The Service
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** Giving your order - they pounce on you quite quickly - if you need longer, tell them. I've had experience in the past of being with people who didn't know what they wanted and finding we ended up having what the owner thought we should have. I don't mind a little advice but I won't be told what to eat. If you choose badly, he will tell you and may make suggestions. That's OK with me - I don't want to order something that's clearly not going to work together.

** The jokes
The owner will almost certainly bring you a finger bowl to use after you've eaten your crackers. He will call this 'lemon soup' and giggle. It happens nearly every time!

** The food arrives
I had in mind that we'd eat our soup and then share the fish cakes. The restaurant didn't! The fish cakes swam out just a couple of minutes before the soup. I like things a little slower ideally but I can't grumble about their efficiency.

You get three fish cakes in a portion - they are fat and juicy and come on a bed of lettuce that will be rapidly wilting on the burner. Never mind, they don't last long when we have them and let's be honest, you didn't go to eat lettuce did you?

My soup is as spicy, tangy and fragrant as I hoped for. Hubby's Chinese soup is too bland for me but he seems to like it. I almost choked on a piece of Thai basil and had to guzzle some coke to dislodge it. Otherwise the Tom Yum soup was just as aggressive and challenging as I expected and hoped for.

The main courses arrive about 5 minutes after we've cleared the starters - you know that this restaurant needs to get two sittings out of each table on a busy Friday or Saturday night. They are a little more relaxed if you go during the week.

Considering that rice is SO cheap, I am always amazed at how small the portions are. The three main courses are all generously sized and there are not complaints. The beancurd is that lovely fibrous type that fries up to the consistency of fried bread - yum. My prawns are big and juicy and have been shelled already - so no greasy fingers. Hubby's curry is mild enough to stop him crying but has enough taste and complexity to entertain the taste buds (oh boy, sorry, that sounded SO corny). I don't eat meat but I have to try a spoonful of his sauce just to make sure.

By this time we've each polished off our second pint of beer or diet coke and almost all the food. Hubby gets a slight telling off from the owner for not eating his okra - I love it, he doesn't.

We are too full for pudding or coffees. If we weren't we could have had a choice of banana fritters, toffee banana, toffee apple, ginger in syrup, Thai custard or some odd Thai fruits. I can't be doing with lychees - they look like eyeballs to me and some of the other 'exotic' fruits make me want to gag. We ask for the bill instead.

** Paying
The bill arrives - it's just over an hour since we arrived at the restaurant. They might get another two sittings out of our table tonight! The total cost for the food is about £35 and the drinks were another £12 - for two cokes and two pints, I think that's a bit steep. We get fortune cookies which we elect to take away and roll out of the restaurant, too full to even accept the mint imperial offered at the door.

The Thai Garden isn't cheap - if you drink wine and have puddings you can easily pay £80 for a couple which is a lot for a poorly decorated and not very classy looking restaurant. But in our area it's so far and away the best Thai that nobody really seems to mind.

Take Away
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If I vary my route home from work slightly, I can pass the Thai Garden. On the odd occasion when there's nothing in the fridge or I can't face cooking, I drop in. I should phone ahead - they tell me that each time - but I work about 45 minutes away and always fear the food would be cold by the time I get it home (another 15 mins). So I turn up, have a drink and order a soup and a main course. They always throw in a bag of crackers to add to the mountain of them that I've already eaten whilst I'm waiting. Take-away prices are 10% below the eat-in prices if you spend over £10 - I usually spend about £12. I sometimes thing the portions on take-away are less generous than when you eat in.

Sunday Buffet
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I've never been but apparently they do a Sunday buffet. I tried to book once but it was full two weeks in advance.

Booking
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Be sure to book! And if you can't get in, try the Han in Market Harborough - it's bigger, it's only Chinese but the food is great there as well.

Thai Garden Cuisine
3 Market Hill
Rothwell
Kettering
Northants
NN14 6EP

Tel - 01536 712345
Fax - 01536 714010

And finally…… there's no garden!  

...less