Address: Brixton Village, Coldharbour Lane Brixton, London

Website: https://www.kaosarnlondon.co.uk/brixton-restaurant

Telephone: 020 7095 8922

This Thai restaurant is named after the bustling street in Bangkok and has attracted a lot of interest over the years, including a review by us back in 2011 (see here). How time flies.

Choose during lock-down from Deliveroo or UberEats and, although the menu is short, most of the dishes are not your usual standard Thai – although there is a green curry. There are not many vegetarian meals – fish, chicken or lamb seem to be in most dishes. The romantic names of each dish are explained, thankfully, in detail so you don’t need to guess. The meal was delivered promptly from the Brixton premises – watching the progress of the meal on the app is fun in itself.

We ordered two starters, a couple of mains and what was badged as a salad, which turns out to be a main meal in itself plus some jasmine rice. The starters were Tod Mon Pla (spicy fish cakes with red curry & kaffir lime leaves, and sweet chilli sauce with cucumber & crushed peanuts) and Geaw Tod (no phonemic translation but was described as deep fried folio pastry with mixed prawn & chicken, served with chili sauce). We were not great fans of either although the pastry was proper crispy – our advice – skip the starters, as the main courses were really delicious.

The mains were Massaman Lamb curry, which was a mild  ragout in rich coconut curry sauce with potatoes & peanuts. A definite hit as the lamb was easy to eat and the chili heat mild, as we were about to hit chili heaven with the next dish. This was Pannang curry with chicken that is very popular, according to Deliveroo. We understand why, as it has multi-layers of flavour (vocabulary courtesy of Grace Dent) with a Pannang curry paste, coconut milk and shredded lime leaves. The warmth builds but never overwhelms and is absolutely fabulous and we know it will become a repeat order.

The salad wasn’t really necessary but it is a top favourite for one of us; so included in the order anyway. In the event not much of it was eaten that evening, but it turned into an excellent lunch the following day. Clean and fresh tasting with quite a bit of heat from the chilli and crunch from the peanuts.

Washed down with some Brixton beer from our very own kitchen off-licence. The whole meal for the two of us came to £52.95, plus a tip for the delivery rider, but this includes the leftovers for lunch the next day. Definitely one we will try again.