Kok Thai - Thai Restaurant in Helsinki
Restaurant: Kok Thai – Thai RestaurantAddress: Runeberginkatu 56
Telephone: 09 4548093
Internet:
Prices: Starting around 10 euros and climbing up to 20
Food: Tasty coconut milk dishes, spicy but sweet, great spring rolls, others average.
Service: Lousy, yet friendly
BACKGROUND
This night out didn’t start too well. There was this Italian guy that we were supposed to meet. We are waiting him to call, no call. We call to his hotel and there they say that he is already checked in, his room doesn’t answer. We go to the hotel, but it is no use, nobody knows where he is. We then start to look for a restaurant, we kept on walking along Runeberginkatu. It took forever, but there just didn’t seem to be any worthy restaurant to go. Finally we are about to exit Töölö and move on towards Pasila, huh no thank you, enough walking already. We get in to closest restaurant – Kok Thai. Now remember, you don’t have to walk all the way here, just take the tram number 3T from center and you are there in no time.
INTERIOR
Believe me, I had lot of time to ogle the interior design of this restaurant. It manages to distract your eye with all sort of cheapish glimmering things. I haven’t seen pictures of Royals in other restaurants of Helsinki, so this is either refreshing little quirk or then I need to get out more (yes, yes, yes those of you, who know me, are already sending me street maps so that won’t get lost as I get out from my little hole). Kok Thai has showed effort, I give them that. There are plants, those glimmering decoration items and music all in all ok package.
SERVICE
I had to go and get menus myself, go to counter to get my order in and ask checks from the counter by myself, didn’t bother to go to kitchen to actually make my food, so we waited about 20 minutes just to get the spring rolls to the table for heavens sake. By the way there were only one couple in the restaurant that hadn’t gotten their order, so definitely no queue with the orders. We waited for the main course for another 15 minutes after finishing the spring rolls. What is this? Do Thai restaurants have some secret sign language to get service?
PHONE CALL
Remember that Italian guy we were supposed to meet? It’s he, who is calling he has lost his luggage and had stayed at the airport for four extra hours to entangle the mess. Now he is only packing wallet, cell phone and the clothes he’s wearing – talking about travelling light. Beats me why the hotel personnel thought that he had already checked in. Italian guy decides to go and buy some personal items and then back to hotel to sleep. Welcome to Helsinki.
CROWD
I hope that other nights, customers aren’t like what we experienced. Two drunken groups were shouting and messing about while trying to speak Thai to get waitresses’ attention. I came close to loosing it, but on our neighbouring table three Korean (yes, I can distinguish Asian languages) teenagers were constantly so hilariously happy that I also forgot my bad temper as my food finally arrived.
FOOD
Food was so sweet and soft, yet spicy as hell. I considered ordering beer or something else to drink to help my palate, but none of my favourite beers were on the menu. The balance of beef and vegetables was bit off the mark, but coconut chicken soup was excellent. It made me tear at first, really surprised me as I had my guard down, but next mouthfuls were just pure enjoyment. We had ordered menu for two, because we wanted to eat quickly. If we had know the speed or slowness of this place, we would have taken our time to really order something special. Now we ended up having the worst stereotype sweet dessert - fried banana and ice cream. It turned out to be better than in most places I’ve had it.
posted by Jarkko @ Thursday, March 31, 2005
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