Try the under the sink toilet hand-grab at Busaba Eathai! (Busaba)

Member Name: MrsLim

Product:	Busaba
Date:	18/06/09 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great food, great price and can play pranks on the men through the hole in the toilets!

Disadvantages: No booking system, queuing and sitting with strangers

http://www.busaba.com/

To the disappointment of my husband, I class this as one of my all time favourite restaurants. However, I understand his disappointment. I'm not going to feed you with all the lovelies and niceties when I know that Busaba has it's nits. It's a either you absolutely love it or just like it restaurant, and strangely girls seem to be more fond of this restaurant than the guys.

Busaba - The Chain

Busaba is a Thai restaurant with three central london branches - Wardour Street in SoHo, Bird Street near Selfridges and Store Street near Tottenham Court Road. I have been to the Store Street and Wardour Street branch but in this review I will be concentrating on the Wardour Street branch as this is Busaba's flagship branch.

I understand from previous reading that Busaba was set up by the famous restauranteur, Alan Yau, of Wagamama, Hakkasan and Yauatcha fame. Thus, expect a bit of poncy-ness, great tasting food and decent prices.

The Setting

When I first ate at Busaba my immediate impression was "Wow, very Sex in the City". The black and brown colour scheme draws me in and it reminds me of the deep woody furniture which is a prominent feature in the far east. There is incense burning, golden buddha statutes praying, lotus flowers floating - all very zen. Everything screams far east except for the staff which is a mixture of cultures (a bit like what you see at Wagamama). So for all those that judge the authenticity of a restaurant by the ethnicity of its staff, you'll be very confused and right to deduce that there is not a single Thai person working here, so will the food be Thai enough?

Wardour Street, SoHo

Right, firstly, you cannot book a table and it is always busy, so that means, you have to queue. The queue forms outside of the restaurant, right next to the diners that are sat by the window. This is bad - for the diners because random strangers are watching you scoff your food and for the random strangers because you get desperately hungry from watching all that food go down someone's throat! However, queue movement is pretty fast and if you're a couple, you usually don't have to wait for more than 10 minutes before you're ushered in. You're always given a menu to look at when you're waiting so by the time you get in, you can order immediately. The only tip I can give in terms of missing the queue for dinner is to get down to the restaurant at the very latest 7pm, after that you'll definitely be in the queue waiting to be seated.

Secondly, the restaurant operates on a table share scheme. You sit around a large 10 people square table on large wooden benches and are expected to budge up. There is enough room to not feel like you're sitting on someone's lap, but you have to be prepared to sit next to a stranger. The only gripe I have with this is the lack of space to dump your personal belongings. If you sit at the right table on the right side, you may be fortunate to have a coat rack behind you but if you're not, you usually have to resort to just kicking your bags and coats underneath the table, and yes, that includes your precious Gucci!

Food

Service is super quick and I've never had a problem. Like Wagamama, your waiter will always be smiling and might even fool you in thinking you've known each other for ages!

The food also comes super quick. Portions are not particularly large but are all very filling. The food wont blow you away and I've never been to Thailand so cannot compare it with real authentic Thai food. However, I think the food tastes delicious!

I always have the same dishes - Green Curry Fried Rice (green curry fried into delicious yasmine rice and grilled chicken on the side with a drizzle of green curry and honey sauce) and tamarind chicken wings (grilled chicken wings with a tangy sweet tamarind dipping sauce). I tried other dishes but my favourite is by far the aforementioned dishes.

Green Curry Fried Rice - I adore this dish! The rice is fluffy and full of flavour (I can always taste the strong galangal and lemon grass). The green curry really seeps through and is enough to just flavour the rice and not drown it. It also has a kick but not too much of it. The chicken is beautifully grilled, although on some occasions I've had overly grilled chicken that was near charcoal but overall, it's been great most of the time. The honey and green curry sauce over my chicken is the best bit - it is sweet and full of flavour. I definitely can have this dish every day.

Tamarind chicken wings - This is actually really easy to make at home but I do enjoy splurging on this when I'm at Busaba. The best part is the sauce - it is tangy, slightly sour, full of chilis and a hint of sweetness. The flavours just dance around my mouth and all the exotic flavours really come through. Absolutely delicious!

Toilets

You might be thinking, why am I reviewing the toilets. I don't normally review toilets in restaurant reviews unless they are dire or completely unique. Luckily, Busaba's toilets are utterly unique and must be mentioned.

Upon going downstairs to the toilets, you'll be presented with a challenge. There are no "normal" signs indicating which toilet are male or female. Instead there are symbols on two doors - one looks like an "i" and on the other, a wonky "i". On my first visit, I must have stood there for about 2 minutes wondering which one to go through but luckily for me, a man came out of one of them so I took the decision that I should go through the other door! The answer to the conundrum is this - the "i" looks like a man standing up going for a pee so that's the mens' toilets and the wonky "i" looks like a woman squatting over the toilet so that's the ladies' toilets!

Another quirk of the toilets was discovered when I went to wash my hands. I couldn't find the handwash and after a good search saw that it was in front of me, in the sink. As I went to reach for a squirt, a pair of very manly looking hands grabbed it! To my horror, I realised that the sink had an opening at about torso height. I looked down through the hole and lo and behold, I could see the men's toilets! Of course I didn't stare too long but when I suddenly saw my husband's hand reaching for the handwash, I quickly grabbed his hands! And yes, a little scream from the other side of the wall was heard! Very funny - highly recommended for pranks if you're as childish as me!

Overall:

A meal at Busaba for two minus the alcohol will set you back about £20 and that's decent considering it's central London. Toilet quirks aside, I think this is a great restaurant and every so often I do manage to convince my husband to queue up with me and sit with strangers, so he must like it to some extent.

Summary: Great delicious food and great prices!