Champor-Champor – eaten and reviewed

Trying to avoid the tempation for another Indian stye, curry for three months in a row I decided that I could temper my curry fest by switching continents and heading off to Thailand for the delights of Champor-Champor. First things first I have no idea how I got the idea that this was a Thai restaurant because it isn’t! Instead the food was described as Malay (which seems to be a grab bag of all southern Asian food) and while spicey is much more than just curry!

To summarise

To waffle

Being one of the few local restaurant I had not yet been to and this being because I was never too sure where it was! However armed with an A to Z (I didn’t actually need it but it clearly calmed my nerves) I found it rather easy – infact easy in many ways; the location was easy to find, the decor inside was very easy on the eye (if not a bit crazy to be sitting underneath a 3D model of a cows head) and the prices were very easy on my wallet :>

The menu is arranged into three courses with the addition of a rather bizarre “inter-course” option (one that I and Gemma decided not to take them up on) from which you choose from to make up your three course meal (or if you are a wimp two courses). Normally I am not one for a “set menu” but really this provided the best of both worlds as the options ALL looked pretty darn good. After a bit of thinking and discussing with Gemma what we should have I went for:

• Free canapes and bread!
• Deep-fried froglegs with shitake mushrooms and truffle oil sauce
• Pan fried coriander seed crusted veal chop; cauliflour puree and taro chips
• Bread, pumpkin and butter pudding with custard and lemongrass ice cream

All my courses we very nice indeed but also got better as the meal went on – the starter was very nice, the main very very nice and the pudding was incredible – I have always said that I am not too much of a pudding man but the mixture of the sugar sweetness of the ice cream and custard and the sweet/savoury taste of the pumkin was awesome; it was pretty filling but I certainly could have ate more! If I have one complaint it would be that while very decedant looking the cutlery couldn’t cut something if their ‘lives’ depended on it – but I don’t eat cuterly was hey, its not a biggie!

As I have said the decor of this place is pretty crazy (check-out the photo’s on their site) but equally interesting, I don’t know what would have happened if the cow’s head had fallen off the wall but it didn’t so all went well. Its not a tiny place but certainly not that big either – weekend booking would always be a good idea and yeah, going there would also be a very good idea, I’ve not seen many menu’s or restaurants like it before (and I’d say thats a good thing!)

Tags food, London restaurants, Champor-Champor, restaurant reviews, Thai food