Tom Yum

Preface to this: I have little authority on Thai cuisine. Despite my frequent trips to SE Asia, I’ve managed to avoid going to Thailand to this point and so I can’t vouch for authenticity etc. I enjoy Thai food, but I never fell in love with it as many people have and tend to go to Thai places a few times a year. Anyway, with that out of the way…
I was surprised when Tom Yum opened, given the competition across the road (a place which I tried and didn’t think much of when it opened). However, it seems to be pretty busy most lunchtimes and evenings, so it’s doing pretty well for itself. The menu here is pretty standard, there’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary here (that’s not necessarily a bad thing), but they do some interesting specials such as giant sizzling prawns.
We ordered salt and pepper squid, soft shell crab, dumplings, and tom kha soup for starter. The starters were fine, nothing special but I was happy enough. Then the soup. Hmm. The soups come served in thick, ceramic bowls over a candle (the top of the bowl seems to be cold, mind). It’s nicely presented, I’ll give them that. I just didn’t like my soup very much: it was too thick and I didn’t like the balance of flavour — the sweet and sour elements were present (a bit sweet for me), but I didn’t really taste much else. All in all, it was a little bit sickly for me.
For the mains, I had a Massaman curry and some green veg with sticky rice. The curry had a lot of the same problems as the soup, it was just too thick and whilst the flavour was strong, I found it distinctly unbalanced and lacking in depth. I mean, it’s fine, it just became a bit of a chore to finish, unfortunately.
All in all, it’s a shame as I wanted to like the place. The staff are nice and all, but I just didn’t like the food very much. I guess I never expected much going in, but it just wasn’t particularly enjoyable (and I don’t mind eating food that’s just fine whatsoever). Maybe it was just a bad day, but I can’t imagine myself going back in a hurry.