PhuThai Esarn Restaurant

Rating: 2

We ate dinner here in June 2026.

Khao soi chicken
Tofu pad Thai

When Business Andy came here for a work do a couple of years ago, he wasn’t that impressed. He had a great time, but he also drank far too much soju - perhaps this was a contributing factor. At any rate, two years later PhuThai Esarn Restaurant is still here, and continues to meh.

The Fee-Rex is a sucker for a pad Thai, even though many of them are only so-so, as was the case here. Also massive points off for some of your tofu being cold, a most unwelcome surprise. The khao soi just didn’t have an awful lot going on. There was some chilli oil on the side you could add to spice things up, but this was just bringing heat without doing anything for flavour. While the chicken was of acceptable quality, some crispening would have gone a long way to improving this dish.

We also boldly ordered two cocktails. We don’t normally bother with cocktails when a place only lists a handful of bog standards (pina colada, dark & stormy etc). However, PhuThai had a couple which sounded interesting - one made with Thai milk tea and another a play on a Mai Tai. These were disappointingly poor, and despite their simplicty took forever to make, arriving after our food. Also they contained short straws only 2.5mm longer than the drink, and shorter than the glass once they fell into the stupid divot in the centre. This meant at best you had to fish in with your fingers to get it, at worst it was fully submerged in the Mariana Trench.