Nahm

[Kikujiro]

The talk about DT's book has brought Nahm back to mind, especially as a friend asked a few minutes ago for suggestions for high-end SE Asian dining in London. A quick search on the UK board brings back no recent detailed comments (although it did unearth Simon's very first eG post). Further, the older members reviews are as divided as the original newspaper writeups were. Anybody had a more recent experience there?

[Gary Marshall]

I went in december prior to the egullet lunch.

i will dig out the menu tonight but my memory of the night is not fond, it was very quiet, the staff although friendlier than i'd been led to believe didn't particularly explain the concept of what they were trying to achieve there (which i eventually discovered through the restaurnant magazine article on david thompson) so we were confused to be served our soup with our main courses for example.

it was all very hot & spicy too, not a massive problem but if you're not expecting it...

despite having a fairly sizable tasting menu we were in and out in about an hour.

so probably up there in simon's mirabelle league of most money/hour extracted.

cheers

gary

[Miss J]

it was all very hot & spicy too, not a massive problem but if you're not expecting it...

Oooh. Now I'm curious. I am SO tired of watered-down-chile-everything here.

Does anyone know if Nahm has a more affordable lunch menu?

[RickBehl]

Yes, there is a set lunch special, although I haven't tried it yet.

From another website:

>>>

Nahm

The Halkin Hotel,

Halkin Street SW1.

Tel: 0207 333 1234

Price: There is a set price for a traditional Thai meal 'nahm arharn' which costs £47.00 per person. There is also a 3 course set lunch for £22.50. However expect to pay at least £75 per head for dinner a la carte including wine. A discretionary service charge of 12.5% is added to the bill.

<<<

I seem to remember the set lunch costing slightly more than this when I was there for dinner once (and only once...), but not much more than that stated above.

I would be very interested to hear whether the quality and choice of food doesn't suffer on the cheaper option.

Rgds

Rick

[Winot]

Thought I'd bring this thread to the top as we've got a reservation there on 26 November.

So any recent visits?

I realise lots of you weren't that impressed but we thought we'd give it a go.

[Matthew Grant]

When it first opened i was very impressed indeed, I keep meaning to go back but recent reviews don't seem to have been as good.

[balex]

I went about a month ago. I found the service rather annoying since they clearly have no clue about the food at all.

The more exotic stuff was poor -- the waiter talked us into a venison curry: the sauce was good but the meat was way overcooked.

I hadn't been for a year or so. It was a last minute decision and they weren't very busy.

I hadn't been very impressed on my previous visits, but I had a really nice meal. They are trying to do something interesting with the food, with some good ingredients, and some good ideas. I felt they were slightly let down by the seasoning in some of the food, whcih wasn't properky balanced. But go -- it's not earth shakingly good, but where is? And choose the stuff that sounds more boring.

[cachan]

We went there for a Sunday dinner in October and had the Arharn menu.

The dishes were varied and tasty and seemed quite authentic, it was not a disappointing experience.

The waiter was able to inform us on the dishes.

[Winot]

Thought I'd bring this thread to the top as we've got a reservation there on 26 November. 

So any recent visits? 

I realise lots of you weren't that impressed but we thought we'd give it a go.

←

Quick report back -- we were impressed with the food (on the whole) but thought the service a bit lacking for a 1*. No disasters, but slight lack of competence, from the lack of staff to show you to your table (plenty of staff, but obviously not in the right place in the hierarchy) to there being no one around to fetch coats at the end.

We had the tasting menu, which is slightly complicated but works well. For £49 you get the same no-choice starter each (scallops in a coconut and chlli sauce on a bed of basil), then a choice of five dishes between you from a la carte menu, one from each of the five sections, which are brought together with rice. You then get a choice of dessert each.

We had:

- foie gras and oyster salad

- red curry of quail dumplings

- seared spicy venison with nam pla type sauce

- crispy pork curry with tamarind, green beans and duck eggs

- smoked fish and coconut soup (we were given a bowl each)

- fresh fruit inc. watermelon, saspadillo (sp?), pomelo, pineapple, mango

- fresh jackfruit with jackfruit dumplings and jackfruit custard

There wasn't anything we didn't enjoy, although the venison wasn't really successful and I couldn't taste the quail in the dumplings. Spicy was pretty assertive (in common with the recipes we've tried in DT's book) and I was snobbishly left wondering how it played with the Eurotrash hen party that had turned up in the stretch Lincoln. I had assumed that the tasting menu would be sequential rather than it being brought together - don't know why, put it down to occidentalism - and was surprised at how large the portions were.

With a couple of glasses of house champagne (bit steep at £12.50 -- a half bottle would have only been £4 more) and a good German spatlese at £44, the total bill came to £190 for two including service. Not cheap then, but as noted upthread, Nahm is one of a kind, and I suspect we'll be back.