It seems fitting that my first review is based on my first ‘invite’ (complimentary meal). This was a pretty big deal for me – no such thing as playing it cool, my friend and I who went were embarrassingly excited.

Located in Chinatown, Chalida describes itself as serving Thai tapas, street food classics and hot pot. We were seated in a large booth upstairs which was super comfy but I’m pretty sure I’ve since heard that now they save the upstairs tables for those having hot pot and downstairs for the ‘tapas’ menu.

Obviously, being over-excited we wanted to try as much as possible, so that we did.

I really enjoyed the Mixed Appetisers – they consist of satay skewers, filo wrapped prawns, fish cakes and chicken wings. There wasn’t anything I didn’t enjoy, although my friend wasn’t a fan of the fishcakes. The satay was beautiful, definitely my favourite. If you want a selection of things to try without getting super full, definitely go for this mini mixed platter.

On top of the Mixed Appetisers we ordered the Duck Pancakes which I kind of expected to be like traditional ones where you make the pancakes up yourself. Clearly they weren’t but they were really good – 2 large pancake rolls filled full of duck and a sweet plum sauce.

My contribution to the ‘pretending to be healthy‘ category this time round came in the form of chilli aubergine. It was a really generous portion, super soft aubergine and loads of flavour, so definitely one for vegetarians and flexitarians alike! I can deal with a lot of spice/heat but for those wondering about the ‘chilliness’ of it, I didn’t think it had much of a kick so I think you’d be safe!

Next up, let’s talk about the curries. They look like pretty small portions but there’s actually a lot more to them than you first think. My friend opted for the Penang Prawn Curry and the Beef Massaman was all mine.

Both were beautifully creamy with a good amount of prawns/beef. Flavour-wise the Penang was good but the Beef Massaman was so delicious. The cashews add a nice little crunch to the creaminess but this dish is absolutely on my recommended list.

Side Orders!!

Bao buns seem to be massively in fashion at the minute, and I’m not sure if they seemed slightly out of place on this menu, but I’m such a sucker for them, I don’t care. Seems to be a running theme of mine with the beef but I went for the beef bao (see image above) whilst my friend chose the fried chicken one. I really enjoyed mine – it was moist and tasty, but my friend did say the chicken was slightly dry, and had it not been for the sauce, it wouldn’t have been great.

Along with the Bao, we obviously had to have a rice dish to soak up all that curry sauce, so we went for the crab fried rice. Again, really great portion size, and my friend loved it. To be honest I’m not sure how crabby it was for me and seemed quite plain. I’ve definitely had better, cheaper fried rice but it wasn’t bad at all, still did the trick.

Aaaaaand… we reach desserts. I can confirm by this point we were on the verge of exploding, but dessert stomach and all that. And you can’t go to review a complimentary meal and opt out of dessert.

My friend chose the strangest-sounding thing on the menu. I’m sorry to say I can’t remember what it was actually called, and I’ve scoured the menu trying to find it but I can’t see the dessert menu online. Basically, it was something to do with butternut squash (yeah, weird, I know) and maybe custard vibes? Anyway this is it…

It really wasn’t to my taste to be honest as I found the textures pretty odd, but once again, my friend really enjoyed it.

This time round I went for the safer option of Mango Cheesecake (I am now on a mission to try all the cheesecakes in London to improve my cheesecake reviewer rankings on the Eaten app loool).

Mango isn’t normally my favourite fruity flavour but in this cheesecake it was wonderful. So incredibly light and sweet with beautiful presentation.

Overall a fantastic meal, with excellent service. Despite being invited to try their food, I would never big something up if it wasn’t worth it, and in this case I genuinely do want to go back.

It’s always interesting how subjective things are – as you can see from the review, my friend and I didn’t always agree on our positive/negative feelings towards dishes so remembering how personal tastes are likely to differ is key!

xo