Benja

17-10-2007
Chris, MyVillage

With promises that it's a restaurant "true to Thai heritage and custom", a loosely authentic jade theme throughout and a chef that???s cooked for the Siam royal family - there's definitely some grandiosity to the place.But before heading straight into Benja's moody, soft-lit dining area, be sure to head down to the ambient basement bar for their exceptional cocktails.Personal recommendations are Argento (lychee, vanilla vodka, lemongrass and cinnamon) or Bamboo (Plymouth gin, coconut sorbet, lychee); but all of these are well prepared (and effective!). The boothed bar area, while hardly somewhere you'd notice if you weren't going to eat upstairs, is comfortable and gushes intimacy. So taking our tasty cocktails upstairs, we started out with prawn and squid satay and a portion of frog's legs. Frog's legs ??? not normally associated with Thailand in my imagination - were well cooked and served with a light, fresh tasting chilli dip. Excellent, and highly recommended. We also tried the deep fried prawns and squid served with chilli mayonnaise which, while tasty, weren???t particularly striking.This was swiftly followed by Benja???s famed duck breast red curry with lychee, and a portion of pan-fried salmon in a chilli and garlic sauce topped with basil. The duck was perfectly cooked and of exceptional quality, worlds away from that crackling, fatty affair that they serve up in a lot of Eastern restaurants. The salmon, likewise, was supple and presented perfectly. But both dishes really lacked in definition and taste. Not bad by a long shot, but nothing to really set it apart from the plethora of Thai food that London has to offer, no matter how much lychee they throw in there???What really lets this restaurant down, though, is the layout of the dining area. Pushing hard on the intimacy button is fine, but there comes a point when intimacy is replaced by intensity and this is where Benja falls down. The d???cor has atmosphere but a heavy use of black and jade can make the place overbearing at best, especially with little space to really take advantage of it's unique style.Afterwards, we headed downstairs for some Thai tea ice cream and exquisitely served coffee. A relief to get back to the subtle comfort of the basement area, this was one of the highlights of the meal with exceptionally fresh tasting ice cream in easy surroundings.Benja is a good place to remember if you???re in the area. It???s definitely a visual experience and excellent for late-evening cocktails downstairs, but the taste of the food, rather than the wildly overpriced menu, needs to be that bit more memorable...