That's a difficult review to write because I hate writing bad reviews. I much prefer have a good experience and be happy and write a good review... but honestly I cannot write a good review for this place. There is one word to summarize the whole experience: disappointment. I put lot of hopes in the Blue Elephant. It did not reach anything close to my expectations for a restaurant costing 65 quids per person.
First of all, let me explain how I heard about the Blue Elephant. A friend of mine recommended this place. I always kept in my head I had to try it. Then, for the Wine Show this year happening in Kensington Olympia, I found a little stand representing the Blue Elephant. I tried their steak and I must admit I found it very delicate. That day, I decided I'll try the real experience in the restaurant. I surfed on their website, it seems it's a typical Thai place. I booked.
Upon arrival, the place inside is just beautiful. The atmosphere and decoration is just amazing and a lot of effort is put in. That's probably what you pay for, and service. They gave us a crap table (next to a huge noisy party). I asked kindly to change the table and they gave us a very satisfying table that time. I was in a good mood for a good dinner. Honestly, it's difficult from there to mess it up. Blue Elephant managed to mess it up. I had dinner with a foodie/friend of mine, excellent cook, who spent a month on vacation in Thailand. She knows about Thai food and we did agree on the food review below.
First starter was a prawn bag. That was heavy... I thought "surely the rest of the dinner will be better".
Soup was alright, even good. And then that's when the dream started to turn into a nightmare.
Starters were not Thai. Dim sum was a pale copy of a third class Chinese dim sums restaurant. Meat in the dim sum was of bad quality, and fatty. Deep fried prawns and assimilates were heavy. Chicken satay was alright but well under expectation for a restaurant of this price range. Chicken quality used was flavorless. The peanut sauce masked that.
Then the main. Green curry was tasteless. It has been cooked with no soul. At some point, I was wondering if they forgot the lemon in it. In fact, they did not, you can find some small ones without any taste... It had no green curry paste taste either. No lemon taste. No lemongrass taste. Chicken used was chewy. The list can be longer. Why not add flavorless and insipid? Beef with oyster sauce was alright. The 2 prawns were good though, that was the best note of the dinner, the 2 prawns. As a whole, it was a disappointing vapid dinner. Fortunately, I had a good company.
First appetizer, prawn bag... heavy.
Tom kha soup (coconut soup), good realization but spicy
Tum yum soup (lemon grass and galangal among other spices), good realization but hot
Sauces for the starters... not very elaborate
Starters (dim sum in the middle, chicken satay on the left, they look awful actually now that I uploaded the photo... , prawn deep fried on the right, nothing exciting really)
Green curry on the bottom right, bottom left are the 2 prawns, and top left is the oyster sauce beef (alright but nothing too crazy, it has black mushroom by the way... since when Thai food use black mushrooms?!?), top is jammy fish, at most average, and top right are vegetables.
On the positive side: as you can see, the dishes are well presented, service is good, and atmosphere is nice(provided you make sure you have a good table). Some of the tables are very nice next to some river, a fountain etc...
Also, the Thai version of the bloody Mary was well balanced.
Dessert - nothing to add.
To conclude, I will avoid this place for some time. I suggest you guys/ladies do the same, it's well overpriced and you'd better give 50 quids to a charity than eating there, at least you recover 50% in tax that way. I might give it another chance sometimes later. Maybe their steaks have more flavor?
Bill photo breaks my heart... sniff sniff they wont see me for a while.
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