Vegan Review: Thaikhun

With a couple of hours to kill between watching two films at Odeon, Jamie and I decided to visit Thaikhun, the Thai restaurant on George Street, for date night. Tuesday is their student night and, while they do a pretty decent student discount all week long, a handful of main meals are on offer for the amazing value of £7. I like Thaikhun because it feels so distinctive from all the very samey ‘Italian’ chain restaurants, despite also being a national chain, with it’s interesting decor and authentic feeling food (though I’ve not been to Thailand so I can’t claim to speak on that with much degree of knowledge).

We were seated downstairs straight away and the waiter provided me with the allergen menu on request. I had to spend a bit of time navigating it, as on the student deal menu the names of the dishes are written in Thai, but everything is written only in English on the allergen menu. I was also a bit concerned that the Pad Thai was described as having egg in, but on the allergen menu the egg box wasn’t ticked – didn’t give me a lot of confidence that the rest of the list would be 100% accurate, and obviously this would be far more important if you actually had an allergy to something. I decided on the Tofu Geang Kiew Wan (green curry) because I’ve ordered this before and had confirmation that it’s definitely vegan. The staff here seem very happy to answer questions and be as helpful as they can if you are unsure about anything in any case.

I could always have remembered it wrong, but I believe they were a bit more generous with the tofu when I ordered this dish previously – so potentially they give you slightly less when you’re ordering off the student deal menu, or it could depend on who dishes you up your portion, which can be the case in many restaurants anyway I think. They don’t hold back on the spice here, but this is one of the milder options on the menu. The sauce has a bit of heat but is creamy too (I left the visible chunks of chilli on the side of my plate, I love the flavour my stomach is not too keen on me eating the larger bits). We also ordered some veggie spring rolls to share as a side, which were crispy and delicious – you could be forgiven for thinking there can’t be much special or different about a spring roll, but we both said these ones were particularly good, stuffed with rice noodles as well as crunchy veg. The sweetcorn cakes here are vegan and having tried these before I’d definitely order them again too.

Our food came out quickly and the service was great, up until it was time for us to ask for the bill, at which point our waiter seemed to disappear from existence. He may well have been allowing us some time to rest for a bit and let our food go down, but if you have somewhere to be, as we did, I think it would’ve been nice if they came and checked up on us a bit sooner. Overall though, this was a really enjoyable experience. The fact that there are multiple vegan starter and main course options on the student deal menu is great, and I believe there’s a sorbet if you’re keen on that sort of thing. Our tasty and filling meal for two came to around £20. Thaikhun is definitely another good option for those times you might have meat-eaters, veggies, and vegans, all in the same party, and want a relaxed tasty meal.