It is surprisingly difficult to find authentic Thai food in Hemel Hempstead. There are a few chains (Banana Tree which is mostly Chinese food with a few cursory Thai dishes chucked in, Giggling Squid in Berko, and Thai Square in St Albans) but so far, we've only found a handful of independents. Chiang Mai is housed in an endearing, wonky Tudor building in Hemel Old Town and in normal times requires you to "mind your head" when walking into the establishment, around the establishment, to the toilet, or anywhere on the premises due to higgeldy-piggeldy beams and slightly uneven floor. It's decked out in Thai design furnishings and wafts of ginger, garlic, lemongrass and keffir lime drag through the air upon entering.
Until May 17th 2021, Chiang Mai are exclusively a take-away offering running by the old school method of 'phone up, order, and collect it, you lazy sausage!' So I did just that. We wanted to test out some favourites and then also try out a Signature Dish. We went for the mixed starters (chicken wings, spring rolls, fishcakes, chicken satay, sesame prawn on toast), corn cakes, green chicken curry, coconut rice, "chu-chi goong" (battered jumbo king curry and kaffir lime leaves) and a prawn phad thai.
We delved into the mixed starters first. The sweetcorn cakes were not terribly juicy; the corn kernels were quite deflated, lacking the sweet plumpness of fresher kernels, which suggests that these were possiby not fresh, however the flavour was good; there was a pleasant heat and lingering lemongrass and keffir lime. Chicken satay was nice and juicy lean slices of chicken breast with a great satay sauce: sweet, spicy and tangy. The Thai fishcakes were really zingy; bouncy in only the way that that Thai fishcakes usually are. Flavoursome and mouthwatering- I quite liked them best! The spring rolls and sesame prawn on toast sadly tasted a little sad, generic and not fresh at all. There was no discernible prawn on the prawn on toast sadly. However the chicken wings were fab, Super crispy batter, mouthwatering meat and a juicy, tasty mouthful when dunked in sweet chilli sauce!
Sadly the phad thai was actually the least favourite dish that we had. It was sweet in all the right places with a good tamarind note, but the prawns were tough and leathery and almost certainly reheated. It just lacked a bit of freshness; even an introduction to a wedge of lime would have added some zing to this dish, but no introduction was made and it left the dish just feeling a little average.
The mains were incredibly comforting. The highlight was definitely the signature prawn dish. It was fiery with fresh black peppercorns (mistake to bite into THAT!), a smooth, creamy, sweet and slightly nutty base with a singing kaffir lime flavour; very tasty, almost smokey in it's sweetness with a well balanced heat. However, it may be a dish best served in the restaurant because when you batter prawns and then put them in a curry sauce, it does became a stodgy mess. But texture aside, this was a fab curry!
J's green chicken curry was a good staple. It was very mild with a dominant coconut and thai basil flavour. The chicken was lean and well-cooked and the vegetables were fresh. It did lack a bit of heat for a green curry, but was a comforting, familiar dish.
It seems that Chiang Mai is almost a tale of two halves. The staples are done to an acceptable comforting level. But for something authentic, and truly delicious, the specials are where it's at. It is tough for restaurants at the moment, especially when trying to plan stock levels, so it is possibly why Chiang Mai have potentially reheated quite a few elements to the food we received. This affects the texture of some of the elements. However, having said that, we would still definitely order from them again and will be visiting after May 17th as the flavours are all wonderful! Authenticity shines through the flavours of the dishes and they are warming, tantalisingly well-balanced and mouthwatering.
Service:
Incredibly friendly on the phone and on collection. The food was hot on collection (I even had to wait a little bit just as they were finishing off cooking when I arrived) and everything was well packaged (in plastic though. Grrr)
Quality:
Glorious flavours and really scratched the itch we had for Thai food. A few of the dishes felt a bit like frozen/reheated products which affected the texture but overall the quality was great.
Value & Price:
We paid just over £40 for a lot of food. There was a good amount of starters (one of each item) and the curry's were generous with meat and veg, not just a few paltry pieces floating in a sea of soupy curry as you can sometimes get.
Overall:
VERY GOOD- Chiang Mai is not quite excellent, although we feel that in normal times, and when eating in, this really would be excellent. We would love to try more of the Chefs Specials as they really do have a lil' summink.
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