Giggling Squid Berkhamstead

This blog is about independent eateries; the passionate foodies who graft every day and source incredible ingredients and share their family recipes and honed skills with us every time we dine with them. But you lot just kept insisting we try the Giggling Squid in Berko, so we decided to make an exception this time. We really wanted to hate it. But we have to say, it was really impressive. Grrr.

There are around 45 Giggling Squids all over the UK, having started in 2002, offering Thai Taps. These days its more of an out and out Thai place (at least in Berko). The physical restaurant looks beautiful, but alas being parents of a 1 year old means we won't be seeing it for some time, so we had to do with a takeaway (any babysitters out there, say hello please!)

Let's get one thing out there up front: this is not a cheap takeaway. This is restaurant quality priced food that is delivered, if that makes any sense. You will easily spend £45 for two people with delivery. I don't mind that though, for reasons I will go onto explain, but if that is too dear for you, I would recommend the excellent Chiang Mai in Hemel, which is more of a traditional takeaway and priced as such.

So we went for a couple of salt and pepper squids, a sweet jicama salad, chicken satay, a chicken pad thai, two paneangs and some rice (we were feeding 4 people though, don't judge!). The food came to £80, with Deliveroo's fees and delivery it came to £86.

The squid, was some of the best I have ever had from a Thai place. Salt and pepper squid is always a great indicator of how seriously a place is going to take their offering: is the squid fresh? How chewy is it? Has it been freshly fried? Is the batter flavoursome? Everything about the offering from Giggling Squid was spot on. The squid was light and fresh, with a light, super-crisp batter that held flavour really nicely. There weren't many pieces, but I'd much rather have fewer, nicer pieces than more ropey ones.

My Pad Thai was, visually, stunning. The egg had been cooked in a grid shape and laid on top of the noodles. A nice little attention to detail. As for taste, it was very pleasant, if unspectacular. To be fair, I think Pad Thai is one of those dishes where your scope for innovation is pretty small. But it was fresh and tasty.

Our friends who had the paneang said it had the perfect amount of heat and felt like an authentic dish. Their meat was cooked perfectly with succulence and juicy mouthfeel. The salad was crunchy with a sweet sauce and was... interesting. Ordering a salad from a Thai place is a... bold... choice, but C insisted we try it and it was excellent. The chicken satay had a lovely hint of lemongrass and kiffir lime, on a moist succulent chicken that was marinated well, and served with a great peanut sauce.

I think mediocre Thai sometimes struggles with this - it goes overboard on sauces and flavours to feel authentic. But Giggling Squid resists the urge, and instead relies on fresh ingredients, cooked well, with delicate, authentic spicing and flavouring. Considering this a chain - which often falls into low effort, high profit model we were super impressed.

Whisper it quietly... But this might be some of the best Thai in Herts so far.

Service: They only deliver via Deliveroo. If you live far from Berko you might be unable to order depending on the availability of drivers.

Price & Value: No question, this is an expensive takeaway. You're looking at dine in restaurant prices. But you can really see where your money goes.

Quality: Really good - fresh ingredients, nice spice, authentic cuisine

Overall: EXCELLENT- We really try to avoid chains, but there's no denying this one is making bloody brilliant Thai food - which really all that matters, right? For our money, this is (so far at least) the best Thai food you can get certainly in the Dacorum area - and quite possibly in Herts too. Believe the hype.