(Arctic Monkeys) – Thau Bualang South Woodham Ferrers
Thai Bualang is, as its name suggests, a Thai restaurant on the edge of South Woodham Ferrers town centre. Its address is Guild Way, but it actually sits at the junction of Guild Way and Inchbonnie Road. It was previously the Rupali Indian restaurant and before that, the Town’s bakery. There’s still a wheatsheaf optimistically pargetted on the outside wall.

Thai Bualang
Inside the décor hasn’t changed significantly since its Rupali days, but they’ve added some nice Thai decorations. I’ve written before that, in my experience, one doesn’t judge Thai restaurants on their décor.
I’d been invited to join some friends for Sunday lunch, which sounded like a good idea, so on a bitterly cold February Sunday lunchtime a small group of us turned up at Thai Bualang for lunch.
The place was deserted, which was a surprise, but we were shown to a table and handed the ‘set lunch’ menu – it says ‘weekdays only’, but clearly they were happy to serve it on a Sunday lunchtime.

Tom Yam Soup
I ordered Chicken Tom Yam Soup to start, with a Green Chicken Curry as a main, two other members of my party ordered the curry, the fourth ordered the ‘Lak Sar Noodle Soup’.

Chicken Satay
Two ordered Chicken Satay starters.
My Tom Yam soup was delicious, not overly spicy, but loaded with chicken and fresh chillies.

Green Chicken Curry
The Green Chicken Curry (with rice) was similarly spicy, but not scarily so; I like my food spicy and I might be tempted to order something extra spicy on a future trip.
And there will be future trips; between four of us the three ladies enjoyed a couple of bottles of chardonnay, while I polished off a few (small) bottles of Singha beer. The final bill, for four of us, came to a tad under seventy quid which for delicious, freshly cooked food, is astonishing value. I don’t understand why the place wasn’t crammed with people.
Next time I’ll try the Lak Sah, it looked super.
Rating: