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Rosa's
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Budget choice
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By Guy Dimond
No Thai restaurant is complete without a portrait of the king, but Rosa's has a picture of The King. Elvis Presley met King Bhumipol and Queen Sirikit of Thailand while filming 'GI Blues', and a portrait in the window proudly commemorates the event. It is just one sign that Rosa's is a refreshing departure from the norm.
Although the dishes are (mostly) the familiar roll call, there is a freshness and honesty about the cooking. Take, for example, the som tam. The grated green (ie. unripened) papaya of this salad is often substituted with cheaper carrot or cabbage in the UK, to bulk it out. Not here: the Rosa version is all papaya, mixed up with long beans, cherry tomatoes, chilli, small shrimps and, in this case, cashew nuts. The flavour was in the style of central Thailand – that is, sweet and mild, and lacking sufficient sour notes for our taste. This was easily remedied: a waiter brought a saucer of fish sauce (nam pla) on request, to drizzle.
The dish called ta lae pad cha is a stir-fry of seafood, with the clear and distinctive ginger-like flavour of lesser galangal shining through the yellow chilli paste and whole black peppercorns. Pad thai was, curiously, the only slightly disappointing dish we tried, in that it was an average version.
Pad makhuea (stir-fried aubergine) was a stunner though: meltingly soft chunks of aubergine, cloaked in a yellow bean sauce with chilli, garlic and crisp leaves of sweet (ie European) basil. The arrangement of our other dishes was, in the Thai way, quite beautiful, with carved vegetables and garnishes in greater abundance than you might expect for dishes costing around six or seven quid.
Rosa's has a shared table set-up that rewards booking, or early arrival if you're in a small group. It's good-looking for a low-budget place, with wooden architraves cunningly turned into wall sculptures, attractive lighting and a moodier, more spacious dining area in the basement. Go when you’re pining for the tastes of Thailand.Time Out Issue 1988: September 25-Oct 1 2008
Time Out reviews restaurants anonymously and pays for meals. Of course, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or independence of user reviews.
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Details
- 12 Hanbury Street, Brick Lane, E1 6QR
- Area: Brick Lane
- Tel: 020 7247 1093
- www.rosaslondon.com
- Category: Thai
- Travel: Liverpool St tube/rail or Whitechapel tube
- Times: Open 11am-11pm Mon-Thur; 11am-12midnight Fri, Sat; 11am-11pm Sun
- Price: Meal for two with wine and service: around £40
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im shy at times, but strong minded too, a little eccentric, a single parent of two a student in my first year training to be a counsellor and...
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This is the best Thai I have eaten! The food was delicious! The food is like you get in Thailand. The staff are friendly and the decor is welcoming. I will be visiting again!
Canteen tables with restaurant prices. I 've had better food on RyanAir. The people giving this restaurant 7 stars have never tasted a good green curry. How the Thai staff manage to keep a straight face while serving this up is beyond me.
rosa's was the poorest thai food i have ever eaten. the pad thai was tasteless and the red curry insipid and bland. so disappointed - should have had a curry next door!
Nice decor, friendly staff but incredibly bland food. Rosas is catering to the Brick Lane tourist crowd in the same way the curry houses do by producing inoffensive, bland slop. On a plus note, the beer was cold.
I love rosa's!
Rosa's is simply the best Thai food I have tasted in London, it tastes completely authentic and also includes Chang beer! It's great Thai food at an affordable price - just like in Thailand! Fabulous. Love it here.
This has to be on the lower end of the Thai food I've eaten. It's a trek to get to it, the restaurant was empty but they still insisted on sitting us on the same table as another couple, which was very awkward. The food was mediocre and my partner's noodles were still crunchy. Cheap? Sure. But I'd be willing to pay a little more for something of higher quality.
Came back to Rosa's for a thank you lunch yesterday - sat upstairs with four colleagues who'd not been before. Aparently we missed the flim star who been last week! Yet again fresh spring rolls and tempura prawns were a great starter. Main courses of salmon, venision, lamb with Thai sauces went down very well. The Pinot on the new wine list was much appreciiated - all finished off with coconut desert and coffee. Atmosphere great as usual - informal service and good vakue for money.
Never ceases to amaze me! Tom yung gai just tremendous and venison out of this world. Very reasonable and service is really friendly
hawkeye
I've been to Rosa's three times and every time have had a wonderful tome. I intend to go back a lot more!