Sugarcane

Sugarcane is the latest incarnation of the King Street site that formerly housed Thai Charm. It is very smartly decorated, more of the style that you might expect in Mayfair than Ravenscourt Park, with fresh flowers on each table. The menu was fairly conventional, with a wide range of dishes on offer from across the regions of Thailand. 

There was a short wine list with 21 bottles, ranging in price from £18 to £59. No vintages were listed but example labels were Trivento Tribu Argentinian Malbec at £20 for a bottle that will set you back £9 in the high street, Saget La Petit Perriere at £38 compared to its retail price of £14, and Moet et Chandon Brut champagne at £59 for a bottle whose current market price is £50. Singha beer was £5.25 for a 330 ml bottle. 

A little canape appeared in the form of a vegetarian spring roll with sweet chilli sauce. The rice paper rolls were filled with beansprouts, glass noodles, cabbage and carrot, served with a pleasant sauce that was not oversweet (12/20). Thai fish cakes were a cut above the norm. This dish can often be greasy or even chewy but here the fishcakes had a clean taste that included a distinct flavour of lemongrass, their texture good (13/20). Som tam salad was less interesting but perfectly decent, strips of raw papaya with chilli, garlic, tomato as well as palm sugar, ground peanut, lime juice and Thai fish sauce. The salad was not overly sweet, though the papaya was not quite as crisp as it might have been (12/20). 

Sea bass with tamarind sauce was fried and didn’t have much flavour, though the tamarind sauce brought some of its natural sweetness (11/20). Better was green curry with prawn, the sauce of coconut milk having aubergine and properly cooked prawns flavoured with Thai sweet basil, red chilli and green curry paste, overall having a nice spicy kick (12/20). Pad Thai noodles were also quite good, the rice noodles stir fried with beansprouts, spring onions and egg, garnished with peanuts and spices. The texture of the noodles was good and the spices pleasantly balanced (12/20).

Service was friendly and the bill came to £41 per person including service, which is probably a fairly typical cost. Sugarcane is just a neighbourhood restaurant and is not aiming to set the culinary world alight, but it is a pleasnat experience and if you are in the area and fancy some decent Thai food then you could do much worse.