Kung Thai Restaurant - Durban North

Let me say straight up that Thai food is a bit down my list of favourite cuisine of the world. Whereas my taste ranges from Italian and French to Greek, Portuguese and generally Med-style cooking, my visits to Thai restaurants have been few and far between.

But I have a new outlook after a visit to Kung Thai this week. I had read good things about it in recent reviews and so was shocked that it had been open for four years in the premises formerly occupied by Engine Room. No matter: the place was buzzing for a rainy Monday, so business must be good as owner Kit Steen has opened another branch in the Lighthouse Centre in Umhlanga.

The one thing I have found about Thai (and Chinese restaurants) is that there are so many choices and the menu seems to go on and on. This confuses a simple soul like me. But thanks to waitress Ilsa and Steen, we were given good advice.

There are many starters and they all looked good. But I was recommended to try the Shao Mai(R52), while my partner opted for the paper prawns (R52). At the same time we decided to be adventurous and order a portion of Puu Cha (R52), only because they sounded interesting - prawn and crab donuts with a chilli dipping sauce.

They were delicious. But the best was my Shao Mai, which is steamed, minced prawns, spring onions stuffed in Dim Sum (dumplings) and chilli rice wine dipping sauce. Beautiful flavours and the sauce was outstanding. My partner's paper prawns went down well with her, though I was disappointed by the texture. But again, the various sauces on the table livened that up.

Other starts include the ubiquitous Thai spring rolls, sesame prawn toast and crispy calamari. Soups include the famous Tom Yum. And then one moves into salads, curries (gaeng), wok dishes (phad), the speciality dishes, noodle dishes, steak (nuah) and of course a seafood section (talay). See what I mean about a lot of choices?

For the mains I was again steered by our waitress to something called Som Ped, which is among the Kuung Thai specialities. This is crispy duck wrapped in pancake, served with an orange, ginger, chilli, garlic, honey sauce and jasmine rice. Superb. The flavours were intense and the duck was soft and delicious. Well worth the R119.

My partner went the wok route with a chicken-and-prawn combo. But as there were still so many aromatic sauces left over from our starters, she used some of those to add extra flavour to the dish, which I tried and really enjoyed.Wok dishes ranges from R66 for beef to R119 for the duck.

Duck and chicken are big at Kung Thai. Looking at the other specialities, I would try Chu Chee duck and the tamarind duck, while I also fancy the crispy chicken with a Fu Chong sauce (ginger, coriander, honey, lemon grass and lemon juice).

I suppose that one day I ought to try a dish I have eaten the most at Thai restaurants - the Green Curry or perhaps the Massaman Curry, which is described as sweeter curry with coconut milk, potatoes, cashews and tamarind juice. We were full by now. But one last effort saw us finish off with two exciting desserts I have obviously never tried. This was the Daawk (crispy flower), which is a sesame see batter coated in a fresh orange, lime, ginger, honey sauce with ice cream chocolate.

Then we had the odd-sounding Glauy Chab, which is banana crisps tossed in honey, pecan nuts and cinnamon with ice cream, again with chocolate orchilli chocolate sauce. Both were R32.

Kung Thai also does take-aways and is open all day, so you can order dinner at 3pm or 4pm, if the mood grabs you. I was also impressed with the wine list, with reasonable mark-ups. Other restaurants take note.