Mango Thai Tapas Bar

Okay, trying again with the Belly Dictates blog.

Your humble Belly Scribe has been distracted, but she has still been eating her way around the South of England. She is considering adding photographs to her blog posts, but is not quite brave enough to take photographs while dining out, and often forgets to take her camera, and is also a bit of a perfectionist and does not like photos that don't look nice. She is also considering ending this paragraph so that she can revert to the first person.

A new restaurant opened recently(ish) in Southampton, that I stumbled across one day when I wanted to have a coffee at The Best Second-Hand Bookshop and Coffee Place in Southampton (not its real name). So, I went to the next nearest place because it was open, had seats vacant and, from the outside, a reasonable ambience.

From the inside, the ambience is more than reasonable. It's lovely. Nice, brown walls (whoever thought brown could *work* quite so well...), giving the whole place a warm, homey feel; little vases of little flowers on every table; colourful cushions scattered on bench seats (clearly someone had been reading those interior design magazines that always advises the home decorator to have 'scatter cushions'); and, best of all, very friendly service.

That day, I wanted only coffee, so that was exactly what I had. And a good, strong espresso it was. However, the menu was so enticing and intriguing, and I was so happy to have another Thai restaurant in Southampton, that I also ordered crispy tofu. The friendly waitstaff must have misheard me, because I got crispy wanton. That's okay, I'm not vegetarian and the wantons were delicious.

I returned shortly thereafter to have dinner. For my first proper meal there, I had spicy noodle with prawn (don't worry, I got more than one noodle, and I assume the menu has a mistyping, but it's so enchanting, I have to replicate it) and my dinner companion had phad thai. My spicy noodle was good; my dinner companion enjoyed his phad thai. I am very familiar with Thai food, so the meal was quite good and better than most, though not as I have had it in Thailand or Australia. Still, it's great for Southampton, and England, and reasonably priced. The portions are ever so slightly on the small side.

I have since eaten there again, and again.

I have also been once, in the evening, when I failed to book. It was very busy, although my companion and I were offered a table and drinks and food, provided that we left before a certain time (8pm, if I recall correctly). It was no fault of the restaurants, but we chose to leave, because we were hoping for a nice long chat over a leisurely dinner. To encourage us back, the restaurant chose not to charge us for our drinks and apologised profusely for not having a table for us. Very nice, and welcoming, and producing good vibes, given that our reason for leaving was not their fault. Perhaps the treatment is a factor of being new, and trying to establish good custom. Even so, I'm sold.

*****

Mango Thai Tapas Bar
27 Portswood Road
Southampton
SO17 2ES

T 023 8067 8877
J 07875 148803

http://www.mangothai.co.uk/index.html