Reviews Kaosarn

I've been in this place a hundred of times already and I will be back! Most of the time I order Tom Yum Goong soup which is absolutely delicious

I have been here on three separate occasions and I have not had a bad meal here. In fact, I have not had anything but earthshakingly good Thai food. The menu is small but because of its size I think it's virtually impossible to make a bad or even mediocre choice here. If you haven't been, just go - you will not regret it.

Brilliant new Thai in Brixton. Kaosarn has been generating quite a lot of buzz recently, including a very positive review from Jay Rayner in The Observer.
Believe! It's a really small, friendly restaurant serving very fresh, tasty and well-cooked food. Make sure you have both starters and mains - all the ones I've tried were absolutely delicious.
It's part of the Brixton Village market, so it's only open in the evening towards the end of the week (Thursday onwards). No booking, no licence, so turn up early (or be prepared to queue, and bring a bottle if you want to drink alcohol.

We decided to get one of the salads and two mains to share- all at the same time of course as is customary in Thailand.

Assuming my maths isn't wrong, Kaosarn has the proud honour of being the 100th London eatery to feature in my blog. And it's entirely fitting that somewhere like this Thai café gets that accolade. Whilst I really can't be that arsed to write about eating out in London nowadays, I will always blog about inexpensive unpretentious indies like Kaosarn. Especially when they have noodles on the menu! I did consider going for Kaosarn's signature dish of gai yang khao neaw som tum (£11.50) â€" but I wasn't hungry enough to take on this combination of half a grilled chicken, sticky rice and som tum. Instead I plumped for soup noodles in the form of kuay tiew tom yum Bangkok style (£6.90) . The most important aspect of any soup noodle dish is the soup. And in this case, the tom yum soup was bang on the money, with deep hot and sour flavours seemingly sans any artificial enhancements. After that, it's imperative that the noodles are properly done, and I'm pleased to report that the sli

I got Gai Yang, Khao Neaw, Som Tum, as I fancied salad and some chicken and rice. A perfection combination of traditional sticky rice served in a bamboo basket and a half grilled chicken with green papaya salad. The green papaya salad hit the spot perfectly, a mixture of beans sprouts, green beans, chilli, carrots tossed in a sweet and sour dressing, on top of crispy iceberg lettuce with roasted peanuts. The grilled chicken came in a luminous yellow colour, with edges of charcoal brown from being grilled. Three big pieces lay alongside each other, chopped so neatly it still lined up together. Accompanying the chicken and sticky rice was two dipping sauce, one a sweet chilli one and the other green onions, chilli pepper seeds.

On Wednesday I arranged to meet a friend for supper at KaoSarn in Brixton Village. It is BYOB, and we had previously chatted on Facebook about how much we both like this, with him saying ‘Yes, bringing your own bottle to a restaurant is like having a conversation with yourself – appears weird but you can be guaranteed that the quality is good’ (he asked me to put this line in the blog. He was quite proud of it). My dad’s favourite restaurant in London is Food for Thought in Covent Garden. It is a tiny vegetarian place that serves hearty helpings of home cooked food for about £7. He likes to take along a bottle of excellent Bordeaux to drink with it.

I had forgotten how sprawling Brixton village is, and after spending 10 minutes or so walking the alleyways, I found the restaurant and bagged a table outside. I was told we only had an hour, which would have been fine if my friend (I asked him if there was a nickname he would like to be known as, as I’ve realised my use of initials is, well, naff. He said some obscure character whose name I can’t remember from The Idiot. I’ll stick with ‘my friend’ for now) hadn’t been 20 minutes late. While I was waiting I rather hopefully asked for an ice bucket to keep my choice of wine cold. The waitress laughed. It was worth a shot. I’d brought an Alsace Gewurtraminer and had been rather pleased when after choosing it, read on the back ‘Goes well with Thai curries’ *proud face*.

When my friend finally arrived we were quickly rushed into ordering. He’d been before and said the deep fried pork spare ribs were good, so we shared a plate of them (Cee Krong Moo Tod Ta-Krai, £5.90) along with a Plah Goong (£6.90), a king prawn salad to start. The ribs were a bit fatty, with not enough meat on them for my liking, but the salad was delicious – hot, fresh and with a slight sweetness in the dressing.

For mains we shared a Khao Pad Kra-Proaw (£7.90), stir fried rice with pork and a fried egg, and Gai Yang, Khao Neaw, Som Tum (£12.50), half a grilled chicken with sticky rice and green papaya salad. The stir fried rice was good, but the only real flavours were Thai basil and chili. The chicken was rubbed in a turmeric heavy marinade and was still moist after grilling. I was however so disappointed with the som tom that I almost cried and threw stuff. It is one of my very favourite dishes, since, after a particularly hot and sweaty day exploring Wat Phu in Laos, I ate a plateful at a tiny cafe by a river. The combination of hot chili, zingy lime, and fresh fruity papaya was incredibly refreshing, and exactly what I fancied in that moment. But this version had hardly any heat to it, and the papaya itself had none of the fruity sweetness I love.

We had barely finished when they whisked away our plates and brought out the bill. A bit rude perhaps, but to be fair they had warned us. I liked the atmosphere, and, apart from a couple of weak links the food was pretty good overall, and excellent value. We hurriedly paid and then went for a drink outside Ritzy’s cinema. They at least weren’t in a rush for us to leave.

Nice, cheap and cheerful thai food, no nonsense, very tasty. this place always has a buzz about it and is usually full / has a small queue.

It is good value to start off with but then when you factor in it is bring your own it becomes even better, we picked up a bottle of wine and a couple of beers from the wine cellar just up the road.

This place is best visited during the summer where you can sit outside on a light night and enjoy the environment without having to wear a coat and huddle round the candle! Definately a place to swing by before heading off on a night out in brixton

Very good food, it arrived in good time and hot. The atmosphere was good too, I had spring roll, chicken satay and pad Thai.

This place was lovely. Got seated immediately on a busy Saturday afternoon. Food was hot, generously portioned and reasonably priced (around £10 a main, £5-6 a starter). Most importantly it was tasty. I really enjoyed my noodle soup and the papaya salad. They don't serve alcohol at the moment but allow you to bring your own with a small price for corkage.

Delicious food and quick service for a nice easy dinner out. Atmosphere is fantastic as well being in the middle of brixton!

Lovely mummy food. Brixton village

Good spot for Thai food. Very tasty and affordable. Place is cash only, no booze but you can bring your own and pay corkage.

Yummy Tai food, staff was friendly and the service was really quick! Love this place, BYOB

Good price for quality. It's very tight (as in quite small chairs and tables), so not so comfortable, and it feels like we're not welcome to stay too long (even if the restaurant is almost empty).