Muang Thai is situation near Brighton’s remaining pier, one road back from the seafront. From the outside Muang Thai looks like any other pleasant but fairly generic Thai restaurant. Inside, the decor is clean and light but very obviously a Thai restaurant. My meal consisted of a green papaya salad and a vegetable Thai Green curry with steamed rice all washed down with a couple if glasses of the house red wine.
The green papaya salad was simple and tasty. It had a decent kick to it and made a nice alternative to the deep fried treats which seem to dominate the menu at many Thai restaurants. The green curry was delicious, consisting of a sauce with excellent flavour filled with vegetables and tofu. The selection of vegetables in the curry weren’t the most authentic but were well suited to the sauce and obviously hadn’t been airfreighted from Thailand. The portion of steamed rice was slightly on the small side but by the time I finished it I was full enough that I preferred the idea of leaving a little curry to asking for more rice. The house red was nothing special but still surprisingly pleasant and reasonably priced. I arrived fairly late so the restaurant was starting to empty out but the staff were very friendly and eager to please even if it did take them a minute to realise that I needed cutlery with my main! My meal came to £18.35 not including a tip but including the wine!
So overall I had a pleasant meal. I’ve had equal or better Thai elsewhere but the price was good and, if you’re in the area you can do a lot worse. One nice touch that made Muang Thai a little special is that it appears to be family owned and seemed to have several generations of the family milling around. At one point and older gentleman who appeared to be the head of the household came out to make sure I was happy and ask my opinion of the food. You don’t get that in a chain restaurant!
