Fresh bovine bile is not the sort of ingredient you can pick up at the local Tesco. A key component of traditional Laotian larb, it is extracted from the gallbladder of a cow and tastes as bitter as a spurned lover. Campari, on the other hand, can be grabbed from the local off-licence and has similarly obstreperous, albeit rather less primal, allure. Which is why it is such an inspired addition to the raw beef larb at Khao Bird, a newish northern Thai barbecue place in Soho. The dish has a deeply bosky appeal, sticky, dark and jungly in the best way, livid with chillies and the medicinal tang of galangal. Whole peppercorns provide tiny explosions of fragrant delight.
It is a full-blooded, no-holds-barred mouthful and typical of London's new breed of regional, largely farang-run, Thai restaurants – see Som Saa, Speedboat Bar, Smoking Goat and Kiln. David Thompson, it can be argued, is the godfather of them all, an Australian legend who not only mastered the Thai language but travelled the land documenting recipes that may otherwise have been lost. Thai Food is his masterpiece, one of the great cookbooks of the past 50 years, and his London restaurant, Nahm, was a decade before its time.
Khao Soi: A Fantastically Complex Curry
Anyway, I am delighted this glorious cuisine is being treated with the respect it so demands. It is all a long way from the cloying, Bounty bar-sweet green curries of one's youth – though, to be fair, the Thais have always adapted their cooking for timid Western palates. Our fault, not theirs. But back to Khao Bird and a resolutely modern room, all gleaming mirrors and polished concrete floors. Service is sublime and despite it being all but empty this Wednesday lunchtime (the sun is beaming outside and times are, well, hard), it is a place you want to linger in.
There is miang: acidic shards of pomelo, fresh chillies and crispy rice, with a slick of tart tamarind, all wrapped in fresh betel leaf. It is a one-bite palate fluffer that sets the tone for the lunch ahead. Shan meatballs are plump lobes of minced chicken, scented with lemon grass, wrapped in caul fat then lavished with crisp slivers of garlic. Fresh khanon jeen noodles come with a coconut-heavy prawn curry, all soft spice and soft egg, with deep-fried shallots and a fistful of herbs. Grilled chicken – flesh succulent, skin burnished by the grill – is first rate. Then khao soi, a fantastically complex curry with a steadily building heat, served with pickled mustard greens and a rich chilli relish.
While the cooking wisely steers away from the wilder shores of northern Thai food (no luu, or cold blood soup, here), Khao Bird is a splendidly spiced blast of Siamese succour. Go with a crowd, and order for an army.
About £40pp. Khao Bird, 24 Brewer St, London W1; khaobird.com
