Review: Rosa's Carnaby
Rosa’s Carnaby is the latest branch of the popular Thai café. The other locations, which include Soho and Spitalfields, have been serving up hearty meals for a few years and are renowned for having queues tailing down the street come lunch time.
The Carnaby branch, which is situated on pretty Ganton Street, is also open for dinner. With simple wooden tables and benches, and self-serve tap water from jugs, it has certainly retained its café ambience. We visited early on a Tuesday evening and though it wasn’t full, it certainly got busier and buzzier as the night wore on.
It is evident that the typical Rosa’s customer is not especially bothered by a restaurant experience per se, they are swinging by simply for the food. The menu is pretty extensive, covering salads, soups, grills, curries, and a range of sides – all Thai but sufficiently Anglicized to be unintimidating.
The dishes vary in terms of spice and hotness, but what they do all have in common is their freshness. The summer rolls were bursting with crisp vegetables, and the chicken satay skewer came served with the homemade light, fragrant, yet richly peanut-y sauce on the side. The tempura prawns were more deep-fried that lightly-battered, but the shellfish was tender nonetheless. Portions are generous too.
I had to wait a little longer for my main of grilled whole seabass with cooled vegetables, which was no bad thing because a) it allowed our sizeable starters to go down and b) it’s always heartening when things are cooked to order (rather than sitting around, ready to be served). The fish was meaty, tender and incredibly fresh. The vegetables were healthy and unapologetically plain, but were spiced up (literally and metaphorically) by a chilli sauce. My friend opted for the classic green Thai curry and was not disappointed. He received a bowl with hearty chunks of chicken and vegetables swimming in rich sauce, coupled with an enormous serving of rice to soak it up.
We were both too full for pudding, but decided to try one of the famous Thai milk teas. This really was a sweet end – it is vaguely orange in colour, but tastes like melted Milky Bars. Definitely worth a try.
The meal came to roughly £20 a head, which seemed like a bargain for the volume of food consumed. This place doesn’t claim to be fancy, but its gloriously unfussy, fresh and filling food will certainly have us coming back for more.
www.rosaslondon.com
The Carnaby branch, which is situated on pretty Ganton Street, is also open for dinner. With simple wooden tables and benches, and self-serve tap water from jugs, it has certainly retained its café ambience. We visited early on a Tuesday evening and though it wasn’t full, it certainly got busier and buzzier as the night wore on.
It is evident that the typical Rosa’s customer is not especially bothered by a restaurant experience per se, they are swinging by simply for the food. The menu is pretty extensive, covering salads, soups, grills, curries, and a range of sides – all Thai but sufficiently Anglicized to be unintimidating.
The dishes vary in terms of spice and hotness, but what they do all have in common is their freshness. The summer rolls were bursting with crisp vegetables, and the chicken satay skewer came served with the homemade light, fragrant, yet richly peanut-y sauce on the side. The tempura prawns were more deep-fried that lightly-battered, but the shellfish was tender nonetheless. Portions are generous too.
I had to wait a little longer for my main of grilled whole seabass with cooled vegetables, which was no bad thing because a) it allowed our sizeable starters to go down and b) it’s always heartening when things are cooked to order (rather than sitting around, ready to be served). The fish was meaty, tender and incredibly fresh. The vegetables were healthy and unapologetically plain, but were spiced up (literally and metaphorically) by a chilli sauce. My friend opted for the classic green Thai curry and was not disappointed. He received a bowl with hearty chunks of chicken and vegetables swimming in rich sauce, coupled with an enormous serving of rice to soak it up.
We were both too full for pudding, but decided to try one of the famous Thai milk teas. This really was a sweet end – it is vaguely orange in colour, but tastes like melted Milky Bars. Definitely worth a try.
The meal came to roughly £20 a head, which seemed like a bargain for the volume of food consumed. This place doesn’t claim to be fancy, but its gloriously unfussy, fresh and filling food will certainly have us coming back for more.
www.rosaslondon.com