When Alan Yau opened his first Busaba Eathai in Soho in 1999, there were queues around the block; 15 years and over a dozen branches later, this casual Thai eatery still cuts it with the foodie crowd. You can eat for under a tenner here, and the budget menu is rich in zippy salads, noodles, stir-fries and flavoursome curries, with Asian-inspired juices, teas and ice-cold beers to soothe the tongue. Best-loved dishes include spicy/sour tom yang goong (soup) with prawns and glass noodles, Thai calamari with ginger and green peppercorns, and the mussaman duck curry. As one would expect of a Yau production, Busaba Eathai is a design-led affair: from the cutlery to the glassware, the lighting to the flowers, every detail leaves diners with an overriding feeling of “bang for buck”.