Thai Tho - Soho

Looking for a quick pre-theatre restaurant around Piccadilly Circus, Shaftesbury Avenue, I came across Thai Tho in Rupert Street. The restaurant is actually situated on the first floor of the building which in fact made the ambience nicer as you felt you were a little removed from the hustle and bustle of the area. We were in a party of three and were extremely impressed by the quality of the food. Our first mouthful was the crispy squid and expecting the normal rubbery consistency, were delighted to bite into tender pieces of fresh squid. The rest of the meal did not disappoint. The size of my sliced duck breast with tamarind sauce was enormous and the portions were generous. The tipping point of such a good meal was the Argentinian Malbec which was excellent and priced at £20.00. You just can't get better than that.

booked this restaurant for a special birthday dinner… met in the bar downstairs – 2 cocktails took 20 mins to make – we were the only people in the bar which was staffed by 2 employees… went up to the restaurant for our meal with friends – lovely atmosphere, lively yet can still hear each other talk. starter was lovely, main course – lovely but my order was wrong and to go back, muddled up the rice – bringing steam rice when ordered fragrant rice – but claimed was fragrant rice but clearly not… wine was expensive and not particularly nice. after the main course they forgot about us completely – we asked for dessert menu which came but no one came to take our order for 30 mins, then we got fed up of waiting another 30mins and cancelled our dessert…strange that they didn't ask if we'd like to order any more drinks – only got through one bottle of wine between 6 people only because the waiters weren't around to order any more! and they were not wanting us to clear the table either …just not service whatsoever beyond the main course.

We were very disappointed with our pre-theatre dinner at Thai Tho. The food was of average quality (other than the noodles which were leathery and unsatisfactory) but the real disappointment was the service which was sullen and remarkably slow given how few people were there. Fortunately the play (The Audience) was brilliant so it didn't spoil the evening, but we will certainly not be returning.