London's Best Thai Food

Pad Thai and green curry have become part of our national diet. We're as likely to tuck into them for dinner tonight as we are curry or fish and chips. Ever since the boom years of Thai food in the Nineties, we've been smitten with the sweet, salty, hot and sour flavours of Thai cooking. So much so that there are now 1,600 Thai restaurants in London - not including the pubs.

This weekend sees the inaugural Thai Food Festival in Greenwich Park (amthai. co.uk/festival) where a host of London's Thai restaurants will show off classic dishes and some less well known Thai treats (Thai wine, anyone?).

Some 20,000 visitors are expected to descend on the park that will be transformed into an exotic Thai village with traditional live music, classic and contemporary Thai dancing, Thai boxing and plenty of eating and drinking.

And if all that proves a little exhausting, there will be therapists on hand to administer emergency Thai shoulder and foot massage. If you can't make the festival, the restaurants below will give you a taste of what you're missing.

CHAOPRAYA
It's easy to overlook Chaopraya among all the other restaurants on St Christopher's Place, but do so at your peril. It ' s exquisite stuff.

A filigree egg "net" adorns the pad Thai; spring rolls come with a crispy noodle and seaweed tie; and there's a veritable multi-coloured bouquet made from cucumbers, carrots and pineapples.

At the festival, you'll find Chaopraya standbys such as pad Thai with prawns, Thai dim sum and lamb massaman curry at about a fiver a dish. The restaurant is pricier, particularly if you order king crab (£18.95) or black cod (£16.95). With a chef brought over from Chaopraya's sister restaurant in Surin Province, expect fiery hot north eastern recipes and age-old royal palace recipes.
22 St Christopher's Place, W1 (020 7486 0777

TAWANA
London's top Thai all-rounder has a handful of outlets including restaurant, deli, café, supermarket and home furnishings store. There's no Thai person in London who doesn't know the supermarkets, with beautiful fruits, herbs and vegetables flown in twice weekly.

Look out for mango, rambutan and durian, all in season. At the festival, the spotlight will be on Tawana's chefs and the fiery cooking that has won it such a following these past 20 years. Fish cakes, chilli chicken with basil leaves, BBQ pork and prawn pad Thai will be among the offerings. The drab restaurant is no beauty, but the food livens things up no end.
3 Westbourne Grove, W2 (020 7229 3785)

KRUNGTAP
Cheap, fast and fiery central Thai cooking. The restaurant's a tiny, scruffy spot, but in the Thai community it has quite a following. Noodle dishes and barbecue pork are specialities, with most dishes around £ 7 - £ 8 . Krungtap's festival showing is threefold: tasty dishes such as seafood tempura, papaya salad and green curry, produce from their Earl's Court food shop and Thai massage.
227 Old Brompton Road, SW5 (020 7259 2314)

BLUE ELEPHANT
This Fulham institution is a mustvisit thanks to the visual feast that is the interior. You can, however, catch its more humble stall at Greenwich this weekend and enjoy dishes such as black pepper tiger prawns, cookery lessons and fruit carving demos. Its latest initiatives include a healthyeating menu and the Royal Project menu, based on produce supplied by ex-opium farmers who have replanted with herbs and vegetables.
4-6 Fulham Broadway, SW6 (020 7385 6595)