Mum Likes Thai: New Thai restaurant opens on Roman Road
A new Thai restaurant has opened in a former cocktail bar and offers the experience of dining at home with a Thai family.
Smooth jazz music, dark-wood paneled walls, a cosy fireplace, and multi-coloured glass parrots: you’d be forgiven for thinking this is the latest vibey cocktail bar to appear on The Roman. But it is, in fact, the inside of a new Thai restaurant in Globe Town.
Mum Likes Thai Food opened up in January of this year, taking over the premises in former cocktail bar Nola. It operates as a fully functioning sit-in restaurant, as well as continuing with the takeaway service it focused on during lockdown.
Tanakrit Pimpa, the restaurant’s owner and head chef, said he chose this slightly unusual name as he wanted something simple yet memorable.
Since opening 10 months ago, customer footfall has increased month on month, to the point that he now turns away customers from his 35-seat-restaurant.
And the cause of this ever-increasing popularity? Pimpa’s bona fide Thai cuisine and experience. ‘We are authentically Thai from the kitchen to front-of-house,’ he says, smiling with pride.
When it comes to preparing and cooking the food, he adds that he ‘tries to keep to the original recipe that would be used in Thailand. If I cannot get the ingredients here, I adjust. I don’t go far away from the original taste.’
And what is on offer looks tantalisingly tasty, with the menu showcasing all the colour and spices of the dishes on offer.
The menu has a small ‘chef recommended’ list that includes grilled whole sea bass and Thai spiced minced chicken. There are also the familiar green and red Thai curries as well as noodles. Pimpa says he listens to his customers and is changing the menu to accommodate more vegetarian dishes.
His best-selling dish is Pad Thai, something, he wonders, maybe due to his ‘secret sauce’ which is a blend of Thai spices and oils. ‘I prepare all the ingredients and sauces myself.’
Together, Tanakrit and his wife Supap, who manages the front of house, welcome customers like they are old friends, greeting them with smiles and chitchat.
They want their customers ‘to feel like they are coming into a home and eating their food.’ It’s this warmth that has ensured Pimpa has quickly built up repeat custom. ‘We treat them like family by being a little extra generous with their food too’, he reveals with a smile.
Mum Likes Thai Food is open every day from 12pm until 3pm and then 5.30pm until 10.30pm. There is a 10% discount for those who collect their takeaway.
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