Soi55
Popular Thai spot at International City 41 Reviews
At first glance Soi55 looked like a Wagamamas with a Thai focus, only one plopped down in the inconveniently located International City (assuming you don’t live there, of course). Sure, the décor has more personality, with sweet, framed colour photographs of the Bangkok streets covering the walls, but the menu sings of a typical Thai restaurant.
I imagined I’d be in for some passable pad thai coupled with a few decent pan-Asian staples. Granted the staff were all actually Thai, which should have acted as a clue that the food would be, perhaps, a step above the norm. Despite this, however the menu – which seemed to offer little beyond Thai standards – gave us no sense that we were about to consume some of the most authentic Thai food in
the city.
But let’s rewind. My date was craving sushi and I had a hankering for Vietnamese spring rolls, so we decided to test out the restaurant’s pan-Asian offerings before seeing how its Thai food measured up.
The sushi was beautifully delicate, with thin slices of tuna and salmon offering our teeth no resistance. The spring rolls – a seemingly simple dish that remains elusive for many restaurants – were perfect. They were thin, tightly wrapped and stuffed with a fresh, revitalising assortment of vegetables. For mains I ordered the one item that stuck out as different: a steamed fish in a hot and sour marinade. Light, juicy and sensually sharp, it tasted exactly like items I’ve sampled in the street stalls of Bangkok.
I also took bites from my date’s order of prawn pad thai. I never expect much from pad thai because it’s just so ubiquitous. Soi55 proved this was not the case. The noodles came marinated in an inky oyster sauce that gave the dish depth and complexity. My date nodded his approval of a meal that had yet to offer a single bad note. We wrapped things up with the fail-safe sticky rice with mango dessert that’s a staple of Thai restaurants. Usually South Asian venues trip up on the dessert, so I thought the sweet would be an afterthought, but it too suggested a higher level of sophistication in the kitchen (which, incidentally, is manned by Thai chefs). Even this humble pudding came bursting with flavour: the mango juicy and ripe, and the rice sweet without being saccharine.
Very little let Soi55 down. Certainly the food, décor and price were all exactly as you’d want if you were going in for a low-key neighbourhood meal. If you can overcome the trek to International City it’s a trip well worth making.
The bill (for two)
1x Spring roll Dhs18
1x Sushi platter Dhs34
1x Phad thai Dhs32
1x Steamed fish Dhs38
1x Mango and rice Dhs22
Total (excluding service) Dhs144
Time Out Dubai, 24 August 2009
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