Checking out the little Thai cuisine delivery service in Devizes, Thaiday Friday; why am I the last to know about these things?!
I’ve no gripe with Andy, I couldn’t have, he’s standing at my door clutching some takeaway Thai curry. And my grumble certainly isn’t with his partner, Som, who’s lovingly cooked it. It’s with some of you, you know who you are! I do have bad moods, and they can be known to last for anything up to thirty seconds. The Thaiday Friday Facebook page has received over 400 likes, and not one of you thought to tell me about it. Well, your dirty little secret is out!
Thaiday Friday is the “lockdown project” of Andy and Som of Devizes, each Friday they deliver a different homecooked Thai dish to your door. While we have some great established takeaways in town, variety lacks, Thai cuisine one of them, and you know what they say about variety; aptly, it’s something about spices.
If they’ve found a gap in the market, and set up as a registered business, Andy seemed ambiguous with the prospect of expanding the project. He’s worked as a DJ for over 35 years, and Som is the breakfast chef at The Bear Hotel, so they’ve their hands full already. Besides, overthinking something can be its downfall, the beauty of this idea is its simplicity.
“We sell out most weeks,” Andy told me, making me wonder why we need review it at all. But I’m not about to argue, as I said, he’s standing at my door clutching some takeaway Thai curry! After hoofing it down, and cleaning my plate dry, (which I may/may not have licked,) I see why it needs a mention, deffo. Though I’ve not a great deal of experience with Thai cuisine, ergo nothing to evenly compare it with, I knows what I likes, and this was simply delicious.
Those few times I have had Thai curry, it’s always been green, like it’s an English set standard. This Friday though, it’s a welcoming, warm orange tint; chicken Massaman curry, apparently, with chickpeas, sweet potato and cashew nuts, accompanied with soft Thai Jasmin rice. “We rotate five dishes on weekly basis,” Andy explained, “Massaman, yellow curry, Panang curry, red curry and green curry, all with Thai Jasmin rice.”
Choice maybe limited, no restaurant menu here, rather a quaint homecooked operation of which you can check to see what’s cooking and order via their Facebook page. If you have to hold your hands up and praise the ingenuity here, the proof is, as they say, in the pudding. You can choose if you want it hot or just lightly spiced, of which we opted for the latter.
Like Marilyn Monroe, without the legs for it, I do like it hot, but lesser so, I considered, you can really taste the quality. And it is quality, restaurant-standard. The chicken fresh and succulent, the sweet potato smooth and the whole combination of cashews, chickpeas and the incomparable sauce were to die for.
Massaman is a rich, relatively mild fusion dish, not over-sweet, savoury, and just, velvety. Is this the cinnamon at work, the palm sugar or cardamom? Do I look like Jay Rayner to you? That was rhetorical, you don’t have to answer it. To compare to Indian curry though, this was far more delicately composed and lighter; it was sweet, to a degree, savoury to another and creamy, just a bit. With Indian curry I find it’s either one end or the other, here curry is balanced to perfection, from someone proficient and obviously passionate about bringing you a taste of her home; that’s my amateurish opinion!
Portions were plentiful, but size is unimportant compared to the notion; here’s something unique to our little market town, and for which Thaiday Friday thoroughly deserves top marks, and a little more. This is undoubtedly the completion to a perfect Friday night in.
devizine.com 