Tuesday 23 June 2015

Giggling Squid

For Father's Day this year, my sister-in-law arranged a lunch for my husband's family at a restaurant in Sevenoaks that they have eaten at and really enjoyed, The Giggling Squid. I had heard of the brand before, and seen a couple of friends on Facebook had been there to eat, so I was looking forward to trying it.

So, if you have never heard of it, Giggling Squid is a Thai restaurant that serves 'simple, rustic and fresh food from Thailand'. All the food is cooked by experienced Thai chefs and ingredients are also sourced locally. We were going for lunch, and their lunchtime menu is made up of 'tasting sets' or Thai Tapas, which means you can try different dishes at once.


Mike and I arrived at the restaurant first, and waited outside in the sun. They have some lovely tables outside for that al fresco dining experience if you wanted. The outside of the place is nice and light, with their logo on the décor - which I actually love by the way!


We had booked a table as there was 10 of us altogether, so when we arrived, we were led upstairs in this gorgeous building, where we had a whole room to ourselves - there were other tables available, but just us for the majority of our meal. The décor upstairs was so pretty, long lightshades that distributed the light really well, beautiful flowers in all of the little windows, and a wall of baskets - sounds strange, but seemed to go really well with the rest of the room.

  
 

We were greeted by a waitress who bought us all some water, then we got to have a look at the lunch menu. We had actually had a little look online the day before just to give us an idea of what we'd like. Mike and I aren't great lovers of spicy food, but I have enjoyed Thai food I have had in the past, but this was Mike's first try of it. We both went for one of their 'Tapas Sets' which consisted of 4 dishes, and there are 6 sets to choose from. I went for the 'Two Giggling Squids' set, with some Thai Dumplings on the side, and Mike decided on the 'Wealthy Squid' set. Whilst we were waiting for the food to come, we got some prawn crackers and sweet chilli dip, which we so delicious.

 
 
Then the food arrived and I could not wait to get tucked in!
 
Two Giggling Squids

 
Wealthy Squid

So we tucked straight in! My meal consisted of Salt and Pepper Squid, Chicken Massaman Curry, Jasmine Rice and Beef Salad, and also some Thai Dumplings on the side. I started off with one of those, and there were so good. They were packed full of meat, and tasted so good with the dipping sauce they came with. Then I couldn't wait to make a start on the squid - my favourite dish when I have an Asian meal. The batter on the outside was so crunchy and the squid was cooked perfectly. The Massaman curry was to die for. So creamy and full of flavour, and as I like it, not too spicy, and went so well with the well cooked rice. Lastly I tried the beef salad, which was a little on the spicy side as it had flakes of chilli all through it, along with cucumber, onion and a lovely dressing, was really tasty. Overall, I loved the food, and so did everyone else. We had 2 children with us too, and they had a mixture of dishes from the main lunch menu and they really liked the food too.
 
 
So, for our first Giggling Squid Thai Tapas experience, we were thoroughly pleased. I would definitely recommend the restaurant to friends, great atmosphere, amazing food and the staff were really helpful.
 
You can find more information about the Giggling Squid restaurants here.

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Apple Muffins

I stumbled across this recipe a few weeks ago when I felt like making some breakfast muffins. The kids love an apple, and this was a good way to give them a bit of a treat along with that. I have a recipe I have shared before for an apple cake (here) but thought I'd give this recipe a go.