Chat Thai

It might be in the upper reaches of a shopping tower, but Chat Thai is as buzzy as a street-food eatery on Bangkok's Khao San Road. There's a queue of would-be diners on mid-week nights (thankfully things move fast) and a considerable clatter once you're inside the dimly lit Thai-glam interior. Service is impressively quick and a steady procession of feisty street-food dishes is soon crowding your table. Spring rolls filled with lightly smoked fish, chicken and crab, and dipped in a spicy tamarind sauce, are a happy deviation from the norm. Poached snapper salad with coriander, chilli and mint is as hot, sweet, sour and spicy as you'd hope it to be. Green curry with chicken, apple eggplants, kaffir lime and basil is a good example of the genre, while inky-green stir-fried kale offsets pork belly that is more fatty than crunchy. This is also Thai dessert central, with around a dozen listed - from crisp deep-fried lady finger bananas to wafers filled with meringue and candied egg yolk.