13 APRIL 1985, Page 42

I n Time Must Have a Stop (I think), Aldous Huxley

describes champagne as tasting like 'apple peeled with a steel knife'. I've always though that a perfect description, but of course it isn't even an adequate .one: it means nothing if you've never tasted champagne. It's difficult to think of a description of any taste which isn't either purely formulaic or impress- ionistic. Even the most pedestrian evoca- tion of taste relies, I'd have thought, on recognition. (And there's a limit to how impressionistic you can tolerably be in a restaurant coloumn.) I went last week to Chiang Mai, a Thai restaurant in Frith Street. If you don't know what to expect from Thai food, it is, to quote their menu, 'somewhere between Chinese and Indian cookery'. Those who do know and love Thai cuisine say that Chiang Mai is the only serious place to go for it in London.

The owner, the very beautiful Vatcharin Bhumichitr (a descendant of King Mongkut, on whom, it is said, the king in The King and! was modelled), came to London from Thailand to go to art school in 1976. Four years ago he opened the Thai Shop in Bayswater. He got fed up with flying in fresh Thai produce weekly, thereby pro- viding the ingredients for Thai res- taurateurs throughout England, and de- cided to open his own restaurant.

Chiang Mai is not large. It seats about 30 in the cool, well-designed upstairs room, but there is room for more downstairs on particularly crowded nights. The clean lines and pale vanilla walls are tempered by bona fide rush blinds and trailing foliage; slender flower arrangements sit on the pinky fawn tablecloths: all in all, a sort of oriental Caprice. The pleasing, unruffling atmosphere also owes much to the unwest- em gentleness and courtesy of the staff: a welcome change from the French, and other, brusqueness which can be mistaken for, and so often is, rudeness.

As with Chinese food, lots of different small dishes are eaten together, so that you get a better taste of Thai cooking if you come in a group rather than with just one other person. If you don't know what to choose, you can safely rely on the waiter or waitress to order for you. Only when you're asked whether you like your food hot, bear in mind that when the Thais say hot, they mean hot. Unless you can out-

vindaloo the Indians, ask them to go easy on the spices.

I went with three others, so we were able to stretch to quite a banquet without being overwhelmed. We ate Lab Chiang Mai, finely chopped beef cooked with lemon, spices and chilli, which came with a cooling dish of crudités. Alongside this we had their special sticky rice — which comes in a surprisingly delicious glutinous wedge — and Nahm prig ong kapmoo, which con- sists of pieces of pork skin which, dipped in hot fat, flare up into pearly-coloured, crackling horns, which look like a cross between prawn crackers and brandy snaps. These are eaten dipped into a paste of ground pork, tomato and chilli.

Next we had chicken satay, the (Malay- sian) dish of small skewered and grilled meats with a velvety peanut sauce, then Ga ton tong, small fluted batter cases filled with a spicy, oniony sauce. After this came a huge tureenful of Tom yum — hot and sour soup with pieces of soft, white chicken in it. This is not so much a soup, more a culinary friar's balsam. It is, actually, very good, but the liberal sprinkling of freshly ground lemon grass can bring tears to the eyes.

This was followed by Pad king — beef, pork or chicken fried with ginger; Kung tord gratiam — prawns with garlic and peppers, looking rather like a Turner sunset; Nua pahd ki mow — not to be missed under any circumstances — beef fried with chillis and Kaffir lime leaves, the , aromatic, liquoricy oriental basil; and Kai pahd prig hang — chicken with nuts and dried chilli, which are on no account to be ' eaten: they are to give flavour to the dish only.

If you are vegetarian, choose among 16 dishes, from vegetable curry with coconut cream, hot and sour papaya salad to the perhaps less daunting quick-fried seasonal vegetables. House wine is £5.20 and there are two reds and three whites on the menu, none over £7.50. But I would drink their delicious Thai beer, Singla, which at £1.80 isn't cheap, but is the best thing with the rich, spicy, often fiery food. With service and an embarrassing quantity of food, all of it a delight, the bill came to just over £10 a head.

Nigella Lawson