Thai Village, Belfast

I feel a bit sorry for vegetarians in Belfast. It’s increasingly unusual for a capital city to be bereft of at least one fully vegetarian restaurant, and yet for all my searching on the internet I failed to unearth one for dinner out in the Northern Ireland capital this week.

I did manage to find two ‘veggie-friendly’ places however, and from this very short short-list, I decided to take a punt on Thai Village.

Veg & Two Veg Please!

Now, before I go any further I should include a disclaimer here: I do not particularly like ‘eastern’ food. I come from a ‘meat & two veg’ background (well, ‘veg & two veg’ for me obviously), where all vegetables were boiled rapidly for well over half an hour, so that they were just one small step away from mash by the time they made it onto the plate. So, it’s unsurprising then that I have held a deeply ingrained suspicion of crunchy vegetables even into my adulthood. And while I have managed to reduce my own vegetable-boiling time down to a more reasonable level, I still have a long way to go before I can come to accept rock-hard baby sweetcorn and seriously crunchy water chestnuts.

On top of this, my major recollection of Thai food is one where the vegetable curry that was served to me (the only vegetarian main course on the menu), was so hot that I left with my eyes and nose streaming, looking like I had been punched in the face and recently bereaved at the same time – and I’d only had one spoonful!

A Thai restaurant then would not usually top my ‘must visit’ list, and yet here I was at Thai Village. Why? Because they have that rare and wonderful thing in a non-veggie restaurant – a whole veggie menu to choose from – and that is something I couldn’t resist. With four starters, two soups, two salads, and eleven vegetarian main dishes on the menu I was excited at the prospect of trying something new and even reasonably optimistic that I might actually enjoy Thai food for first time.

No tears here

For starters I cautiously talked my dining partner into sharing Thom Pak Gra Tri (mixed boiled vegetables in coconut milk, served with peanut sauce), along with a portion of Tempura Phak (deep fried mixed vegetables in Thai butter, served with sweet chilli sauce).

As our pleasantly attentive waiter left with my order I wondered whether I had made a mistake and would find myself staring at a plate of barely-cooked baby sweetcorn, but when it arrived I congratulated myself on taking a chance; although there was a smattering of baby sweetcorn in there, the Thom Pak Gra Tri was a refreshingly delicate dish, the faint flavours of the vegetables and coconut milk left to speak for themselves rather than being drowned in a heavy sauce. I had chosen the tempura as an old reliable option but this too was light and spongy without any of the greasiness you can find in some poor-quality versions.

Khai Yad Sai (described as stir-fried mixed vegetables wrapped in an omelette) was my choice of main course and this too was delicious. A fluffy sliver of omelette wrapping delicately stir-fried vegetables, sitting on a slightly sweet sauce.

We helped our dinner along with a couple of nicely refreshing Singha Thai beers and I left the restaurant surprised but delighted. I’m not sure if I’m a total Thai food convert just yet but I would definitely visit Thai Village again.

Do you know of any vegetarian or veggie-friendly places I’ve missed in Belfast?