Restaurant review: Thiwanya, Holborn, London

If your meal had been sitting in front of someone else for five minutes, would you eat it? This crossed my mind as I sat in Thiwanya Thai restaurant in Holborn not long ago.

 

I’d met a friend after work and she knew the area so suggested this place – she hadn’t been there before, but thought Thai would suit us both (she’s vegan, I’m fussy!). It’s a cosy (ie fairly small) restaurant and totally non-pretentious despite its city centre location. There is a good selection of vegetarian choices on the menu and my vegan friend had no problem finding something.

To start I had dim sum, with pork and crab meat dumplings, followed by a Pad Thai, which was delicious.

However, my food arrived several minutes before my friend’s so I waited and didn’t start until hers arrived. As the waiter put her meal on the table, she noticed it wasn’t what she had ordered – prompting me to look more closely at my dish and realise it wasn’t what I had ordered either. The waiter apologised and had obviously brought the food to the wrong table – as he promptly picked them up and gave them to the people on the table behind us. I hadn’t touched my food but as it had been sitting in front of me for at least five minutes he had no way of knowing that! I assume the people who received our meals hadn’t noticed – in their position I would have refused it and asked for one to be made fresh.

 

It left a disappointing tint to our meal; the food was actually very good and the service (aside from the mix up) so-so.