Thai restaurant is a dream come true

Oct 2 2008 Buckinghamshire Advertiser

Kathy Miller eats at Thai Fusion Restaurant and Cookery School, 131 White Lion Road, Amersham. Telephone: 01494 765 784 email: thaifusion@fsmail.net

IF you gave me a check list of all that I would want a restaurant to offer, Thai Fusion would tick almost every box: No trouble to find, even in the dark, easy parking, attentive service and tasteful decor that doesn't overwhelm you. Oh, and the box marked 'imaginative food', with everything freshly made in a spotlessly clean kitchen; check.

Jill and Mark Wilkinson recently took over The Pineapple pub in White Lion Road, Amersham, and spent four months on redecoration before re-opening as Thai Fusion, a combination of à la carte Thai food, oriental tapas and a Thai cookery school, which offers half-day and evening courses for up to six students.

The couple spent a whole two years before that looking for the right premises (out-of-town with a garden) and looked at no fewer than 35 restaurants before deciding on their equipment. The result is a state of the art industrial kitchen, with a steamer, (which Mark assured me cost more than the average family car), that can cook as many as seven meals at a time.

Just as well, because the Thai Fusion menu is pretty extensive, with 11 starters, three soups, five salads, five desserts and six veg-cum-noodle or rice dishes on offer.

And that's before you work your way through the 18 main dishes of fish, chicken and meat.

Everything is nut free and there are no additives or MSG (except in the Thai prawn crackers you are offered on arrival).

Everyone in the kitchen is Thai and each dish is made to order, so if you are allergic to gluten or can't bear mushrooms, you can say so.

My husband chose the Tom Yam (prawn, mushroom and lemon grass) soup for his starter, which had just the right balance of hot and sour.

I opted for the Khoon Plaa tiger prawn salad, which although laced with fresh lime juice, coriander and chilli, all of which I love, I found too spicy for comfort. This was my mistake; as everything is made individually, I should have asked the chef for 'moderately hot'.

For our main course we shared a red duck curry, which I found to be a welcome variation to the usual chicken or beef and the Masaman lamb curry, both of which were beautifully presented and deliciously flavoured. We rounded this off with a bowl of steamed jasmine rice and a bowl of Phad Thai Jay noodles, although the helpings were generous enough for one of these to have been sufficient.

Jill Wilkinson assured me that all the ingredients are fresh and some, such as chilli, tamarind and mangoes are flown in weekly from Thailand. I can believe it; our meals were terrific, far superior to many Thai meals I have had elsewhere in this country and as good as any I have had in Thailand.

I recommend the kitchen tour which Mark offers diners, if only to marvel at the enviably efficient use of space and and the little pots of home-made sauces that line the shiny steel worktops.

The only box I hesitate to tick is the one marked 'atmosphere'. On the Friday evening we were there, business at Thai Fusion seemed rather slow.

Opening an up-market restaurant and cookery school just as the country is on the brink of a recession may not be the best timing, but for Jill and Mark Wilkinson, it is the fulfilment of a long cherished dream and the culmination of two years' hard work.

It shows and I wish them well. They deserve it.