407 St John Street, London EC1 (020 3122 0988). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £70
After my lunch at the Naamyaa Café, a new Thai-inspired venture from Wagamama founder Alan Yau, I found myself struggling to work out what exactly had happened. By which I mean, what had gone wrong? Had somebody been forced by domestic circumstance to bring their precocious seven-year-old to the dish tastings? I imagined a child full of wit and so much joie de vivre that every time the little darling shouted: "It needs to be sweeter!" they all took notes. And then poured in the palm sugar. Much was ordered. Little was finished. My teeth ached. My pancreas wrote a letter of complaint to its line manager.
Of course, underestimating Alan Yau is a mug's game. By opening that first Wagamama back in 1992, he helped free Japanese food from its high-end ghetto and introduced a hungry public, who knew little of it, to the way of the noodle. It's easy to forget the impact his clean white lines, communal tables and zippy service had on mid-range eating out in Britain. He sold that on and opened Yauatcha and Hakkasan, both of which raised the bar for Chinese food in the UK, before selling up again and developing various other brands including the brisk Thai café Busaba Eathai.
His intense eye for detail and instinct for clean but showy design is on full display here. I liked the stepped wall of clay-coloured bricks decorated with tiny golden Buddhist icons. There is another wall tiled in a pink willow pattern. There are bare wood tables, comfortable banquettes and lots of glass. This one sits inside an anonymous office block in Islington, but you could well imagine the whole affair being rolled out into suburban middle England without a tweak.
Perhaps they'll like the odd menu more than I did. As well as curries, laksas and grills there is a range of burgers, plus a Nicoise, a Caesar and a feta salad, apparently because this is the sort of mix you could get in a real Thai café. Except in Thailand they probably don't have general access to the very nice burgers and salads we can get elsewhere in Britain. It comes across as needy. Naamayaa's menu feels like it's trying to be everything you want it to be. It love you long time.
One of the best dishes was a snack of cashew nuts tossed in a hot wok with chilli and friable basil leaves. There is something compelling about hot, toasted cashews when the oils are just starting to run. Tea-smoked ribs had a great texture, the meat falling off the bone as if it was only loitering there until a better offer came along. But almost all grace notes were lost to a massive hit of sugar. Grilled Goan prawns came smeared in what would have been a great mix of ginger and coconut, were it not – again – for the sweetness. By the time the sugar-boosted seafood laksa turned up I was thinking of throwing a tantrum like a toddler who's been at the Fanta. It was lots of prawns and rice noodles for £9.70, but was heavy and cloying, rather than the bright fiery bowlful it should have been. Like much of what we chose, it remained unfinished.
We ordered the bacon burger to see if it made an argument for itself, and while it was fine, it really didn't. Worst of the savoury dishes was a papaya salad. This should be the last word in fresh and zappy; instead it was flaccid, dull and far too heavy on the fish sauce. At least its memory was obliterated by one of the worst desserts I have ever tried: a bizarre coconut jelly set with the seaweed extract, agar. It was hard and rubbery and set in the top of a glass like a lump of lard on cold pork stock. To be fair the cheery waitress did try to warn us off it, suggesting instead the spiced pineapple with caramel ice cream, which was much better.
And yet for all the mis-steps – and they were many and brutal – I can still see how something as glossy and thought through as Naamyaa could work. God help me, it's a high-street-ready "concept". It's comfortable. Service is slick. Pricing is just shy of threatening. They just need to recalibrate the infantile palate and hence sort out one small thing: the food.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1
