Tim L.
Yelp
Finally, a Thai/Asian restaurant in the area that isn't too expensive and isn't dumbing it down for the British palette. The Giggling Squid is a chain of about 10-15 restaurants across the South East that serves quite authentic Thai. Since we were away for the weekend in a Champneys Spa, I was reluctant to cook something for the evening. Even then, when I rang at 6:30, they were fully booked and would only be able to do takeaway pickups 1.5 hours later. Talk about busy... But Esher is now becoming known for relatively decent food and so we were willing to wait.
Takeaway here is good, and better than most of the Thai restaurants in the area. They have Green Papaya salad which most Thai places tend to shy away from, and it's SPICY! Which is how it's meant to be done and the sharpness from both the lime and the fish sauce is divine. The Phad Thai isn't bad, a bit on the wetter side for my liking, but certainly not flavorless and actually quite close to what I remember street market stalls tasting like (with a little more refinement here than the wok char that you can taste on a Bangkok side street).
They also sell 'Morning Glory' vegetables (or Ong Choi if you're Chinese) stir fried with chillies. Simple, but decently done, I think there's too much 'sauce' in it which makes the sauce less tasty, and the chilli is just sliced without much fanfare. For £7.95 I'd expect a little more finesse, but oh well, it's my favorite veg in the world and they didn't ruin it, so I'll forgive them.
All in all, the Giggling Squid lives up to it's name of providing authentic (enough) Thai cuisine to the random spots that they have placed themselves in. I'd give them a 5, if 1. the wait wasn't so long, 2. they really did make it 'Thai style' and 3. Made the Ong Choi (Morning Glory) less blandish saucy and added the chillis in a slightly more refined way.
Yum. Definitely going back!