The title alludes to the fact that, despite this place having been open since 2021, I have somehow failed to visit it until now! I know I am usually late to the party with regard to new openings, but even for me this is a little extreme!

Call yourself a food blogger (an influenza I aint, that is for sure, as my position/views on food or otherwise are generally ignored even by Mrs. SF and J so what hope for any sway in terms of the wider populous), you shameless charlatan, I hear you cry and it is probably a fair criticism (one of all too many in terms of the blog) with this glaring omission in my back catalogue.

To be honest, I am not sure why I haven’t been before. Maybe it is because I am inherently lazy (why you won’t find me on Threads or BlueSky Whatever as just can’t be arsed) and tend to stay close to home for dinner, venturing out on a wider basis only really for lunch (when they don’t open) when I usually forgo booze and thus tend to drive. Also, it was wildly popular back when it first opened (still is by all accounts) and I tried a couple of times back then to get a booking at a sensible time and failed miserably.

Then there was the Plague (covid) where everything shut down and I sort of forgot about the place.

Not being near it, such that I would either walk or drive past, and it not being open lunchtimes didn’t help in terms of jogging the failing memory as to the need to go, if am honest.

Driving down to Roasties the other day I spied it (closed as it was at lunchtime) as we crawled along Whitchurch Road in the jalopy and I bookmarked it in my sieve like memory bank. 

Pondering where to go, out with J, on a Thursday night (my first suggestion of Smokey Dave’s at the Robin Hood being stymied by him being no longer at the RH and not yet in situ at a mystery new venue) I thought why not Brother Thai as haven’t been and J was ” What, seriously you haven’t been yet, call yourself a blogger you bloody charlaton! Actually I haven’t been for ages so why not!”. I thought better late than never and promptly booked it.

As J was/is doing “I am not going to blowthedamuary  (I did ask why and she said was she was just cutting back a bit by not drinking on days without an “A”  “D” or “Y” in them – I made that up) she offered to drive.

I weighed up the benefits of this as against the fact she drives like a loon and gives me car sickness on any journey of over 5 mins and decided it was worth the risk (I just closed my eyes, prayed and made use of the “Jesus handle“).

I also wanted to laugh at her attempts at parallel parking (on the basis she always leaves her car halfway up the pavement when she parks outside my house when the available space is about 50 light years wide, I suppose I should be grateful she doesn’t careen into the japoly with 1p worth of damage likely to write it off).

My wish for parking chuckles was dashed by her simply ignoring parking convention and parking on a double yellow by a turning, about 4 miles from the kerb. Me pointing out that right outside of Brother Thai the road was marked with what appeared to be only a single yellow line was met with indifference.

Back to Brother Thai and the food, the menu is (unlike a lot of South East Asian places over here) pretty short and sweet. Actually quite like that, as I love pretty such all Thai food and thus narrowing a long menu down to a few choices is always a challenge.

I tend to think a huge menus risk:

• a jack of all trades masters of none position; and
• me being wracked with indecision as to what to order.

Here, even though the menu is a short one pager, I was still somewhat undecided as to what to go for.

although discounting the majority of the vegan stuff helped immeasurably in narrowing things down.

Vegan sticky satan (sic) just sounded godawful and something that would feature in my worst nightmares (the Seventh Ring of Hell being where I would be forced to eat seitan by a sticky Satan for eternity)!

The rice bowls sounded rather nice, but could I really come here (at least for my first visit) and not have one of their signature rotis?

With A joining us, we could (in theory, more on that later) be rather expansive in our choices, with A and J being much more amenable to sharing food with me than Mrs. SF (whose response to requests to her sharing food with me tending to be rather negative, as in a fork in the hand negative).

We started off with most of the small plates, which rather gratifyingly weren’t small at all.

The Thai fried chicken (£8.50), utilising my preferred thigh (which has a better flavour, with breast not always best), had a nice crisp coating with a nice touch of spice to it (not hot, but rather more fragrant)

Couldn’t tell you exactly what the spice mix in the dredge was, but would say it had cumin, chilli and coriander and  lemongrass in the mix. We plumped for  siracha mayo rather than the sweet chilli sauce, which I think was the right decision.

Next up were a bevy of wonton (£8.50), with a super crisp shell

filled with a lemongrass imbued pork and prawn filling.

Nice bounce to the prawn element, with them not being overcooked (always a risk with surf and turf involving pork). Didn’t really need the sweet chilli sauce they came with it (with this vindicating the siracha mayo choice for the thighs, as sweet chilli sauce tends to be too sweet for my tastes).

Thai cuisine goes big on salads, with said salads balancing sweet, sour, heat and salt and Brother Thai’s waterfall salad (£6.50) was an absolute triumph.

Lovely tanginess, without being too sharp, with a very pleasing hint of citrus from lemongrass and lime tempered by a subtle touch of sweetness and chilli heat. You then got that oh so Thai flavour of Thai basil with its trademark thwack of liquorice and a touch of balancing bitterness from coriander.

Nice use here of the seasonal swede, presumably in place of the Thai staple green papaya.

Lovely dish this, that tickled the palate beautifully.

The crispy mushroom laab (£8.50) was almost as good, with heat from the red chilli, fragrance from lemongrass and coriander and sour from lime, as well as umami funkiness from the not too prevalent fish sauce and plentiful shrooms.

Nice coating to the bountiful supply of meaty mushrooms, which bought a pleasing crunchy texture to the dish. If I were a veggie (not happening) this and the waterfall salad would be the sort of stuff I would happily eat all the time.

On to the main event, we all ordered rotis (£9.50 across the board), with me going for the sticky beef.

Lovely flakiness to the exterior of the roti, but enough pliability to wrap it around the bountiful filling to enable relatively easy transportation to the gaping maw (use spare hand as a backstop to stop filling existing via the back door).

The filling was very satisfying, with the sticky coating to the beef having a welcome mix of sweet and sour. Nice zingy freshness to the cucumber that worked well as against the richness of the beef, with again plentiful coriander and Thai basil in the mix. Chilli and siracha added a bit of heat, but not too much.

J went for the red curry  chicken roti and found it quite a bit hotter than my beef one.

Nice flavours here, according to J, with   similar additions to my beef equally excelling.

A was presented with a bit of a quandary in terms of what to order as she doesn’t eat beef and dislikes chicken thighs (I know food weirdo, but what can you do?!). Perusing the menu suggested somewhat slim pickings for her in the form of the various seitan offerings. 

She was initially torn between the satay seitan rice bowl and vegan sticky seitan (a devil of a choice that, if you ask me), with the vegan sticky seitan roti the eventually choice (with a pot of the satay sauce it see if she had made a error in not ordering the seitan satay).

Similar MO to the beef,

with the seitan not as unpleasant in texture as I had feared. It had sucked up a lot of the flavours that were present in my beef number and actually it wasn’t that bad. I mean I wouldn’t order it over the beef or chicken, but I would eat it if I had to (even without Satan cajoling me with his pitchfork/trident). For veggies, I imagine it would be deemed a very acceptable option.

The satay sauces was deemed a bit underpowered on both the peanut and chilli front, thus vindicating (to A) her not going for the satay seitan.

On the drinks front, J and A were not drinking.  J defaulted to diet coke (🥱) and A a more interesting cocktail in the form of the Pattaya Passion and (lady)boy was it good, being very refreshing (£4.80).

I had a couple of chang beers ( £4.85 a pop), which was cold and wet and did their job in wetting the whistle.

It is a shame that the wines on offer are rather pedestrian, as I think this type of food really lends itself to wines like riesling, pinot blanc and grüner veltliner.  The pinot noir special would have been my choice, if had decided to drink wine, from what was on offer.

Riesling is my general go to wine for Thai food and this was vindicated with a Baden (German) riesling

working very well with a homemade green Thai chicken curry I made the next day.

I would put this limey number on the wine list of any Thai place.

The verdict

The place was buzzing at 18.30 on a dank January night, which is testimony to the enduring appeal of this place.

Really enjoyed the food and chilled out vibe, with it achieving the no mean feat of me not spitting out a lump of seitan.

They have clearly found a very popular niche that rightly appeals and kudos to them in these hard times for seemingly bucking the depressing trend (of fighting for survival) that many in hospitality are presented with these days.

Bearing in mind we went large with sides, I thought the bill fair value.

I should have gone sooner and will certainly be back soonest.

Shame not open lunchtimes, but if it isn’t viable then why would you?!

The details

Address: 35 Whitchurch Road, Cardiff, CF14 3JN

Website: https://www.brotherthai.co.uk/

Opening hours: