Pet’s plates

Benjawan
St Anthony Street
Buġibba
+356 2704 0686

Food: 4/10
Service: 8/10
Ambience: 5/10
Value: 5/10
Overall: 5/10

Thai cuisine expresses the essential aspects of Thai culture and is adored the world over, ranking among the top five over other international cuisines in popularity ratings.

Many visitors to Thailand feel that, above all things, it was the distinct cuisine that enhanced their trip, returning with the fondest of food memories. Based on a combination and balance between sweet, sour, bitter, salty and spicy flavours, harmony is the leading principle here – a perfect juxtaposition of tastes and textures, of the subtle and the fiery.

I was first introduced to Thai food while living in the UK and it was lust at first site and true love at first bite. I gradually reached a stage of familiarity and developed a confidence when ordering.

Nonetheless, the cuisine’s exotic nature still lingered. Whether I daintily devoured the food in smart restaurants or wolfed it down in pubs or greasy spoons, it was practically always delicious. I’ve never been to Thailand but I dream of travelling there and of Bangkok street food.

Unfortunately, in Malta we’re not exactly spoilt for choice when it comes to all things Thai, with the exception of these (all too often seedy) Thai massage places that seem to sprout everywhere.

When it comes to Thai food, it is still sadly something of a novelty on the local restaurant scene. If you disregard the few good fusion places, restaurants specialising solely in Thai cuisine are hard to come by in Malta, barring a couple of honourable exceptions.

Enter Benjawan Thai restaurant. Having opened in 2013, this family-run restaurant is relatively new but already has a sister restaurant in Mellieħa. The Buġibba restaurant is situated in one of the side streets off the main square and is a small, extremely casual sort of place that opens daily for dinner and also does Sunday lunches.

The eating of Thai food should be a communal affair and we were an excited group that evening – a cackling pack of family members who had all lived abroad and, having fallen in love with Thai food overseas, were now desperately craving it! We weren’t here to chat or to catch up, we just wanted to eat. I was hoping desperately that the food was up to the high standards we had grown used to abroad.

From the start, the staff were lovely and obliging and courteously welcomed our little invasion. At Benjawan you can eat outdoors but we settled inside, enjoying the cheerfully tacky interior while eagerly waiting to steal a glimpse at the menu.

Having not indulged in Thai for a while, I ordered some classic dishes. Our soups soon arrived, served in very pretty blue and white china bowls. I had chosen Tom Yam, Thailand’s national soup, with chicken. I had the fondest of memories of this tear-jerkingly hot and sour soup. It usually packs quite a punch but to my complete disappointment this Tom Yam Gai lacked any depth of flavour.

The delicious complexity of flavours that so typifies Thai cooking was sorely absent

Good ingredients are the foundation of any dish but alas the chicken was of such dreadful quality that it felt like I was chewing on reconstituted meat. Alarm bells were set off but I tried not to panic just then. The use of the fragrant herbs lemongrass, lime leaves and galangal should have given rise to familiar smells – but in this soup they fell flat.

What should have been the ideal start to the meal was hardly successful but I was still hesitantly hopeful for what was to come. I had a few spoonfuls of the Tom Yam Khoong, a Tom Yam broth, this time with prawns instead of chicken. It suffered the same shortcomings as my soup. Apart from rice, the chilli pepper is one of the chief ingredients in Thai cuisine and was only introduced to Thailand in the 17th century via Portuguese missionaries who had developed a penchant for them while in the Americas.

A little bowl of chilli accompanied the soups and it was nice that you could add spice to taste according to varying heat preferences. It’s only fair that those with different spice tolerances can also experience and enjoy the beauty of Thai cookery. While I love good spicing, I dislike food that hurts.

The Thai mixed platter gave us a chance to taste practically everything on the starter menu. It consisted of chicken and beef satays, fishcakes, prawn cakes, dumplings and vegetable spring rolls.

Unfortunately, the use of poor ingredients continued here and this was especially evident in the meat. This was not aided by the fact that the platter had obviously been pre-prepared. And even then, the items had not arrived piping hot. The beef and chicken were gummy. The minced chicken and prawn dumpling was nothing more than a rubbery, dense mass. The spring rolls were greasy and the prawn cakes had a strange taste. The fish patties were quite tasteless and simply cried out to be dipped in some sweet chilli sauce.

The latter, along with the peanut dipping sauce and dark soy sauce were good, but what to dip into them proved challenging. I’m quite sure that everyone’s idea had been to order their favourite dish and guard it with their lives.

Unluckily, we all ended up willingly sharing; generously offer-ing up our satays or chewy dumplings up and down the table. By the time we came to order the main stir fries or curries with meat accompaniments, we had already tried the chicken, beef, prawns and some sort of fish. What was left on the meat selection was the pork, duck and lamb and none of us felt brave enough to try those.

Pad Thai is practically the national dish of Thailand and hardly requires an introduction. I had ordered this tasty noodle dish hoping it would be mouth-wateringly authentic but it was very bland and stodgy and contained just four prawns – and frozen ones at that! The delicious complexity of flavours that so typifies Thai cooking was sorely absent.

This dish should have constituted a complete meal in itself but despite my hunger I could barely come close to finishing it. I showered on some extra peanut dust but all I added was a crunch to my sad mouthfuls. I squeezed fresh lime over everything but it could do nothing to freshen the flavour. The damage had been done.

Thai chefs pay particular attention to how dishes look and are presented but from the outset the Thai Green Curry did not look very appealing. Accompanied by a plate of steamed rice, it was an insipid grey-green colour. The chicken seemed once again to be of the processed kind – limp, uniform looking and textureless. And there were no other vegetables to bulk up the dish or add some colour or excitement except for some boiled marrows.

This creamy, coconut curry is usually an exciting dish but this one was hardly brimming with spice. It required stronger, more authentic flavours and the overall taste was as dull as the curry’s dreary colour.

With all the characteristically sweet Thai desserts to be had after a heavily spiced meal, I was surprised to find practically no selection at Benjawan, apart from some fruits in syrup and ice cream. Not wishing to turn dessert into another frustrating disillusionment, we paid the bill and headed up the road to the fabulous ice cream parlour, Sotto Zero. This ensured that everyone left with a sticky smile on their face, having momentarily succeeded in putting aside the disappointment of our meal.

I had been so keen to once again absorb the colours and flavours of this Southeast Asian cuisine but the result was a total anticlimax. At Benjawan they are struggling to provide an authentic Thai experience but without the solid groundwork provided by good, quality ingredients all is lost and their attempts are feeble at best.

The food is not expensive. Then again, it is not so cheap as to expect the terribly inferior and quite unpardonable quality of the ingredients experienced.

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