Review: Red Snapper


https://www.redsnapperbrighton.co.uk/
90 Dyke Road, Brighton & Hove, BN1 3JD

"The flavour of Thailand goes deep at the Red Snapper - three generations deep"

As soon as I mention to anyone that I’ve recently moved up to the Seven Dials area, the first thing I hear is ‘ooohh there’s a really nice Thai restaurant up there’. They then usually give me strict instructions about which restaurant it is: ‘NOT Thai Pad Thai, the other one’ (although I’ve actually had a takeaway from Thai Pad Thai and loved it). When I get a restaurant recommendation, I file it carefully away in the food section of my brain and wait impatiently for an opportunity to arise. I have now finished writing this paragraph and have just realised that I haven’t mentioned the name of the place I’m writing about (top quality blogging by me), so I will tell you now – this post is about Red Snapper.

 Before you even make it to the doors of the restaurant, you are blessed with the incredible news that it’s BYOB! YESS!! As you may be able to tell, I LOVE this – no more gazing at the wine list thinking ‘do I want fruity or dry? Do I want sharp or sweet?’ Who really knows?! I usually give up and go for the cheapest wine, and if I’m lucky it’ll be from New Zealand. Red Snapper is about 10 seconds away from a Coop, so you can browse the £5 wines there to your heart’s content. Remember to get some cashback - they don't take card. When you get into the restaurant, the welcome is really friendly and the tables are small and cosy. We chose one at random up by the kitchen and it turned out my chair was right next to a radiator. Happy days.


The waiter brought us water and wine glasses super speedily so we could start guzzling our wine. The menu looked really good – it has all the usual suspects and then a ‘Red Snapper’ section which I’d heard a lot about from my friends on TripAdvisor (all the reviewers on there are talking directly to me right?!). The only disappointing thing for me is that they don’t offer any of their curries with duck, which is my favourite thing to order in a Thai restaurant.

 We ordered the Mixed Starter for 2 People, which includes vegetarian spring rolls, chicken satay skewers, sesame prawn toast, thai fish cakes and prawn crackers. They brought us the prawn crackers first (YUM) with sweet chilli sauce and satay sauce. Once we’d polished those off, they brought the rest of the starter, which I have to say looked a lot more beige than I was expecting. Despite the beigeness, it all tasted pretty good – only criticism was that the satay chicken could have been more satay-ey, especially as the satay sauce that came with the crackers was fab. Everything was fresh out of the oven and sizzling hot.

For the main courses, we’d ordered two to share – one was Kang Dang (with beef) and one was Red Snapper with Chilli, Lemon and Thai herbs. I enjoyed both of these, although it definitely wasn’t the best Red Curry I’ve ever had (maybe I was missing the duck). The Red Snapper was really nice and crispy and something totally different for me! However, it had a LOT of coriander in, which I'm not a massive fan of. My boyfriend has pointed out that you can’t really complain about coriander in a Thai restaurant, which is a fair point, but if I went again I’d definitely ask for less. That’s all I’m saying… Apart from that, the sauce was a really nice flavour, and there are a few other options to choose from if you fancy something different with your fish.

All in all, I think Red Snapper was almost oversold by how many times it was recommended to me. I had built it up so much in my head that I was expecting the best and fanciest Thai food EVER, but actually what I found was a cosy, authentic, friendly place that serves some tasty food at a great price. It might not have the snazziness of the Thai restaurant chains, but what it does have is charm. Buckets of it.

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