We’ve had a handful of new paying Saucers join the ranks following the piece I published on Monday, meaning we’re now on 199 paying subscribers. Could you be our 200th? If you like our work, please consider it. Meanwhile, enjoy this review of an English caff in Kingswood serving authentic Thai food, written by first-time Sauce contributor Josephine Bryony. Thank you! ~ Meg
In English, a ‘white elephant’ is costly and useless; potentially an unwise name for an eatery. In Thai culture, it represents good fortune and prosperity. Jit and David Sprigg’s were presumably thinking of the latter when they opened their dual-nationality restaurant and coffee shop on the Kingswood Estate.
You’re unlikely to just stumble upon this place. It sits behind a sixth form college, within one wing of what was once a Victorian reformatory school, which now plays host to much more fun educational offerings: Circomedia, Royal School of Needlework, Creative Youth Network et al.
Outside The White Elephant, planters brim with colourful pansies to form a welcoming border between the car park and a decked seating area. Once in the front door, it’s a sensory blowout: the colourful space is splattered with Buddha heads, real and fake plants, and every possible variation of elephant figurine. Loud hip hop floods out of the open kitchen on a medley of cooking aromas, a telly blasts ITV 1 down onto diners and an industrial fan blows its best attempt into the 27 degree heat. A Coca Cola vending machine glows against one wall. It feels like a Khao San Road immersive experience, minus the awful tourists.
Out the back, remnants of the relaxed, local daytime trade remain: pub benches comfortably host family groups of six with younger members occasionally running laps on the grass. As evening descends, English breakfasts and sandwiches turn into burgers devoured alongside table portions of chunky chips, lurid milkshakes for little ones and booze for frazzled grandparents.
Despite appreciating eggy bread advertised as such, rather than by its ubiquitous American pseudonym, we’re here for the Thai food, and opt for two of the recommendations from our teenage server: massaman curry and pad Thai. Sadly, the air temperature trumps her third suggestion of a spicier panang. This same logic is not applied, however, when ordering the papaya salad (£8.55), with its three chilli heat rating.
As you can imagine, when sitting in a car park, atmosphere is a little thin on the ground. Fortunately, the starters arrive quickly: four duck spring rolls (£5.45), ready to relieve the roof of my mouth of its skin, and Thai fish cakes (£4.95) — both served alongside a limp carrot garnish and sweet chilli dipping sauce. Though the taste of duck is relatively mild, there is a welcome kick of spice, and the pastry is perfectly crisp. The fish cakes are more flavoursome, with a nice bit of bite, if a smidge under-seasoned.
Purple-haired Jit was working as a cleaner and carer until the end of 2019, when she left to open The White Elephant. Three months later Covid happened, so she was cooking at home and selling via delivery services until she could launch in earnest. She tells me that the local businesses and their clients quickly started eating here and she now has an established base of other customers too. Evidently, this is a well-liked eatery where people feel at home. Our neighbouring table seems more than happy to clear their own plates at the end of their meal.
This is not the spot for a rushed power lunch. The gap between courses reduces us to desperately devouring the carrot garnish with dipping sauce. Just before we start gnawing fingernails, our tofu pad Thai (£12.25) arrives with peanut crumbs, dried chilli flakes and a lemon wedge on the side. My date and I are such flavour-sluts we indiscriminately bung the lot on. The result is an explosion of taste and texture; really crunchy bean sprouts interlaced in sweet-sour noodles, cranked up by the addition of the chilli flakes, and riddled with crunchy peanut. Perhaps the tofu is ever so slightly too hard — but, my date reminds me, in a world where it can be floppy or stiff, most would choose the latter.
A bowl of massaman (£12.25) hosts super-tender chicken and potatoes swimming in a plentiful umami sauce. The sticky rice comes, as is common, in a plastic bag within a mini lidded wicker basket, then upon opening quickly evolves from glutinous through stodgy to become a solid mass, which is remedied with the pouring over of the curry. We eagerly scoop it all up using the obligatory portion of spicy prawn crackers (£3.95). The crunchy salad is full of young, green papaya (more a texture than anything, similar to kohlrabi) and raw, crisp, green beans, alongside carrot, baby tomatoes, red chilli, and a bountiful spicy-sour fish sauce dressing. Despite its listed heat rating, neither of our heads are blown off.
As we digest happily in the bright evening air and the restaurant clears out, Jit comments that between our order and the heat, this is a real taste of Thailand. Taking a moment to tune into the soundtrack of the mega-fan roaring inside, which renders the blaring TV incomprehensible, interspersed with bodies thudding onto crash mats at the Thai boxing gym next door, it certainly does feel it. This an Easyjet mini-break to Bangkok — a cheap and cheerful feast for the senses.
All words and photos by Josephine Bryony
The White Elephant, Kingswood Estate, Britannia Road, BS15 8DB
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