Why to visit Smoking Goat Shorditch
When it comes to serving larger groups, Smoking Goat excels. The tables are long, the ceilings are high, and the service is casual. The menu is small and inexpensive enough that you can nudge-nudge-order-everything, and the flavours lend themselves to being shoved into your mouth. Combine some of the underseasoned drunken noodles or goat curry with the extremely spicy laab, and you're set.
This rockin' Thai barbecue joint now looks and feels like a real restaurant – albeit one with a lot of smoke, noise, and music – after moving from its original Soho dive to new premises in Shoreditch. We recommend the signature fish-sauce chicken wings, the crunchy deep-fried shell-on prawns (eat 'em whole), and anything involving unctuous bulked-out noodles.
The drunken noodles and massaman curry, for example, are so bland in flavour and spice that you'll probably wonder if they're from Greater London rather than Thailand. However, there are some standouts: the duck laab adds a welcome kick of heat, and the fish sauce chicken wings are a crowd-pleaser. Finally, the popular lardo rice is a unique flavour combination of sweet, salty, spicy, sour... and scratchings. It's a slow-burner, with the flavours becoming more prominent as it cools. This is the kind of thing you could eat with a tablespoon straight from the fridge the next morning.
