6. Mai Thai

Worse than mediocre food for really high prices
Mai Thai was horrible. Its priciness (and it's definitely much pricier than other Thai restaurants in Cambridge!) is not a problem -- but the quality and taste of the food was poor. Thai food is famed for its many and strong flavours. I understand that Mai Thai might need to accommodate the British palate, but that doesn't mean that the food has to taste mediocre at best. But it did. The worst dish we ordered was the starter: shrimp rolls, which were whole shrimp in fried batter. They were just tasteless. The layer of batter was too thick for this to be a Thai dish -- it was more like the thick batter for American fried sausage.The shrimp were slightly mouldy-tasting. The Tom Yum soup we had was even weaker in taste than the one I make (which is a horrible condemnation even for a UK based Thai restaurant). The curry we ordered (jungle curry) was a soup broth (literally) with pieces of vegetable and beef in it. The beef was tough and overdone. Even the Thai Jasmine rice was a bit overcooked. The desserts were the only thing I liked, but even these were not great. I've been to quite a few restaurants in Cambridge. Some are better than others, but Mai Thai is the first restaurant that I would say serves crappy food. Their food is not even worth half of their price. A few final points: the service was good, though I saw how a couple next to us were asked to leave because they had people waiting. The girl gets a stalk of flowers at the end, which is a nice gesture. But if you want this to be the setting of a quiet dinner, don't even think about it: it gets noisy as hell. I literally had to shout to talk (this was a Saturday evening).