The Begging Bowl

We've just come back after having a very disappointing meal at The Begging Bowl. I'd heard so many great things about this restaurant but it failed to deliver. The first dish to arrive were scallops or should i say scallop! Me think there was one scallop in the dish and it had been sliced in to 12 thin pieces...The sweetness of the scallop was totally overpowered by burnt garlic and it really was quite horrible...£14.50

The second dish to arrive had a fairly good flavoured sauce but the beef cheek chunks were coated in slimy fat. I've not eaten beef cheek before so maybe this was my ignorance and it is a fatty cut...However, for my palet, biting in to gelatinous, wobbly, fatty chunks of meat was pretty unpleasant.

The third dish to arrive was a veggie curry and it's sauce was identical to the beef cheek curry..at least this was edible.

The fourth dish was an aubergine salad...the over riding flavour was of burnt garlic.... Great!

On the plus side the sticky rice and the Singha beers were nice.

So, all in all we had 4 dishes and four beers...The bill was £62.. I left feeling hungry and ripped off... If the food had of been tasty I wouldn't have minded the small portions but that wasn't the case...

Really don't bother with this place. 3/10.
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Rebecca - View all reviews by this user
5 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 2
Saturday, February 16, 2013

I've been four times since it opened, and not yet had a disappointing meal. Yes it's pricier than some Thai restaurants, but it's the best Thai food I've had in London, and since visiting Thailand. The chef trained with renowned Thai chef David Thompson and it shows - the dishes - crispy fried rice with with chicken, pork and peanut dip, salad of deep fried salmon with sour fruits and red chilli dressing etc are so much more original than the ubquitous pad thai. My only wish is that some of the tables were bookable.
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- View all reviews by this user
9 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 9
Friday, October 12, 2012

Awesome food, awesome service. Reasonably priced. Portions are adequate and I left feeling full.
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8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 8
Wednesday, October 10, 2012

I live round the corner and was so pleased to see the dreary empty pizzeria replaced with this bright busy thai restaurant.

I've been once and can't say i'll be rushing back. The portions are very small, and i felt, overpriced. Given they are being marketed as sharing dishes i was surprised to find precisely 3 small pieces of meat in each curry we ordered (and rabbit meat is cheaper than others). It just felt a bit stingy really. And i also felt that the restaurant was packing in too many covers so that elbows and knees are a bit rammed together.

It's a shame as the food was tasty and it had a great atmosphere, but like other diners i found the way each dish took so long to come was a bit annoying especially as they don't fill you up!

However, my opinion is clearly not the norm as the place is always packed.
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5 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 2
Thursday, October 04, 2012

Not sure what planet reviewer one is on, but the food here is amazing... Tastes that develop on the palette and a fresh and exciting european angle on traditional thai dishes. I don't mind paying slighlty more money for food of this quality. A great addition to Bellenden Rd. Try the betal leaves - simply incredible!
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adam
9 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 7
Tuesday, September 18, 2012

We were very excited with the new addition of a new restaurant on Bellenden Road. Seeing the queue of people night after night since its opening, we were sure that things would bode well. So a merry group of us put our name down on their waiting list and sat across the road in eager anticipation of our first experience of the begging bowl. After an hour wait for the new kid on the block, we were welcomed by their very friendly staff and worked our way through their tapas style menu. The menu was small but each dish seem exciting and very different from the usual thai fare you would expect, it only had two vegetarian dishes so upset the vegetarians in our group. Each dish was priced between £5.50 and £12.50. So if you ordered the suggested five dishes between two your meal would soon add up. Between eight of us we ordered a selection of dishes to share. When the food came, we were immediately surprised by the tiny size of the portions. Although the food was decent and some of it quite delicious, the concept of asian tapas at these prices and portion sizes was disappointing. If we were really hungry rather just snacking the meal we had here would fall very short of satisfactory. In the end we had to fill ourselves with the rice that luckily for us kept on coming and a couple of prawn balls from the chinese next door.

The staff were attentive and welcoming, but several of our dishes did not arrive and only after about an hour did we get told that they had run out of ingredients. This led to a drawn-out meal, with some dishes arriving 45 minutes later than the first.

We would love to support this local eatery, but if we would ever go back, I would need to come with a heavy wallet. With other options of Thai food in Brixton market and fiery chinese in Camberwell. Sadly I think we will travel out of our local to get our fix of asian food at much cheaper prices and proper portions.
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5 Overall rating
Food 6 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 0
Sunday, September 16, 2012

Very bad value. Can't recommend it and won't be returning.

Tiny portions (sorry, 'tapas' style) and too much salt in everything.

Fried broccoli - you expect a good bit of soy in what is a fairly salty dish but this was almost inedible. Fish cakes had a nice texture but also salty.

Pork and rabbit curries had very interesting sauces and were the highlights, but good luck finding much meat in them, and £9.50 for a half plate of (salty) tofu? Hello? I expect to get mugged in Peckham but not like this.

Very disappointing. Was hoping for a quality joint to rival the excellent Ganapati nearby. Not a hope.

The tapas concept could work if they lowered the prices, but it's quite a small menu so a big group will run out of options very quickly.

Pleasant service and surrounds but maybe avoid lunchtime when the place fills with crying toddlers.
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E Honda
4 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 5 | Value for money 1
Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Wow! Who would have thought you could get proper Thai food in the depths of Peckham? For somewhere that I used to just hurry through, Bellenden Road is becoming a bit of a hotspot - and not without good reason, the quality is amazing! I'll be back for sure.
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Mia
10 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Saturday, August 25, 2012