This lovely little Thai Tapas restaurant is suitably Brightonian: tasty, expensive and a little peculiar. The quality of the food is excellent, but big prices for little meals means this Thai restaurant falls a little short.
Mai Ped Ped Ped (meaning Quite Hot, Very Hot) certainly lives up to its name: the food is tangy, more often falling on the overly-spicy rather than the pleasantly-hot side of the palate. Unfortunately, this is a splinter in the side of their main concept. Lots of small plates that border on too-spicy-to-eat mean that the food can't be enjoyed quickly, nor that the multitude of flavours sit well on a burning tongue.
However, it's not like the whole thing falls apart: if the tapas-angle is ignored, the conventional main menu certainly has a lot going for it. I particularly recommend the Drunken Duck (duck cooked in spirits): absolutely top nosh. Everything else I've tried is very tasty, but not particularly memorable: generally, spiciness is the all-pervading flavour.
If that sounds overly negative, I certainly don't mean it to: if you're a fan a spicy Thai, Mai Ped Ped Ped certainly has a lot to offer, and could not be more centrally located. It doesn't jostle too heavily with any of the other Market Square/Lanes offerings, and is a great place to start an evening: spicy often leads to much beer consumption on my part!
A quick final comment: make sure you get seated upstairs. The restructured town-house ambiance of Mai Ped Ped Ped, while suitably jovial, means that the downstairs area, next to the kitchen, often gets a little humid. Be warned!
UPDATE: My fiancee wanted me to add that the Thai Green Curry is the best she's ever had, and well worth the price! read more