REVIEW | GIGGLING SQUID

I’m in a deckchair in the back garden and I legit cannot get up. I am nursing the biggest Thai food baby known to man (forget real babies, they’re over rated).

Today I visited Giggling Squid in Billericay to try out their lunch menu; a selection of Thai food in tapas style. Yaaaas.

First up, can we please talk about the name of this restaurant? Giggling Squid. Ummm cute (and maybe slightly barbaric because no squid would be laughing at the amount of tempura tentacles I just ate lols).

So Giggling Squid is a chain of Thai Restaurants (I think I counted 23 on their website) and their aim is to serve super fresh, super authentic Thai food to share. That’s where the tapas bit comes in. Yup, they combine two of my fave styles of eating; Tapas & Thai. Genius.

I’m not that familiar with Billericay but its only a 20 minute drive down the road which was nice. The restaurant looks pretty compact from the outside, but it’s deceivingly large with two floors. I was surprised to find on arrival a little bundle of people outside waiting for it to open – always a good sign of blimming good grub if you ask me.

The interior is airy and light which is kinda the oppisite to most Thai places I’ve eaten before. They can sometimes be a bit dark and dingy with too much gold gilt going on y’know? And no one wants to be sitting in a dungeon in this kinda weather nah ah.

I’d seen from their Insta that they’d bought out a new cocktail menu so I was all like okay hun, I’ll give one a whirl. I ordered the Thai Coconut (gin & coconut gin with ginger ale). Hello sunshine in a glass.

Their lunch menu isn’t extensive, which is good. You can either choose a tapas selection which is comprised of four dishes, or you can mix and match your own tapas dishes. Max went for ‘One Giggling Squid’ and I went for ‘Two Giggling Squids’. Oh & I also ordered a papaya salad  – can you tell which one of us eats more in this relationship?

Don’t browse any further if you’re hungry and trying to stick to a diet. Here’s what we had:

Two Giggling Squids

Chicken Massaman Curry
Salt and Pepper Squid
Beef Salad
Jasmine Rice

One Giggling Squid

Sleeping Honey Duck
Chicken Stir Fried With Ginger
Thai Spring Rolls
Jasmine Rice

 

This kinda dining is perfect if you find it tricky to choose one thing. This way, you get to try a few different dishes that really compliment each other.

The food was everything I’d expect from a really great Thai restaurant – sour, sweet, spicy and packed full of fresh flavours. Hands down my fave two dishes were the cold beef salad (yeah sounds uninspiring but the meat was proper tender and it was choca-block with fresh chili, coriander & lime) and of course, the salt and pepper squid. Like seriously, ‘come to mumma any day of the week’ kinda good. I could have eaten a bucket full.

Aside from the ace food, I’m giving some more top points for price. Other Thai restaurants in our area tend to come up pretty expensive, making a Thai meal out a bit unaffordable (especially when you’ve just quit your job lol lol lol). The tapas selections were around the £10 mark which is pretty darn good considering the quality and the portion size.

The only thing lacking was the atmosphere but hey, it was early afternoon on a Sunday so that’s probably why. It was fairly busy but some atmospheric music would have been nice. It seemed a little quiet.

Giggling Squid gets a big thumbs up from me. Ta very much for having me in. I sure as hell don’t need to eat anything else for the next three days. And I’ll certainly be heading back at some point to check out the dinner menu *all the piggy emojis*

 

 

 

1 Comment

  1. Karen
    2nd July 2017 / 7:26 pm

    Love it there Jade – I actually prefer the lunch menu to the dinner xx