Lobster; Thai-style

With it’s imposing Victorian façade and popular south-east Asian-style front garden, Thai restaurant Yum Yum has been a much-loved stop on the North London food map for the last 20 years or so.

The iconic courtyard huts

Well known among locals, it’s popularity spread further still after it appeared on Gordon Ramsay’s TV show F Word in 2009, finishing second in the final round.

It now boasts fully 350 covers, a well-stocked cocktail bar with some inventive libation and plenty of pleasing touches, such as sunken seats and elegant Siamese decor.

Despite considering myself pretty-well versed in Thai cuisine, due to the size of the menu I thought it prudent to ask for a steer from our friendly hosts.

The first thing to mention about the food is it looks fantastic – not only has a lot of care been taken with dishes themselves, each one comes with hand-carved root vegetable decoration; a flower in most cases, but one of our starters came with a very cute yellow bird, complete with eyes, beak and feet.

Secondly, and most importantly, it tastes great.

Our selection of starters included some incredible juicy barbecue king prawns with home-made peanut dip, four tangy and fluffy fishcakes and a tofu and apple salad.

It’s safe to say the latter is something I would never, ever order but it was actually delicious. The sweet apple and coriander complemented each other and the fried tofu had more character than I would have thought.

The main course came in four parts – a spicy and exhilarating lamb mussaman curry (award-winning I have heard), some excellent garlic spinach and yellow beans, prawn pad Thai and special fried rice which, with typical flair, was served in a hollowed-out pineapple.

For pudding we had a decadent, melt- in-the-mouth chocolate fondant and a coconut crepe. The former was definitely the pick of these, but then I am not a huge fan of coconut.

A trip to Yum Yum really is a treat, with courteous staff who show attention, both to the excellent food and the service, in very pleasant surroundings and with prices that won’t offend the pocket.