Pum Thai, Bury

Time for a quick look at a Thai restaurant, in Bury of all places. Normally I greatly enjoy Thai food, and this time, Pum Thai offered Thai food with a quite a difference, merging the cuisine with quite odd and modern concepts and presentation.

Firstly though, aside from the capitalist shopping centre location, inside the decor is that of a modern and sleekly presented restaurant, sort of merged with that of a new-age garden centre. Not the most luxuriously appointed restaurant in the world but, given what the place is all about, it does sort of work.

However, the actual preliminary concept is quite hard to explain. In reality it doesn't affect the final outcome, but the waitress opened by saying "let me just explain the menu to you." An ominous sign in most cases. But no - in essence the idea is to encapsulate Thai street food (in Bury!) and therefore the menu is quite minimalist, yet apparently all food is made to order with customers being able to dictate themselves what level of extra meat and spice, if any, their particular dish contains. 

I must admit, I was skeptical at first, and I was still so when having ordered. Yet the resulting food came in the form of a very novel and delicious satay chicken starter, and a good beef cashew nut "Heaven". So, after all the preliminary preamble, we still managed to secure some good tasty Thai food, which is surely the aim of the game?

Apparently, the Pum restaurant is becoming a bit of a franchise, with three establishments in both Thailand and France, whilst Bury is their first English outing. Yes, the way they do things is a bit peculiar, and you do have to take a few things on faith. But if you have enough of an open mind and enough of a like for Thai food, then surely give it a go.