Honey’s

We book a table at Bahrain’s best Thai restaurant Discuss this article

© ITP Images

If you were not familiar with Honey’s you’d probably think it was something dodgy, from the outside at any rate. Windows plastered with plastic, the proprietors apparently want to hide those eating from prying eyes. Which is a shame really, as the people who cram into the place from noon onwards are a respectable crowd of multinational diners, all devoted fans of the restaurants brilliant and brilliantly cheap fare.

Dark inside, and with apparent neglect for any kind of decoration (which is rather unusual, since most Thai restaurants outside of Thailand at least have a crack at trying to make it look like a Thai-style spa), the decor is very Bangkok local. Indeed, you get the impression the restaurant, like the house in Up, floated up from Bangkok, hit a westerly wind and grounded itself in the middle of Manama.

The menu is massive (again, typically Thai), with a pleasant emphasis on seafood. We ordered a tom yum goong (shrimp) and som tam to start, followed by tofu green curry, a spicy shrimp salad and deep friend tilapia. When living in Thailand, I was literally on a tom yum drip, and have been rather riled ever since I left that no one seems to make a good tom yum. Tom yum is all about the body, and if you find a few prawns swimming in what looks like fragrant water, then you can be sure the soup is sadly lacking. Honey’s served the best tom yam I have had outside of Thailand, with a som tam that was as good as it was massive. The green curry was slightly too thick for my liking, but the flavours were spot on and the use of Thai vegetables as opposed to the usual broccoli and cauliflower a relief.

I forgot to ask for no dried shrimps (which are something I cannot stand) in the shrimp salad, and the salad came impregnated with these pungent little prawns, though they were not too hard to disentangle from the Isaan-style sharp and spicy salad. The deep fried tilapia was the crowning glory of the meal, and at just BD3 must be one of the cheapest in town.

While Bahrain’s restaurant scene might suffer when compared to that in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Honey’s is the best Thai cuisine we have tasted anywhere in the world outside of Thailand. It may be a little bit grotty on the outside, but focus on the food and you’ll easily forget the decor.

The bill for two
Som tam BD1.000
Tom yam goong BD2.500
Tofu green curry BD3.000
Spicy shrimp salad BD2.500
Deep fried tilapia BD3.000
2 steamed rice BD1.000
2 bottles of water BD0.400
Total (incl tax/service) BD14.000

Time Out reviews restaurants anonymously and pays for meals. Of course, we cannot guarantee the accuracy or independence of user reviews.