Cuisine restaurant guide, Auckland 2000



"DINERS VENTURING INTO this Thai restaurant will immediately feel welcome as the staff are among the most helpful and polite of all Auckland's restaurants. Thai Friends has three distinct dining areas. The courtyard out on Parnell Road is the obvious choice for a warm day and outdoor eating. And apart from the main dining area, the small room to the rear with cushion seating has tons of atmosphere at night. It's tranquil with Thai-inspired decoration that incorporates subtle colours and textures. 

The large menu is fairly authentic and delicious. The best way to sample the food is to go with three or four friends and order a variety of dishes to share. Start with a combination of the entree items and enjoy the delicate pastries, tasty fish cakes and steamed dumplings which are all light enough not to spoil your appetite. There's an enormous selection of dishes and all are helpfully labelled mild, warm, hot, or hot, hot, hot. Of course, Thai food can be fiery and titillate all the senses so beware of the very hot items. Chicken, beef, pork, duck and seafoods are all given the Thai treatment and the noodle and rice dishes should not be overlooked. A good selection of beers includes Singha beer, authentically sourced from Thailand. A smallish wine list is inexpensively priced. And if you're already a Thai food convert, don't miss the soups."

Lauraine Jacobs
Cuisine Restaurant Guide Auckland 2000
Published September 1999
www.cuisine.co.nz 

As Recommended  in the "Auckland Restaurants The Rough Guide 2000". 



"Perhaps the best Thai Restaurant in Auckland, Thai Friends has four separate dining areas offering different environments. Downstairs off Parnell Road is the largest of them which is traditional and cosy. Upstairs there is a casual outdoor verandah fronting onto the street and a smaller dining room out the back looks out onto a second, larger outdoor area. The view from here is similar to that enjoyed by the Java room - down over the trees to the peaks of the CBD towers. The Pad Thai here, especially, is excellent, but the food is consistently good and, as with most Thai restaurants, the hospitality and welcome are warm and generous."

Mark Graham
The Rough Guide 2000

IndyPort

"Pad Thai will always be my gauge of how good a Thai restaurant really is. We have dined at many over the years, including many in Thailand, and the Pad Thai at Thai Friends has always been one of the best. Other favourites include their mixed entree (as most Thai restaurants now offer) and Yum Neau, beef salad with chillies, lime juice and accompanied with fresh tomato and cucumber (essential when biting down on those fresh chillies). Thai Friends offers both a downstairs and upstairs dining area (both quite different in atmosphere) and outside tables on the street frontage. The outside area has become a favourite lunch spot where a selection from the evening menu is offered at very affordable lunch prices. Of course they also serve Thai beer and what better way to enjoy a Friday afternoon than a late lunch at Thai Friends  with a cold Beer Chang before heading back to the office."

IndyPort is a New Zealand importer of fine Asian beers and spirits.

Thailand Diversity and refinement award

Thai Friends are privileged to have also received the Thailand Diversity and Refinement award from the Thai Department of Export Promotion and is permitted to use the logo, THAILAND'S BRAND as a symbol of authentic Thai food.