Bury St Edmunds Giggling Squid restaurant scores high for taste, service and value for money

Here’s a nugget of information to amaze your friends with: Which restaurant in Bury St Edmunds is one of 47 and has an owner whose favourite dish growing up was Bird’s Eye chicken pie with peas?

If anyone pipes up with Giggling Squid, you should be very impressed. Perhaps as impressed as I was on a busy Friday night visit to the Bury venue.

Fact number two you can come back with if they nail the first question is where the name Giggling Squid comes from. Owners Andy and Pranee confess if was the nickname for one of their children. And so the High Street favourite was born.

That was 20 years ago and the tastes of the UK have certainly changed, tweaked and developed over the past two decades.

But Giggling Squid has tapped into our love of Thai tapas and nurtured that to come out with dishes which are simply bursting with a delicious combination of flavour, freshness and spice.

And when you combine that with table service which I would struggle to improve on (thanks, Donovan), the word WINNER comes to mind.

We kicked off with Thai-rancini (£6.25) and Yummy Duck Spring Rolls (£8.25). Thai-rancini promised red curry spiced rice balls with a mushroom and sweet water chestnut filling. It comes served with a fresh, fragrant Thai salsa of oranges, jicama, chillies, lemongrass, coriander and mint. It looked amazing and tasted even better. Well, it did the tiny bite I was permitted and that’s always a good sign.

I wasn’t expecting fireworks with my duck rolls. A duck roll is a duck roll, right? Think again, because whatever pastry Giggling Squid had wrapped mine up with was heaven on a plate. And the sticky hoisin sauce was the right side of sticky and sweet to make me go back for more and more.

The pause between courses always offers a good chance to look around at other plates. And diners.

Giggling Squid attracts a wide range of ages – there were young couples and not-so-young (but loud) couples, groups of women and friends all happily nestled next to one another. Their plates of food came out at express pace and without fuss – and I had a lot of menu envy.

The choice of starters is difficult enough but when it comes to mains, there’s the spice question: I plumped for something within my comfortable range and went for the Wholesome Cashew Stir Fry with beef (£14.95). I added jasmine rice (£3.50) and had enough to share so don’t feel you need one each. My plate was loaded with vegetables which were on the perfect side of firm and strips of beef which were tender and coated with a delicious sauce which must have been marinating for some time.

But the sauce prize goes for that in my partner’s Thai Garlic Hake (£17.25). The fish was in yellow curry, featuring garlic and chilli. But the combination of delightful flavours in the aromatic sauce which was bursting with fresh lime, garlic, coriander and red chillies was something else.

Desserts are at best limited (£5 to £8) but by the time we had enjoyed a starter and main with such lovely tastes, I just wanted something to cleanse my palate and a pot of jasmine tea did the job superbly. Again, server Donovan suggested one pot was ample for two and he was right (£2.95)

Giggling Squid has nailed that tricky spot between fast food and expensive, white linen tablecloth dining. The experience is hugely pleasant, the food is worth writing home about and the bill for the two of us came in (with service) at just over £70.

Full menu details are here.

Giggling Squid – we’ll be back soon.