Tata’s Thai Kitchen

17/09/2026

Thai food is not one cuisine. It is four, and most menus over here only really show you one of them.

The centre, around Bangkok, is the one everybody knows. Balanced, a little sweet, coconut milk, the curries you can already name.

The north is gentler and more herbal, fewer coconuts and more fresh herbs, and you can taste the Burmese influence along the border.

The northeast is Isan. That is where Laab comes from. Sticky rice, lime, toasted rice powder and fresh herbs by the handful.

The south is the coast. Turmeric, coconut, fish and shellfish.

Tata trained in classical Thai cooking at a college in Bangkok and has been doing this for more than twenty five years, so none of this is a theory to him.

Open from five, Wednesday to Sunday. Last food orders at nine.
Book a table at tatasthaikitchen.co.uk

16/09/2026

Before Kirkham, Tata spent twelve years in Belgium pulling coffee behind a Starbucks counter.

That is not where most people expect this to start.

He grew up in Bangkok, beside his auntie's food cart. That is where the cooking came from, standing next to somebody who did it every day. He took a degree in English. Then he trained properly, at a culinary college in Bangkok, in classical Thai cooking and presentation, and that is the part that still turns up on the plate.

Then Belgium. Twelve years of espresso and steamed milk, which is a long way from a wok.

Then Lancashire, and a fish and chip shop. A few Thai dishes went on the side of the menu, quietly, because people kept asking. Then a few more. In the end the Thai dishes outgrew the menu.

More than twenty five years cooking Thai food. Forty odd dishes on the menu now. Everything still made to order.

Open from five, Wednesday to Sunday. Last food orders at nine.
Book a table at tatasthaikitchen.co.uk

13/09/2026

This is one evening in the dining room, and nobody in it was posing for a photo.

Every table down, the mural lit up, the room doing what a busy night here actually looks like.

It is one real photograph, moving slowly, not filmed footage. A single click didn't do the room justice, so we let it breathe for a few seconds instead.

We're open from 5, kitchen to 10:30. Booking is by WhatsApp.

When was the last time you walked in and every table was down?

11/09/2026

Someone at your table always says they don't like Thai food. Order this and say nothing.

Thai fishcakes: a dipping sauce on the side, a carved vegetable garnish, and the tuk-tuk mural filling the wall behind them.

Crisp on the outside, soft through the middle, and the sauce does the rest of the convincing.

We're open from 5, kitchen to 10:30. Booking is by WhatsApp.

Who's the one you're bringing round to it, and what have they sworn they won't touch?

08/09/2026

One long table, set and waiting. If you could fill it with anyone, living or dead, who's coming?

This is tables 22 and 23 pushed together on Saturday afternoon, laid up for a party before a single person had arrived.

So: your table, your rules. Who's at the head of it, who are you sitting next to, and who ends up at the far end where nobody can hear a word they're saying?

We're open from 5, kitchen to 10:30. Booking is by WhatsApp.

Go on then. Tell us your table.

07/09/2026

Big news from us. You can now book your table at Tata's online, any time of day. 🎉

No more waiting for us to pick the phone up in the middle of service. Just head to tatasthaikitchen.co.uk, pick your date, your time and how many of you are coming, and that's it. Four taps and you're booked, with confirmation straight back to you. No account to set up, no faffing.

We've done this with a new Kirkham based company called eightish (eightish.co.uk), and we've been really impressed with it. Matthew got us set up and trained the whole team, and it clicked almost straight away.

A few things we've loved so far:

⭐ It remembers our regulars properly. Table preferences, who likes which corner, allergies, the lot. Nobody has to ask twice.

⭐ We can set priority zones on the floor plan, so the right tables go to the right bookings instead of us juggling it all in our heads on a Friday.

⭐ There's a clever automated side that quietly offers our quieter nights to regulars who are about due a visit. Having a system to automate marketing to our loyal customers is a dream.

Big thanks to Matthew and Mensia for looking after us. If you run a place round here and your bookings are held together with sticky notes and missed calls, go and have a look at eightish.co.uk.

Right then. We're open Wednesday to Sunday from 5pm. Come and see us. 🌶️

📍 30 Poulton St, Kirkham, PR4 2AB 📞 07917 805 049 🔗 tatasthaikitchen.co.uk

05/09/2026

Settle something for us. What's the right amount of fuss for a birthday in a restaurant?

Some people want the whole room singing. Some people want the candle brought over quietly with nobody within ten feet of it. Both of them book with us and both of them think they're right.

That's one of our long tables. Balloons on the chair, sunflowers in the ice bucket, everybody looking fairly pleased about it.

Tell us where you sit on it. We're asking because we'd rather get it right for the next table than guess at it.

Deepdale empties about half two today and Kirkham is on the road home. We're open from 5.

04/09/2026

New on the board tonight, and the best description of it isn't ours. It's ice cream in a glass.

The Salted Toffee White Russian. Toffee vodka, Kahlua, cream, rock salt, and a whole Biscoff biscuit stood up in the foam. It's chalked up on the board by the mural and it is exactly as daft as it sounds.

To be straight with you, this isn't the drink from the flavour thread. That one is still being built, and the person who suggested it still gets their name next to it when it lands. This one turned up on its own, because somebody in our kitchen had an idea and couldn't leave it alone.

The lights go on at Blackpool at 9 tonight and half the coast will be out. If you're coming our way first, we're open from 5 and the kitchen runs to 10:30. Booking is by WhatsApp.

Tell us what you'd have it after.

03/09/2026

Definitely worth sending your website to Matt, take a look at our website that Matt built for us, you will not be disappointed.

Send me your website and I will tell you the first thing I would fix. No charge and no pitch.

Three things I look at before anything else.

Does the contact form actually arrive. Half the ones I test do not, and nobody finds out until they wonder why the phone has gone quiet.

How long the front page takes on a phone on 4G, rather than on your laptop on the office wifi.

Whether a stranger can tell what you do and where you are inside five seconds.

Put your link in the comments or send me a message. You get one thing back, in plain English, and that is the end of it.

01/09/2026

Sweet is a savoury flavour in Thai cooking. That's why there's pineapple in the rice.

Five flavours run through this food: salty, sour, sweet, bitter and hot. Sweet isn't the pudding at the end of it. It's one of the five things a savoury plate gets balanced with.

So the pineapple in this rice isn't a novelty and it isn't there to look pretty. It's doing the same job the fish sauce is doing at the other end of the plate. It comes to the table in the pineapple it was carved out of, which helps.

Schools went back today and the town's evenings go back to normal with them. We're open from 5, the kitchen runs to 9.30, and booking is by WhatsApp.

Pineapple in rice. Sultanas in a curry. What's the one that still doesn't sit right with you?