{"id":9498,"date":"2021-04-07T18:40:39","date_gmt":"2021-04-07T18:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myculturecraving.com\/?p=9498"},"modified":"2023-01-03T22:49:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T22:49:38","slug":"from-bangkok-to-bicester-thai-takeaway-from-choices-bicester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/from-bangkok-to-bicester-thai-takeaway-from-choices-bicester","title":{"rendered":"From Bangkok to Bicester: Thai Takeaway from Choices Bicester"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thai food is my favourite<\/em> takeaway food, so when Rachel from Choices Bicester<\/a> reached out about trying their weekend Thai menu I was alllll over it!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

About Choices Bicester<\/strong><\/h3>\n

“We have 8 families that have ordered every single week since New Year!”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Choices Bicester is run by couple Rachel and Sumat who both have extensive experience in the hospitality and catering industry. Sumat trained as a chef in Denmark and then worked in a professional kitchen in Germany whilst Rachel went to catering college. After they met in the UK they both went on to work in the airline industry before settling down in Bicester where they now live with their two children. When the pandemic hit last year they decided to take the plunge to launch their passion project – Choices Bicester. Since launching, they’ve received rave reviews and have become a firm favourite takeaway for locals every single week.<\/p>\n

Choices Bicester serves up a mixture of cuisines but primarily they draw on Sumat’s heritage, Danish and Thai, for their menus. Their most prominent offering at the moment is their Thai inspired three course menu, which they deliver on a Saturday however, they also do Danish meatball nights and have just launched a new picnic menu.<\/p>\n

Their Thai menu changes weekly and tends to include popular Thai staples such as, spring rolls, chicken satay and Thai curries. They offer three very affordable courses, which you can order as many or as few of as you’d like and each course has its vegetarian counterpart. You can place your order up until 6pm on the Friday before via Facebook Messenger or on WhatsApp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h3>\n

The Choices Bicester Experience<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I’ve travelled to Thailand on multiple occasions and the one thing that has drawn me back time and time again is the food – stuff the potent buckets of cocktail and beautiful beaches, I want a spicy papaya salad, fragrant curry, pad Thai and crispy spring rolls! Every time I indulge in Thai food, it takes me back to my travels and that’s exactly what Choices Bicester’s dishes did last weekend.<\/p>\n

When Rachel sent me their weekly menu (see below) I was so happy to see that the main course was panang curry. It’s one of my favourite Thai dishes, so I was excited to try their take on it. Rachel and Sumat kindly gifted one of each of their dishes (meat and veggie) and delivered it at around 5pm on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Choices Bicester use compostable packaging, which means that all of their packaging (other than their dip pots – hopefully these are to follow) are plastic free, biodegradable and fully compostable. This is amazing and something I feel all takeaway businesses should be striving towards. The takeaway boxes were also really sturdy and looked better than plastic containers, showing you can go plastic free without sacrificing on aesthetics and quality!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Inside each bag was the three courses (veggie was very clearly labelled with a green sticker) and instructions on how to finish off each dish. Rachel and Sumat prepare and cook everything, so all you need to do is heat up each dish in the microwave or oven.<\/p>\n

To start I had the veggie option – Thai fried spicy tofu salad served with a ginger, garlic and chilli dressing, coriander and a sweet chilli dip on the side.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The tofu was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and I loved the strong punch of ginger that came through in the dressing. The coriander gave the salad that freshness that all Asian salads need and it was great to have the sweet chilli dip on the side to dunk the tofu pieces into.<\/p>\n

\"\"My friend had the meat option (same as above but with crispy pork instead), which she said was soft, sticky and full of Asian flavour.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For main, we had the much anticipated panang curry, which was served with chicken as the meat option and mixed vegetables as the veggie option. Traditionally, panang is a thick, spicy Thai red curry that is rich with sweet, sour, coconut and nutty flavours – basically, it’s heaven in a bowl.<\/p>\n

For me, a Thai curry is all about the sauce, so I was extremely happy to see that Choices Bicester had provided a whole extra pot of sauce on the side – you can’t be sold short when it tastes that good! The sauce was rich, fragrant and bought to life by the kafir lime leaves sprinkled on top of the vegetables\/meat. The taste of those leaves with the sauce threw me straight back to a street food stall in Thailand. A sign of great food – reminiscing. My only feedback on the sauce was that it could have been spicier however, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and think that’s just down to my personal preference of spice – I enjoy a good kick.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The meal was wrapped up with a Thai classic – sweet sticky rice cooked in coconut milk served with grilled pineapple cooked in syrup and lime zest. I’d only ever had this dish with mango before but it worked equally well with pineapple. It was sweet, creamy and indulgent without being too heavy and sickly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Verdict<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Choices Bicester offer delicious, authentic and very affordable Thai dishes cooked with passion and love.<\/p>\n

I think it’s great that their menu is small and changes weekly as it means you can order from them over and over again without having the same dishes each time and the fact that the menu is a fixed 3 courses also encourages people to try new dishes they may have never had before – we’re all such suckers for sticking with our safety orders when it comes to takeaways, so it’s good to be pushed out of our comfort zones to try something new every once in a while!<\/p>\n

Rachel and Sumat are clearly very passionate about the food they deliver and I love that they draw a lot of their influence from Sumat’s heritage. They are continually adding new and exciting items to their menus such as, their Easter picnic boxes and I can’t wait to see what else is in the pipeline for them!<\/p>\n

Whilst we can’t currently go to the street stalls of Bangkok, we can order from Choices Bicester<\/a> – enjoy!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thai food is my favourite takeaway food, so when Rachel from Choices Bicester reached out about trying their weekend Thai menu I was alllll over it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1420,70,156,157],"tags":[331,471,723,1163,1174],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9498"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12673,"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9498\/revisions\/12673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiagiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}