Purple Haze Courtyard is just down the road from our apartment so us and our friends head there quite regularly when our pores are chock full of grease from Beijing cuisine. I have been to many other Thai/Vietnamese restaurants in Beijing but all seem geared for the Chinese palate. No freshness and no subtle flavours and everything cooked down into a incomprehensible mess.

At Purple Haze I think they have got their food just about spot on. I was a bit hesitant in going there last week after just arriving back from Thailand. I thought I would be put off having had the real deal only a week prior. But I wasn't and I would gladly go back time and time again. No Thai chef the other reviewers say? Who cares?! Could there be a chance that the people making the food have been Thailand, cooked with a Thai Chef before? And Thai food isn't about complex cooking methods..it is about the combination of flavours. Any half decent chef could cook Thai..as long as their tastebuds know what their doing.

The place itself is nice and quaint and, if you're in for a romantic night, go on a Monday or Tuesday and you will generally have the restaurant to yourself. Order a few reasonably priced cocktails, sit back and enjoy the quiet..something almost unheard of in Beijing.