This place is amazing! It’s some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had in my life, and I fully understand why its Gordon Ramsay’s favourite Thai restaurant in the UK. The Thai Haggis starter is to die for, and defintely worth a try if your nervous at the thought of eating haggis. There are many great choices for entrees all of which are great. The atmosphere is very nice and classy and the service is great! I highly recommended this restaurant, you won’t regret it!
Wan Ling L.
Place rating: 4 Fife, United Kingdom
The Thai foods were good for me but my parents didn’t quite liked it — they commented the dishes were too sweet. However I personally loved the Tom Yam soup(with king prawns), it is very spicy and tasty!
Christina G.
Place rating: 3 London, United Kingdom
As a part-time resident of St Andrews who is accustomed to having no less than five Thai restaurants on speed-dial/within a 10-minute walk of my old apartment in Washington, DC and who has been to Thailand several times, I find the Asian dining scene in Scotland… challenging. As many other reviewers point out, Nahm-Jim’s food is excellent… by Scottish Thai food standards. It is expensive. I’m used to Thai food being a fairly inexpensive proposition suitable for weeknight take-out, but dinner at Nahm-Jim is priced more in the range of Saturday date night. So that was an adjustment. That said, once you get over sticker shock, the food is pretty good. I like the seafood salad and the green curry, which I get with beef instead of the chicken listed on the menu(tip: the kitchen will substitute a different meat than the one listed on the menu for most dishes) and my husband usually goes for beef kapow(listed on the menu as «Chili and Thai Basil Pork» — again, substituting beef). Coconut rice is good. Skip most of the appetizers – they generally taste OK, but a horrible price-quality ratio. Same with the soups — £7.95 for tom yum seems insane to me and Nahm Jim’s is quaffable but not transcendent. Noodle soups are good, but it is very annoying that they only serve them at lunchtime, not dinner time. Skip the sushi. It is massively overpriced. If you live in St. Andrews and crave sushi(as I do), learn to make it yourself and get supplies at Kerachers. It’s not that difficult. Décor is Nahm Jim’s high point. Food is artfully presented on nice plates, especially desserts, so dinner there does feel like a nice occasion. Staff are generally wonderful, very friendly and willing to customize dishes. Also, I’ve really learned to value independent, non-chain restaurants in the UK and places that prepare food to order from fresh ingredients instead of relying on frozen, pre-packaged meals. In all, Nahm Jim does a pretty good job despite having no comparable competition in town. I go there to have a semblance of a Thai dinner.
Kaia V.
Place rating: 4 Berkeley, CA
Nahm Jim is the upstairs Thai part of the restaurant. The food upstairs was great, but I can’t speak to the downstairs food since I’ve never eaten there. I had the shrimp clear noodle salad and it was absolutely perfect. Cold thin noodles on a bed of lettuce with firm shrimp(tail on), onions, spicy peppers, and some other vegetables. The portion was just right for someone not looking to stuff their face or have leftovers to take away. The peppers lent a nice heat to the dish that I didn’t expect but really appreciated. They do offer the range of traditional thai dishes, as well as some one off haggis based things. I doubt, based on my salad and the appearance of my dining companions’ meals, that they can’t do any thai dish well. There aren’t really that many fancy-ish restaurants in St. Andrews, but this is one worth coming back to.
Lue-Yee T.
Place rating: 4 Springfield, VA
Having landed in Scotland, you want to experience this haggis stuff that everyone mentioned whenever you said you were going to Scotland. Well, you might try Nahm-Jim. ‘Wait, you say, ‘isn’t haggis a Scottish dish? Why would you get that at a Thai restaurant?’ Fear not, ye laddies and lassies, I kid ye not. No, I’m not suggesting that you find traditional Scottish fare at a Thai place. What I do mean is that the Thai-style haggis is something you want to try. As an adventurous Cantonese eater, willing to eat the weirdest-sounding stuff imaginable, I testify that this dish interests even my palate. And just remember what Prince Philip said to the World Wildlife Fund: ‘If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.‘ Go for the Thai food, not the Japanese: the staff is definitely not Japanese, if you listen to their accents. Do you expect the place’s speciality to be Japanese food? That said, some people will come here to satisfy their sushi cravings, but it is what it is. Service is not fast, but this also means they will not rush you, which is generally good for a slow person like me.
Lucien H.
Place rating: 3 New Haven, CT
I am very aware of why this has been run down in reviews. I think that to sell it as a Japanese restaurant is a mistake. Nahm Jim used to be separate from L’Orient, and I think it did better when it concentrated on its signature Thai dishes. To say that this food is bad, is to have missed the punches. Firstly, don’t get sushi in Scotland, I don’t know what it is, it may be the waters, but despite a lot of good fish coming through St Andrews, there isn’t a credible sushi chef to be found. If you get a bento box, you will be getting a take on an asian classic, not the real thing. But this is my University restaurant, I love Nahm Jims because of its Thai curries. I guess what I’m saying is that the student in me always appreciated Nahm Jims. There are downsides, and frankly I was overjoyed when Gordon Ramsey gave it his thumbs up, but quite taken aback. I love Nahm Jims, but I never thought it was world class, or very true to Asian cuisine to be honest. There is a lot of great food in St Andrews. Although it is a small town, there’s enough tourism to keep up a decent restaurant life, but Nahm Jims is a perfect example of a small town restaurant. It will be mostly Scottish, not Thai, and that is a strange combo. Nahm Jims is a good outlet in a town that otherwise serves known quantities done on varying scales, but I would agree that it does not compete with the best Asian foods I have had in New York or London, and I’m sure the visitors from the west coast of America, or Asia, will have something to say about it.
Grace Y.
Place rating: 2 La Jolla, CA
I have been craving Sushi since day 1 in St Andrews. I was desperate and I guess I had to pay the price. My friends and I came here last night, and I’ll not be going back again fo sho. Let’s start with all the positives: the décor is classy and the toilet smelled like fresh mint. Ok, so that pretty much covers all the good things about this place. Let’s move on to the negatives. The food was horrible. I am usually not a picky eater, so when I say the food was bad, I mean it was really really bad! I ordered the Teriyaki & Sushi Bento, and my friends split two Deluxe Sushi & Sashima Platters. The teriyaki was soggy and salty; California roll & salmon Maki taste like the fish has been dead for too long. You’d think it’s pretty hard to screw up Miso soup and Green Salad, but wrong! The food was so salty that I had to drink 6 glasses of water just so I don’t die from dehydration. I actually looked it up on google, eating that much salt in a day could potentially kill you 5 times! I gave it two stars because the waiter lives in my hall, and he’s really nice. :) a bit slow on water refills tho. The bottom line is do NOT come here if you have a family history of heart disease. If you ignore my review and do come, it is wise to have your blood pressure checked after dinner.
Adam m.
Place rating: 4 Newtownards, United Kingdom
As with every other Thai restaurant I have visited in Scotland I compared this place to a certain establishment in Dundee but unlike the rest, this one actually comes pretty close. For a start the restaurant is nicely themed in a subtle but classy way and this includes the actual menus which, though not quintessentially Thai styled, are hefty pieces of kit and there is something about heavy, weapon-esque menus that I associate with a good dining experience. The menu has plenty of choice so, with help from the waitress, I decided upon one of the beef curries and it was incredibly flavoursome, really great, except I would have been slightly happier if there had been more meat/veggie content which I quickly finished off leaving a rather awesome curry soup. I tried my best to finish it but once again I was jinxed by my spice-hoodoo and I had to leave the last few spoonfuls due to the more venomous spices lurking at the bottom of the bowl. I definitely have to take a star off for the staff though. They were pleasant enough but fairly useless and it seemed to cause them a lot of trouble to bring our drinks without repeated hints.
Sarah S.
Place rating: 4 Davis, CA
Here is the deal my friends, Nahm-Jim and L’Orient are actually in the same place/are the same resturant serving a range of Thai and Japanese dishes… Being from San Francisco myself I am use to high quality Japanese and Thai food so I was slightly disappointed when I ate here for the first time since it is suppose to be one of the«best» restaurants in St. Andrews and one of the best Thai restaurants in the UK… Needless to say I have extremely high standards and while I have come to recognise that Nahm-Jim is a good quality Thai restaurant for the UK, it it doesn’t come close to the standards that I have for Thai restaurants in San Francisco. That being said they make fab cocktails and do a few dishes extremely well. I have come a lot in recent weeks with some friends as well as my parents when they visited(though sadly last night when me and my friends tried to get a table here we got turned away because our party was to big… boooo). The first time we came here me and my girlies got a whole room to ourselves which was good because by the end we were all full on Asian food and cocktails… so if you have a big enough party see if you can get the more private room upstairs. They also do takeaway so if your not keen on having a sit down dinner you can always get takeaway and they do free delivery in St. Andrews of orders of £28… MYFOODRECOMMENDATIONS: *Gai(Chicken) Satay… love that peanut sauce and cumber salad *Pad Thai… there pad thai is adequate to remedy a craving but I still miss the stuff at home *Coconut Rice… omg this stuff is amazing, I usually can’t eat just rice by itself but Nahm-Jim’s coconut rice is just soo YUMMMMMMYYY! * The Temaki is ok(I prefer the Salmon and avocado) but I wish they had more of a selection *Bento box Sushi and Sashimi… pretty good but I wouldn’t order it again, I am just to use to amazing bento’s in SF *Beef Panang Curry… pretty good. Not as spicy as I would have liked but then again I love UBER spicy food… * Miso Soup is also pretty good and hits the spot when your feeling that Scotland chill MYCOCKTAILRECOMMENDATIONS: *Kuromatsu Sake… actually really like this sake… get it warm its SOOGOOD! *Wasabi Martini… not for the faint of heart but if you like wasabi then its damn good. and its my FAV martini in SF for sure. *Cosmos here are ok… but not my fav *Raspberry Mint Daiquiri was fab as well(both of my friends ended up ordering them) So remember if you in St. Andrews and your craving good Thai this place is as about as good as your going to get!
