Chaobaby

Thai-​style Buffet, often busy for lunch but quiets down in the afternoon before picking up for dinner. Good Buffet selection, mostly Thai but some other Asian flavours as well — not sure the chips are authentic Thai! Everything on the buffet is hot and kept filled with fresh dishes so it never looks «tired».
Like a lot of Thai food, it can be hotter and spicier than people expect — the Papaya Salad has an unexpected hit of heat in the background while their Massaman chicken is one if the best coconut chicken curries I’ve had in ages ands personal favourite.
Everything is freshly prepared in the open kitchen behind the buffet counter — you can see the Chefs stirring huge pots of green curry and watch them stir-​frying. The quality of the food is excellent and they never skimp on the ingredients — the chicken curry is packed with tender chicken, the ginger pork is generous with the meat.
Chaobaby is one of the best places to eat at Trafford and ha quickly become a favourite lunch spot.

Sum rap Thai, the way Thais eat, is the expression for the unique components that make up a characteristically Thai meal. So what is Thai food? Almost every country has its own food traditions reflecting its culture, environment, and ingenuity. In the case of Thailand, with its friendly and courteous population, it is delicate intricacy; attention to detail; texture; colour; good taste; the use of ingredients with medicinal benefits, and especially good flavours. Step into Chaobaby to see this description right before you: spicy salads with cold meats, in this case tasty, lean neck of pork, and containing red and green chillis, holy basil, green beans, garlic, lemon grass, galangal, red pepper, tiny bits of lime, lime juice, nam pla (a fish sauce that’s put into almost every dish — yes it’s in some desserts too) a tad of sugar, to soften the fire of the red & green chillies and all of it fresh. No packets, nothing from a freezer, no microwave and no artificial anythings. The Trafford centre here is full of food places that will sell you factory mass produced rubbish around half the price of the £14 average charge here, if that’s your preference and when I observe around me there are plenty of takers queuing up for these places. Now I focussed on three starters: Thai fish cakes, which were very good, pork ribs, which were excellent and chicken satay soup (one of three soups on offer) which was just exquisite. I ignored the wonderful zingy chicken satay so I could have a few more fish cakes. I ignored the onion rings, the spring rolls, the chips and I ignored the cold salad stuff from grated carrots to tomatoes, through to sweetcorn. There’s also an excellent cold minced pork dish, it looks like a bowl of minced meat and it’s to add to salad but you don’t have to just eat it as it is and it’s wonderful. Then there’s a range of noodles, rice, fish curries and meat based red and green and yellow curries. If after dining like a King, you can face dessert there’s fresh pineapple and two types of fresh melon, honeydew & galia. Then there’s a choice of different types of ice creams, jellies, fresh bananas, which are poached/​glazed in syrup (and very tasty) banana cake, freshly cooked while you wait and salivate, mini pancakes, sauces like chocolate for the pancakes, coconut milk sauce and a green sweet sauce. There’s a great crowd most of the time which is important for fresh food turnover and there’s a full bar too. One niggle; the speed at which they remove the plates from the table, sometimes there’s still food to eat and staff try to clear up. Not necessary, calm down dears.

Very good buffe food for reasonable price. Love the soup which is made on the spot in front of you, within a minute with meat stock, rice noodles and chillies. Yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Food was really nice but quite a few empty serving bowls on the buffet, get the chicken soup made for you as it was DELICIOUS! I thought the wine was expensive for the small thimble I got :-)