Eat at...

Pom’s Thai Restaurant The Bell Hotel, 24 High Street, Old Town, Swindon SN1 3EP. Tel: 01793 480046 Opening times: Monday to Saturday noon to 2.30pm and 6pm to 11pm. Sunday 6pm to 10pm.

AS YOU enter Pom’s you are met by a large aquarium of exotic fish.

Upstairs is a large and airy space with white walls and oriental-style decor, including a lavish, embossed picture of gold elephants and another of some Oriental trees.

The waitresses wear pretty Eastern-style dresses and are friendly and helpful. Already on the spotlessly clean tables are bowls of prawn crackers to nibble while you peruse the extensive menu.

When ordering drinks I stuck to vodka and tonic, but my friend was a bit more adventurous and ordered authentic Thai wine.

The grapes for this full blooded red are said to be gathered at sunrise by boat from floating vineyards. It definitely got the thumbs up.

For starters we decided to go for the Pom’s Thai Platter, which is a shared entree at a cost of £11.95. On a huge plate, delicately decorated with carved vegetable flowers, was a selection of pinky in blankets, spring rolls, crispy wonton, chicken satay, prawn toasts and Thai fish cakes.

The pinky in blankets and crispy wontons were lush prawns wrapped in different shaped wafer thin pastry parcels that melted in the mouth. The fish cakes and spring rolls were moist and really tasty. The dish came with three tangy dips, and started my theme of the night, which was definitely a little bit fruity.

Peanut sauce and sweet chilli dips were really good but the clear dip, which my friend and I decided must be lychee-based, was refreshing and just that little bit different.

Most of the starters came in at under £5, and include such strange sounding names as Mee Grob, which is a crispy fried noodle dish coated in a sweet red sauce, Moo Ping - grilled strips of pork marinated in a special Thai sauce - and Hormok Talay which is steamed mixed seafood flavoured with curry paste, herbs and coconut cream and served in a scallop shell.

Now for the main act. With house specialties like the sizzling sirloin steak dish called Weeping Tiger, at £7.95, the Goong Poa, charcoal river prawns topped with special Thai sauce at £7.95, and Gai Jahn Ron, slices of chicken breast cooked with white wine and oyster sauce and served in a sizzling skillet at £7.95, it was really hard to choose.

My friend went for a curry dish, Kaeng Panang, and plain boiled rice. You can choose chicken, pork, beef or prawns cooked in a special panang curry paste with coconut milk and lime leaves, and this was just £5.95 plus £1.65 for the rice. It was a tasty, creamy dish with bite hidden under its seemingly innocent exterior.

I decided on the duck in orange sauce, which was beautifully cooked and lay in a pool of clear and tangy orange sauce, at £7.95. In keeping with my fruity theme I also went for Khao Pad Subprarod which is fried rice with prawns and pineapple with red curry paste and lime leaves, served in a pineapple shell. This costs £6.45 and is a real sumptuous treat.

We were too full after this feat for a dessert so we had a brandy and a Baileys to round off our meal. Refreshing mints arrived with the bill. Pom’s definitely lives up to its Eastern promise.