I was in totally rush to the restaurant even after pushing my reserved time, because I took a day trip to a sries of islands in the day. It was appreciated that the restaurant allows me be late. The restaurant is in a very posh area with mostly high-end hotels, which is much quieter than Pa Tong, where I stayed. In particular, the restaurant locates on a small hill, but I cannot see much view as it was dark outside. There are two floors. The ground floor has a reception area and a bathroom, and the first floor is the actual dinning area, including a private room, with an open kitchen. I got a counter seat facing the large open kitchen. The menu for the night looks very western, but in fact the chef used many local produces especially fruits and vegetables.

The first dish “The King of the Fruits” looks very nice. Frankly I could not remember the detail of the ingredients (when I was writing this blog). Judging by the dish name, it could be durian, a common fruit in South and South East Asian. All I could recall was that it was a very creamy like a ice cream and the base caviar boosted even more on the creamy taste and texture. Also the colour and presentation was very appealing. The coming dish was of a very Thailand character focusing on coconuts. The soft coconut meat slice in the middle surrounded by crunchy peanut and slightly charcoaled coconut meat was a great combination, which was refreshing. Although coconuts in general have a light and almost no taste, the chef made this dish fun in texture. The decorated leaves added a bit of fresh look and taste to the brown & white colour tone. Let move to “Lotus Root & Shrimp Paste” in the menu, the dish before the main course. It was a very interesting dish, because it felt like a salad given all the spicy and fresh vegetables ingredients, but the shrimp made the plate a “solid” plate. Compared with common European set menus when heavy and creamy pastas are usually served before main, here it kept very light tone. Shrimps often provide a heavy taste, especially when fully cooked. The choice of almost tasteless lotus root, and vegetables and fruits ingredients balanced everything. I think it was a clever but, in fact I gathered in Thailand, a common style where seafood is fully cooked but paired with spicy flavour and crunchy texture. Then I want to say something I disliked: both desserts, especially the last one. The plate certainly needed patient to assembly with all the cubes of different tastes. However, those cubes were way too small to taste anything in detail, and more importantly, there were a strong and strange sour taste dominating everything, which I disliked at all. The ice cream, if I remembered, was kimchi flavour !? It was a bold concept but it did not work at all with sour tasted cubes. I often hate over-sweet French dessert, but a dessert without any sweet factor apparently was worse.

For this place, I had a mix feeling. The decoration and service in this restaurant was top quality. The experience was great too when I can actually see all the food being cooked in front of me, in fact I see no back-kitchen to deal with something more smoking and intense. The non-alcohol pairing was nice too ! I enjoyed the chef to be bold mixing western style and local Thailand ingredients. However the big problem for me was, I could not remember any dish distinguishably apart from the desserts that put me off.