June 2016

SAMUI

www.samuiholiday.com

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JUNE 2016

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Crucial Combination Mix Samui’s ambience with an outstanding dining scene and eating out becomes truly irresistible.

Samui has been through a great many changes to become what it is today. A place that keeps its island identity while offering all the sophistication of a big city. This is clearly reflected in the dining scene that you'll find here. There's a vast array of different food you can enjoy, both on the Thai and international fronts, and at the very same time you'll be savouring the island atmosphere.

Thai culture is extremely welcoming and friendly and wherever you decide to eat out, whether it’s at a simple roadside stall or in a five-star hotel, you'll be extraordinarily well-treated. Eating on Samui is always relaxing, and you'll probably want to come back again to your favourite restaurants, not just because of the food, but also because of the friendly staff and the welcoming atmosphere.

And in many restaurants there’s another great plus - the views. Dining is very often in a sala, or pavilion, meaning that there’s just a roof over your head but no walls. There are plenty of places that are right on the beach, too, so you can watch the sun set over the sands.

The combination of the island atmosphere and the sophisticated food makes for wonderful times. You can sit back and relax knowing you are in capable hands and enjoy your lunch or dinner. And what could be better than to go exploring and see what culinary gems you find on the way? This month’s newspaper showcases just a tiny proportion of what’s on offer on this brilliant island. Enjoy!

SAMUI

Graeme Malley Editor

Preeda Tuajob (Puy) Graphic Designer

Akaphon Phongninlaarphon (Don) Photographer

Seksak Kerdkanno (Klauy) Webmaster

Rob De Wet Feature Writer

Dimitri Waring Feature Writer

Natalie Hughes Feature Writer

Karan Ladd Feature Writer

Peter James Feature Writer

Nipawan Chuaysagul (Ning) Sales & Marketing Director ning@siammap.com Tel: 0 898 783 891

Henrik Bjørk Managing Director

Siam Map Company Ltd. 52/6, Samui Ring Road, Moo 3, Bo Phut, Samui, 84320 Thailand Tel: (66) 0 7742 2201 Fax: (66) 0 7741 3523 email: info@siammap.com www.siammap.com All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner is prohibited without written permission from Siam Map Company Ltd. Whilst every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this publication, Siam Map Company Ltd. assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. c Siam Map Company Ltd. 2016

Distribution at Bangkok Airport courtesy of Bangkok Airways.

Reservation Center: 1771 Samui Chaweng Office: 0 7760 1300 www.bangkokair.com

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Fun, Frolics and Fondue Mövenpick Resort Laem Yai Beach Samui introduces some new elements to evenings out.

Not too long ago, two resort professionals, one a food and beverage manager and the other a chef, were having a brainstorming session. They were trying to find something new for their guests, something that would engage them and bring them fun and enjoyment. The first thing that they quickly agreed on was that, as far as Samui goes, many dining ideas are quite similar.

They wanted something different. Something with pizzazz. What they came up with was astoundingly different, so much so that many people initially raised their eyebrows. A fun-filled venue that would combine Swiss cheese with old-style music and an inexhaustible number of varied themes. They presented their ideas to their boss in faraway Switzerland. They received immediate carte blanche to put the entire operation into practice along with funding, advertising and a brand new menu.

The resort is certainly not a giddy one, pursuing its own eccentric agenda. It’s Mövenpick Resort Laem Yai Beach Samui, run by a Swiss-founded international hotel management company with properties in more than 20 countries worldwide.

The brand’s a serious one which seeks above all to give its guests a great time – it’s not into frippery of any kind.

The two guys, Khun Atiputh Jaipian, the F&B manager, and Khun Akekapong Lorwong, the chef, more usually known as Chef Oli, are now concentrating on all the details that will make the new venue an extremely attractive one, the ideal place to while away a few hours.

It’s called, perhaps a little misleadingly, Oldies Sunset, and no, ‘oldies’ isn’t referring to any senior citizens but instead to the music, the golden oldies that cover the 60s until the 90s.

And it also refers to the themes that the venue puts on, all of which are anchored in times past.

For example, they held a theme centred on Pirates of The Caribbean. Everyone – guests and staff alike – got to wear old-time clothing from this long-gone maritime epoch. Nothing breaks the ice so much as wearing bizarre costumes, as we all know, and inhibitions, even amongst the most conservative, get put aside. Presumably the hotel has a large supply of various different costumes by now, because evenings like this and others have been a great success, with large numbers of people attending. They're planning more such evenings and now need to act as their own theatrical costumiers. Meanwhile Khun Atiputh and Chef Oli find themselves cast in the role of producers – they have many more evenings in mind and, under the rules that they themselves have drawn up, everything’s fair game, so long as it’s a theme from the past. What next? They recommend checking their Facebook page (The Oldies Sunset by the Terrace) for the latest updates.

Obviously, you can’t stage an event such as this every night of the week, so what they’ve decided is to hold a party every Saturday night, but with a much larger one taking place on the first Saturday of the month.

To get to Mövenpick, simply head from Chaweng towards Nathon on the ring-road, and take the signposted turning at the bottom of the hill just down from Four Seasons Resort.

Oldies Sunset is open every night. It’ll always be playing oldies, and has one of the most surprising food combinations anywhere on Samui. Chef Oli prepares various canapés, and an international selection of tapas, but also on the menu you'll find Swiss cheese fondue. It sounds like an unlikely trio of foods, but Chef Oli makes everything complement everything else. For tapas, he’s chosen various fusion dishes with Thai, western and seafood additions, while for canapés, there are dishes such as scallop with carrot sauce, fried chicken with seaweed and squid in tempura with tartar sauce. So far so tasty. And many guests are lured by the cheese fondue. Not simply because it’s delicious, but also because it’s fun to eat, or try to eat, if you’ve yet to acquire the skill it demands. So you can expect a lot of laughter here.

But as well as being fun, Oldies Sunset is a very chilled venue. Rather than being indoors or even in a sala, it’s right out in the open and centred around the hotel’s swimming pool. Guests sit on oblong sofas while the tables are light boxes, cubes that glow from within. Meanwhile the pool itself has coloured illuminations that light it up from beneath the surface and you can watch the colours change. Lights also illuminate the surrounding palm trees, and because the resort faces west, if you arrive in time, you'll quite likely see a brilliant sunset.

And you can start the evening off with a highly delicious cocktail. Thanks to a professional mixologist, Oldies Sunset has put together a select menu of extremely innovative drinks.

Some are sparkling, others are focussed on Martini, while others are pure invention. There's a whole range of them, as well as many traditional drinks. The ambience is laid-back, as you can imagine, and it’s all very evocative, given the music that’s being played.

If you really, really don't want to partake in any of this, then you might just prefer to head to The Terrace, the resort’s main restaurant. It’s open from breakfast right through till dinner and features Chef Oli’s creations. There’s plenty of Thai food and western, too. The Thai dishes keep to the authentic ingredients, including the number of chillies used. But don't worry as the menu lets you know the degree of spiciness of each dish, so you'll find it easy to choose.

(There's also a whole range of non-spicy Thai foods too.)

The two dining areas, Oldies Sunset and The Terrace couldn’t be more different. They're not even the two faces of the same coin. But they leave you with a choice of where to enjoy the evening. What sort of mood are you in? This is the essential question and once you know the answer, you'll be able to make your decision.

Dimitri Waring For reservations or further information, telephone 0 7742 1721. www.movenpick.com

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Free round trip transfer from Chaweng, Bophut and Choeng Mon. For reservation please call 0 7723 1500 www.siamwininganddining.com

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Uncommonly Good Food Just what makes royal Thai cuisine the best-tasting food in the nation?

Thai food is undoubtedly famous and very popular throughout the world. The spiciness and the flavour are what it’s most known for.

In Thailand itself the cuisine is at the very centre of its culture.

Royal Thai cuisine, as the name suggests, comes from those dishes prepared in the royal household, and that have been handed down through the generations. In Thai this cuisine is known as ‘a-harn chao wang’ which literally translates as ‘food for people living in the palace’. This cuisine has a long history dating back to the establishment of Ayutthaya, in 1351. It is a very special and unique way of cooking. It appears though that there are various opinions on what constitutes authentic royal Thai food. However it seems that there are a few characteristics that most people can agree on.

The first has to be the presentation. And if you’ve ever had this cuisine then you will no doubt have been impressed by how the food looked and not just tasted. Dishes are mostly served on beautifully decorated porcelain plates, or in delicately carved bowls which are made by scooping out fresh vegetables and

fruit. With the vibrant colours of the dishes, the cuisine is pleasing not only to the palate but to the eye. If you look closely at the presentation you will notice that all the food is in bite-size pieces. This is another feature of the cuisine; it’s easy to eat, so the vegetables are cut up into small pieces, and the same with the fruit.

All pips and skin from fruit are removed. A famous chef in Thailand, Chef Dang, who grew up in the royal household has told of how bones would be removed from fish that was served, with the fish being first fried, then halved, after which the larger bones were removed and then the smaller ones painstakingly plucked out with tweezers. After this process the two halves would be put back together and fried once more. The fish would then be served with the head reattached but now entirely boneless.

Generally you’ll find that the food is served as a set known as a ‘sum-rub’ which comprises of a variety of dishes. A typical set would include a curry, a chilli paste or ‘nam-prik’ with fresh vegetables, a fresh vegetable salad, and a fish dish as well as a light dessert. There are no extremes in flavours in royal Thai cuisine, and balance is the key. Some people have said that

it is sweet, but this is in fact misleading. It’s not too spicy, too sour or too hot.

Many of the recipes have been handed down over the generations, and the skills necessary to make them have also been passed on. Some believe that for true authentic royal Thai food it is necessary to stick to these recipes without deviating in the slightest. If we look at the recipes then we see that many of them called for ingredients that were unavailable to the commoner at the time of writing, and thereby they became dishes for the upper echelons of society. One such recipe for salmon in coconut milk comes from one of Thailand’s first cookbook authors, Lady Plian Pasakornwong, the wife of one of the top officials during the reign of King Rama V. This recipe required imported canned salmon, not something that the average person at that time – over a century ago – could afford.

While there seems to be some disagreement in culinary circles about what is actually authentic royal Thai food, there is one dish that they agree upon, and that is ‘khao chae’ -‘khao’ means ‘rice’ and ‘chae’ means ‘to soak’. The recipe was developed in the time of King Rama

II and was adapted from a Mon hill tribe recipe. It is essentially a dish that was meant to be eaten during the hot season in Thailand. Ice was not available at this time, so the water was kept cold by putting it in earthenware jars and placing them in the shade.

This is not an easy dish to prepare but its preparation is very interesting. Regular jasmine rice cannot be used since it’s too soft, so a harder variety is used. Once the rice is cooked it is washed several times to remove all the starch. Then the interesting and time consuming part of the preparation begins – making the fragrant flower water. A pot is filled with water and a handful of fresh jasmine flowers are added. A lit flower scented candle is placed on top and the pot is partially covered and left for 15 minutes. This is repeated two more times but each time with a different flower scented candle. The water is then sprinkled on the cooked rice which is tied up in cheesecloth until ready to be served.

When you want to serve some of the rice, it should be put in a bowl and covered with the fragrant flower water. The scent of the candles and the natural oils of the rice permeate into

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the water. The dish is served with other side dishes; the most popular being fried pork, stuffed sweet peppers and stir-fried Chinese turnip with eggs. To eat you should first have a little of one of the side dishes then some of the rice and water. In between, it’s recommended to nibble on fresh vegetables to clean your palate.

Given the recipes and the examples of what constitutes royal Thai cuisine, there's little doubt that it all takes a long time to prepare and requires a huge staff; something that really only the royal households would have been able to afford, both in terms of time and money. Dining at an authentic royal Thai restaurant should ideally be an experience for the senses, for sight as well taste. And while there is some disagreement among chefs as to what is and what isn’t royal Thai cuisine, there is little doubt that Thai food whether it be royal or just street food tastes wonderful – hence its global appeal.

Natalie Hughes

More Than a Fairy Tale

Photograph courtesy of chef Marco Boscaini/Prego Restaurant

Samui Dining Guide is the island’s premier restaurant guide – for very good reasons.

Once upon a time, there was a secret island. It was hidden away; known by only a handful of fishermen and pirates. It was a sleepy isle and full of both friendship and beauty. But so great was its beauty, and so delightful were its people, that word soon spread far afield.

Strangers went to marvel at its bounty. Others went to stay; to live there or to engage in trading or commerce. Soon ships and flying machines cut daily paths across the sea and the skies, bringing ever more and more folk. And then, one day, the island was a secret no more.

Indeed, it was now a bustling hub. Inns and taverns were everywhere to be seen, readily supplying the visitors with the cuisine of all nations. But alas, so great were their number and so diverse their offerings that confusion ruled! Despite it being an island filled with food, who knew where to find the best? Where could one go to enjoy a feast? Or to dine with nature’s bounty all around? Or, perchance, to be waited on by carefully-chosen hand-maidens? Then, one day, a handsome prince arrived. . .

Well, that’s the fairy tale. The reality, however, is exactly the same, but with more up-to-date

words! Yes, suddenly, somewhere just around the start of the new millennium, Samui really took off. More top resorts appeared; all featuring first-class restaurants and world-class chefs. In a nutshell, this little island had become a gourmet’s paradise. And yes, the problem was just as real – where to go? With all this wondrous food, where were the best places and, more importantly, exactly what were they like? No, we didn’t get a handsome prince to sort it all out, but we got something much, much better instead. We got the Samui Dining Guide.

The Dining Guide first appeared in May 2001.

Its function was to provide an impartial and objective review of the best restaurants on the island. The original idea was conceived by Siam Map Company’s editorial director, Steve Taylor, and managing director, Henrik Bjork. And after an appropriate time to formulate the initial reviews, it was published to universal acclaim by one and all. It was not only the first independent restaurant review compilation to appear on Samui, but also the first of its kind in all of Thailand.

“Before the Dining Guide appeared,” Steve explains, “the most common question that visitors asked their resort’s concierge was ‘Where’s the best place to go to eat?’ And this used to cause all sorts of problems. Apart from some of the higher management, very few hotel staff get to eat in top restaurants. And so the concierge would simply mention somewhere he knew locally. Or, more unfortunately, recommend a restaurant that would give him a commission for each guest that he sent.

Nowadays, this doesn’t happen. The Dining Guide is printed every three months, and they are freely distributed to all the best resorts.

They’re also on stands at key points out on the main streets, and are available in the Bangkok Airways departure lounges at the main Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok. Yes, people still ask their concierge. But nowadays, he usually smiles and just hands them a copy of the Dining Guide!”

The Dining Guide’s criteria don’t simply require that the cuisine and service are excellent, although that’s at the top of the list. No, it seeks to present a variety of different cuisines and locations, from natural hilltop niches, to

under-the-stars beach venues or lively in-town locations. Just a few, a precious few, of the star-spangled eateries listed are ‘destination restaurants’. Meaning that their cuisine and service is just so very, very good that other considerations, like ambiance, décor or location, fade into the background when compared to the sheer quality of the fine dining that you’ll experience there.

In fact, copies of the Dining Guide have become something of a collector’s item! It’s compact and well-made enough to use throughout a holiday stay, and then take home to show your friends all the wonderful restaurants in which you’ve dined. Plus you’ll hear of hotel guests simply lighting up with pride to discover that their own resort’s restaurant is featured in the guide – it’s a great talking point when they get back home!

Europe has its own system of rating restaurants; The Michelin (Red) Restaurant Guide. And they’ve been very wise about the way they do this, relying on a system of symbols rather than written reviews. The reason is that they have a large number of inspectors. And if they each wrote a review, then the sheer variety of styles would be an editor’s nightmare. Something similar to this can be seen in various well-known review websites. But such is the prestige of the Samui Dining Guide that each review is carefully compiled by one person (Steve) with exactly the same approach and in the same style, thus not only making it a thoroughly fair and consistent presentation, but also making it easier for readers to make comparisons and decide for themselves where to go.

This year is special. It’s the 15th anniversary of the Samui Dining Guide, and it’s still going from strength to strength. With her first fairy tale, ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’, JK Rowling was delighted to have sold 5.4 million copies, worldwide. Since its launch, over 1.8 million copies of the Dining Guide have been distributed, but that’s no fairy tale . . . it’s the real deal!

Rob De Wet The Samui Dining Guide is also available online at www.siamdiningguide.com and www.samuiholiday.com

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Tropical Pick Melons can grow like weeds – but there’s an art to cultivating a good one!

Some people think that it’s beer. Others just stick with plain water. There are those who’ll swear by cold milk. But there’s one thing that beats the lot. There’s one thing that’s absolute heaven. Because, when it comes to quenching a thirst, you just can’t beat melon. Straight from the fridge and ice cold. You just won’t be able to stop. Once you get going, there’ll be drips aplenty, most of them all down your chin!

Moving rapidly on, it’s true to say that probably 99% of the folks over here never give melons a thought. Not even when they’re enjoying one.

Or, at least, a part of one. A melon is a melon, you get it mixed in with a plate of cut fruit, and you eat it. And I reckon you’re not the only one who doesn’t think about it. A look around in any local market, even the big supermarkets, will reveal not much at all, melon-wise. There are the green stripy ones that are red inside, then a couple of different types of yellow ‘Honeydew’ ones that are . . . yellow inside. And that’s about it.

But, just look on the internet. Not only are there dozens of different sorts of melons in the general seed catalogues, but there are actually

6 www.siamwininganddining.com

people out there specialising in just melons and nothing else! One supplier listed 217 different varieties. So this means that right now the score is: Thailand Shops 3, Florida Melon Seeds 217.

That’s a huge difference. Is it because of a kind of culture clash? I mean, is Florida the melon capital of the world, or something? Are Floridians melon mad? Is it a craze? Do Floridians constantly crave innovation, variety and new melon fads? What’s it all about?

The answer is actually a bit of all these things.

Yes, Western nations are constantly looking towards innovation and variety – but Thailand isn’t. Thailand is a very conservative nation, and places great value on tradition. Red and yellow water melons are what they grow, and what they’ve always grown, and everyone’s happy with them, so what reason is there for messing about with new stuff? In the West, growers are constantly experimenting with interbreeding, hybrids and clones. Cross-pollinating one variety with another, creating pocket melons that city-dwellers can grow in window boxes, and fast-grow hybrids that will flower and crop twice in one season. Even vine-melons that will climb up the outside of an apartment wall. However,

there’s a big downside to all this experimenting.

Western growers are enthusiastically tinkering with nature. Their hybrid melons are special, but only up to a point. Plant their melon seeds, grow them, eat and enjoy. But the seeds that you’ll get from this are semi-sterile. If you try to grow your own fruit from them, you’ll get ‘pig melons’ – small, bitter fruit that are only fit for animal feed.

You need the original seed stock from the parent fruit to grow a new crop. Thailand, on the other hand, produces ordinary, natural melons, grown in the fields and sold in the markets, which produce seeds you can use again and grow exactly the same melon as you started with.

Plus, of course, as with any fruit, some types of melons just aren’t suited to tropical climates.

Melons need several things in order to thrive.

The main one is a plentiful water supply – they are after all, 95% composed of the stuff. The second thing that brings on sudden death is rot and mould – many species just cannot cope with the tropical conditions of high humidity that encourage this. In addition, you can add to this the fact that there are many more types of hungry creepy-crawlies in the tropics than are found in temperate climes.

Watermelons also need sun, lots of it, and the more the better. They have a very shallow rooting system and are easily disturbed at all stages of their growth, so as well as constant watering and a rich soil, the way to go in Thailand is make a long mound of compost mix, plant the seeds shallow, and then let them grow.

They’ll develop into a sprawling ground-vine, but before they get going, mulch them or cover them with clear or white polythene sheeting with slits to let the growing plant emerge and develop – this will contain the water and keep off the mould and pests. And, if you live over here and want a bit of fun, get hold of a seedless hybrid via the internet. You’ll get ice-cold melon, plus all of the drips, but won’t need to spit out the seeds!

So, basically, you need to make a distinction between those experimental kinds of watermelon that can be grown in a tropical location, and the ones that actually are – the ones that the local farmers grow. And that brings us back to where we started. Throughout Southeast Asia, and particularly in Thailand, you’ll find the green stripy melons with the bright red juicy innards. This is the universal

citrullus lanatas var, and they come in either the red or the yellow-fleshed varieties. The red variety are the ones you’ll usually come across as part of a ‘tropical dessert’ - not very dense, very watery, and sweet at the outer edges, getting less so towards the core. The yellow variety (‘Galia’ melons) are less watery and much firmer-fleshed, and generally sweeter and more succulent. These won’t quench your thirst as readily as the red type, but are ideal to cube and add to a fruit salad, as their texture is firmer and their sweetness more intense.

And here’s a tip. Melon might have lots of water but it’s not good to freeze it – it loses its texture and thaws to be mushy. So make a ‘syrup’ of one cup of sugar and four cups of water. Cube the melon and place the pieces in a shallow tray that allows you to cover them with the syrup.

Freeze them. And, upon thawing, discard the thawed syrup and you’ll be left with cold, succulent melon again. Enjoy!

Rob De Wet

Superlative Nora!

We explore another culinary gem – this time at the north end of Chaweng at Nora Beach Resort.

Most visitors don’t know about Nora. And, unless you’ve been coming to Samui for a while, it’ll probably make you shrug. This is a pity, because those in the know react with respect. A little while ago a very impressive resort opened on a spacious plot, right at the northern-most stretch of Chaweng Beach Road. This was, indeed, Nora Beach Resort & Spa. A few years later, the group built another two hotels in Chaweng. And then, three or four years back, they added their sumptuous 5-star Nora Buri Resort & Spa. This was their flagship, and is one of the most prestigious resorts in Chaweng. However Nora Beach is not only as good as it ever was, but has actually matured, progressed and become better with time.

It’s far bigger that it first appears from outside on the road – just have a go at walking down to the beach and you’ll see what I mean! The whole layout is layered very effectively down the hillside here. But a friendly request to one of the reception staff will provide you with a buggy to take you down in no time at all. This is a much more interesting way to go; you’ll get to see the very attractive layout and the way it’s all combined together. And, just before you get to the beach, you’ll be dropped off on a slope just a few metres above the pool, with the restaurant next to this and just over to the left.

The signature restaurant here immediately established a name for itself. In the West, we’ve developed a mental knee-jerk to the word ‘restaurant’, immediately associating it with warm, cosy indoor rooms with atmospheric decorations on the walls. But in Thailand, 80% of the time, there aren’t any walls, except perhaps the one that conceals the kitchen. This is particularly true at Nora Beach’s Prasuthon restaurant, being uniquely octagonal and totally open-sided, made of rich seasoned wood, and with high Thai-style roofs supported by pillars all around.

The whole restaurant comprises two such dining areas, together with a part of the beach itself.

Everything is set at different levels, with short decks between and steps up and down, very cleverly breaking up the large floor space into lots of cosy, smaller areas. So not only can it contain up to 150 diners in total and is perfect for weddings and other similar functions, but all of the several combinations of seating areas have maximum privacy and a sense of separation from the others.

The à la carte menu is essentially a combination of Thai and International offerings, with the emphasis on quality rather than haute cuisine.

The Executive Chef is Khun Sit (more formally

known as Khun Sitthichai Saephu), and he’s a time-served veteran of 5-star kitchens, having served at various top hotels prior to coming to the island, in 2004. Khun Sit is far too experienced to fall into the trap of ‘petty fusion’ (along the fearful lines of ‘curry and chips’), yet several of his offerings contain subtle shades of ‘East meets West’.

portions substantial, but they are excellent value for money, too. The prices here not what you’d expect for quality dining! Most of the items (including the International dishes) are in the 250 - 400 baht bracket, with the most expensive ones coming in at 600 baht or so.

But you won’t find this in the long-running favourite of Prasuthon’s signature dish, ‘King of the Sea’. This is an enticing platter of mixed seafood, featuring scallops and king prawns combined with a fillet of sea bass together with mango sauce with chilli balsamic, and presented with mange-tout, baby corn and a side salad. But that hint of fusion does creep in with the duck.

It’s beautifully and crisply roasted and comes with a delicious tamarind sauce and a selection of vegetables. Plus there’s a host of pizzas, and a selection of pasta offerings including the sublime ‘linguine in oyster sauce with shrimp, garlic and sweet basil’.

All of which is easily enough on its own to warrant a trip up to Nora Beach one evening.

But, arguably, it’s the all-you-can-eat ‘Buffet Theme Evenings’ which prove to be the crowd-pullers. Nora Beach does this in style and is renowned for it! Every Thursday there’s the all-you-can-eat ‘Beach BBQ’ where you can pick from a variety of different cuts of hot and cold meats, including chicken, pork and beef, plus a range of fresh seafood. There’s a huge open salad bar, and also live cooking stations where you can get your king prawns and steak cooked just the way you want it. You simply pick out the selection you want, head back to your table, and then nibble and sip to your heart’s content until it’s brought across to you sizzling and superb!

On the Thai side of things, although the menu is quite extensive and contains all the expected soups, stir fries, noodle dishes, plus curries and meat and seafood mains, top of the pops here has to be the ‘Set Menus’. Each of these is four courses plus a starter, and not only are the

And then each Tuesday you’ll discover the delights of ‘Siam Kingdom’, a huge assortment of Thai items and dishes (with a variety of cold cuts and simple barbecued items too). There are live cooking stations for kebabs and pad Thai. And also a performance of Thai classical dancing

which runs from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Plus it’s also worth mentioning that the usual à la carte menu is also available to choose from on both evenings - this is a great motivation if you come with children who simply won’t be able to get through endless and delicious plates of food all night!

And then you need to combine this with a very thoughtfully-placed happy hour (two hours, actually!) running from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm.

All spirits and liqueurs, plus local beers are at half price. Prasuthon restaurant, here at Nora Beach Resort, is not only about super service and food; it’s also about great value for money, too.

And that’s the reason why whoever you speak to will come out with nothing but superlatives – when they know you’re heading for Nora!

Rob De Wet For reservations or further information, telephone 0 7742 9400. www.norabeachresort.com

Authentic Middle-Eastern chic in a tropical paradise. Enjoy a cocktail or a cup of freshly brewed Turkish coffee on our spacious beachfront terrace or treat yourself to our chef's culinary delights while being entertained by belly dancing shows.

Reservation: 0 7743 0105 Open: 6.00 pm - 11.00 pm Beachfront at The Wharf, Fisherman's Village www.siamwininganddining.com 7

A La Cart A myriad of carts and pop-up eateries keep the nation supplied with Thai fast food.

It has to be said that the Thais love their food – there are endless market stalls, small shops with tiny food tables and a few plastic stools outside.

I love these places; this is where you can find some great Thai food – what we can call traditional Thai fast food: noodles, grilled meats and sausages, pre-cooked curries over rice and all of it delicious, and with plenty of variety, too.

Unfortunately the country is seeing a huge influx of Western fast food chains, the golden arches are popping up everywhere, along with menus that offer the same food in every branch tasting the same wherever you have it. To be honest I haven't been in one for decades now, and with such great Thai food on offer there's really no need. The beauty about Thai fast food for me is the variety; each place has its own take on a recipe depending on the cook.

Pretty much any of those stalls that you see lining the streets as you drive along would count as places where you can buy Thai fast food. You can get a snack or even an entire meal in just a couple of minutes. In the mornings I take my daughter to school, and we stop off for grilled pork on skewers and sticky rice from a small stand that pops up every morning with just a barbecue and a pot to keep the sticky rice warm.

It's fast, it's easy and it's cheap.

And at any temple fair you will find the ‘luchin’ stall selling a variety of grilled or fried sausages.

Some are highly tasty and unusual. Try the grilled fermented pork sausages, known as ‘nem moo’ in Thai.

Many of these places sell lots of grilled and fried meats on skewers. The customer takes a small basket or plate provided by the shop and puts their selected items on it, then the price is totalled up and the sticks given a quick fry in hot fat. They're then served up in a plastic bag with added chilli dipping sauce if you so wish. You'll also see these kinds of stalls set up on pavements and you'll often come across mobile vendors selling their food from carts attached to their scooters. In fact you're never far away from some kind of food in Thailand.

Away from all the frying and grilling, and a healthier bet – because overall it has to be said that Thai fast food is a lot healthier than its Western counterpart – are the stalls that specialise in a selection of curries that are all pre-cooked and then served over a bed of rice.

You'll find some great spicy curries, but they're not all hot and you can often find milder vegetable dishes. The prices are very reasonable and based upon how many toppings you have – usually one price for just the one topping and another only slightly higher price for two toppings. So you can have a curry with say a small omelette or fried egg for around 50 baht

and sometimes even cheaper. You'll also find these stalls in shopping malls. Just go into any large supermarket on the island and take a look at the food court and you'll see a vast array of what can be termed Thai fast food. And check out how packed it is too. You'll find staples such as the ever-popular boiled chicken on rice, or stewed pork leg on rice with a hardboiled egg.

Both make for a filling meal and are very reasonably priced.

Noodles are extremely popular in Thailand as a quick bite. They're easy to make and to serve.

You'll see a noodle shop on just about every main street; some are just places that pop up during certain hours complete with their own plastic stools and small tables, as we’ve already seen. There’s no ceremony; things are kept very casual.

Of course the som tam or papaya salad is a classic and a must have for anyone visiting Thailand. A lot of the vendors who travel around the island on their scooters selling food are som tam sellers. The salad is made from scratch right in front of you and barbecued chicken is also available. You just choose what you'd like and put it on the small grill perched at the front of the scooter. This is the ultimate in fast food delivery; it's right at your door and once you place your order it's cooked fresh. It surely beats the hamburger joints where you've no idea how long that burger has been in that grease-proof wrapping. And there's no comparing the taste.

Take a good look around you and all the vendors who are out there selling fast food and you'll see there's also healthy 'fast food' – the fruit carts that travel down all the streets selling cut fruit in convenient snack size bags are great.

And the vendor with two baskets perched across his shoulders selling peanuts still in their shells, or grilled eggs and sweet potatoes.

There is such a variety of food out there that the best advice would be to take a walk down any main street and try a few bites at a number of the different stalls. Walking streets are a great place to sample all these delights as well as any big food court. Surprisingly while in Bangkok I found the hospital stalls to have great food – not your usual story about hospital food.

If you worry that the fast food is a quick way to get sick, check that the stall uses clean cooking utensils, boards, and fresh ingredients and that everything is cooked thoroughly and then you should have no problems.

Natalie Hughes

Discover authentic

Indian Cuisine

Noori India Restaurant - Chaweng Center Chaweng Beach Road, opp. Chaweng Buri Noori India Restaurant - Chaweng South at Chaweng Cove Resort Noori India - Central Festival at Chaweng Beach Road Noori India Cooking Center - Chaweng South Soi Colibri, opp. Centara Grand Beach Resort For reservation (English) - 0 867 407 873 or 0 7741 3108 For reservation (Thai) - 0 813 960 283 E-mail: nooriindia_samui@yahoo.com www.nooriindiasamui.com

8 www.siamwininganddining.com

Samui 2012 WINNER

2013 WINNER

2014 WINNER

Fine Beachside Dining with Spectacular Sunsets

THE SIAM RESIDENCE B o u t i q u e

R e s o r t

Thai & International cuisine in Lipa Noi / Koh Samui Phone: +66 (0) 77 420 008 | samui@siamresidence.com | www.siamresidence.com

Sunsets and Starry Nights Sophisticated rooftop dining at Silavadee Pool and Spa Resort.

Arrive at about 5.45 pm at Silavadee Resort, take a buggy ride down to the Sun, Moon and Star dining areas, ascend the stairs above Moon, up to Star and let your magical evening begin.

The sophisticated rooftop open-air bar and dining area offers you stunning and breath-taking views across the sparkling blue ocean, and the whole of the Lamai Bay area.

Don’t forget to look inland and south towards the forested hills which rise up from the coast.

Watch in awe as the sun begins to slip away, continuing its descent towards your evening’s sunset extravaganza. See the sky turn into those deep rich golds, oranges, reds and yellows as they are reflected all along the bay. You can indulge in a pre-dinner refreshing cocktail and enjoy some freshly prepared canapés whilst watching the sun setting. Then gaze towards the stars above as the sky quickly begins to darken, and the cooling breeze starts to refresh you. It’s a truly awe-inspiring and romantic setting. You can enjoy it all sitting at one the numerous stools around the edges of the rooftop, lying back on one of the circular daybeds with cushions galore or be lucky enough to grab a prime spot at one of the four sunken tables surrounded by water.

Reservation for one of these prime tables is highly advisable!

As the sun sets and the sky darkens, candles are lit and are the only form of lighting apart from the stars and the moon. Star rooftop dining now transforms into an idyllic evening setting, perfect

for the new ‘Romantic Wine Dining’ menu. This is an extra-special five-course superior western style set menu, complete with wine pairings.

Each fine wine is exclusively selected by the head chef himself, and chosen to really complement and bring out the subtle flavours of each course. And you get to enjoy all of this perfection at one of the specially laid sunken tables.

You really have a sense up here at Star of being above everything else, and you get the service to match. The staff here are attentive but discreet, leaving you to enjoy the ambience of the venue, the fantastic flavours of the food and wine experience. The menu is changeable with what is in season, but a current example is; Mixed Seafood Baked White Prawns, Salmon and Red Tuna in White Wine and Pernod Sauce, Served with Japanese Caviar. Paired with; L’or De Portiron.

Silavadee Seafood Soup A Rich Combination of Fresh Andaman Seafood in a Creamy Tomato Broth Served with Toasted Garlic bread Paired with; Paso Del Sol Central Valley, Sauvignon Blanc, Chile Duck Orange Sauce Grilled Duck Breast in Orange Sauce Served with Potato Cakes Paired with; La Tradition Cabernet Sauvignon or

Pan Fried Salmon Salmon Fillet, Pesto Mayonnaise Sauce Served with Spaghetti and Crispy Fish Skin Paired with; Lindeman’s Premier Selection Chardonnay Raspberry and Vanilla Panna Cotta If you have any special dietary needs, the chef is more than happy to accommodate you and will offer similar but appropriate suggestions. Please let them know on making a reservation in advance of your visit. This extra-special dining experience is seriously worth trying. You will remember the occasion for a long time after you leave this palm laden tropical island.

Silavadee actually has four dining areas in total; they are Sun, Moon, Star and The Height. Sun is centred on a specially built wooden deck over and between towering rocks that emerge from the ocean below. The views from here are also stunning and you can see along the whole length of Lamai Beach. It is another idyllic spot to indulge in a gourmet dinner from the first class choice of international and Mediterranean cuisine from their extensive a la carte menu.

Every Thursday evening, Sun transforms into a Thai walking street dining concept. You select your ingredients and watch them be transformed into traditional Thai dishes. Try Papaya Salad, Pad Thai (stir-fried noodles with meat or prawns and a sprinkling of peanuts) or Tom Yum Goong

(spicy coconut soup with prawns). Maybe finish it all off with coconut ice cream. Just in time to join in with the acrobat show. Well maybe leave it a little while! Every Saturday evening is barbecue night, accompanied by spectacular musical performances from the talented Italian duo Ricardo and Roberto. They play classical Spanish guitar and saxophone, perfect sounds to listen to whilst you enjoy international and Thai food freshly cooked on the barbecue.

Moon is a fully air-conditioned enclosed dining area surrounded in beautiful teak wood, and a glass window runs along the whole length of one side, so that you can look out over the ocean and experience the feeling of being very close to nature. Moon offers you an all-day dining experience, from an extensive breakfast buffet, a lunch time la carte menu offering some lighter, healthy dishes and smoothies, into romantic evening dining experiences enjoying the light of the moon. You will be spoilt for choice as you peruse the variety of mouth-watering international and Mediterranean cuisine on offer.

Last but certainly not least is The Height. As the name suggests this restaurant is high up at the top of the resort. It comprises a glass-walled air-conditioned dining room and al fresco open air terrace, both of which overlook the stunning Gulf of Thailand. Here you will experience Silavadee’s authentic Thai cuisine as well as their unique ‘modern Thai’ dishes. (Modern Thai

cuisine uses western techniques with Thai ingredients). There is a buffet every Tuesday which is a great way to try a number of different dishes whilst watching a Thai dance show with the ocean as the backdrop.

For two or more people, Silavadee resort will organise free return transport from any location in the Lamai area, but if you are coming from further away, you will need to be at least four people. If you are making your own way there, coming from Chaweng, follow the ring-road towards Lamai, then as you come into Lamai, take the first turning on your left after the big modern glass IT Complex, and the resort is on your left about 500 metres further along.

There is a lot going on at Silavadee. A new General Manager has arrived with many new and innovative ideas and he is on a mission to improve. Watch this space to keep up with these exciting times.

Karan Ladd For reservations or further information, telephone 0 7796 0555. www.silavadeeresort.com

An outstanding menu of International & Thai cuisine prepared by master chef Joseph Spiteri

Choeng Mon, 88/18 Moo 5, T. Bophut, Koh Samui Tel: 0 77243888 Email: info@baywaterresort.com www.baywaterresort.com www.siamwininganddining.com

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Teak and Chic

Krua Bophut offers great-tasting food in a beautiful setting.

Take a stroll along the beach road in Fisherman’s Village, Bophut, and as you head towards The Wharf you’ll find an amazing restaurant that’s housed in an old teak villa, Krua Bophut. Once you’ve spotted it, turn in through its main entrance and you'll be greeted by the very welcoming staff. The whole experience of coming here to eat is a very happy and friendly one, and the atmosphere only adds to the joys of the food itself. By the way, there’s no loud music playing, just low-key background melodies that will only heighten your sense of relaxation.

At night, Krua Bophut is particularly magical. At each table, a large candle burns in a glass cylinder filled with sand and topped with large shells. The night air always feels particularly balmy here; a hush lies over the beach, and in the trunks of the palm trees by the shore, fairy lights glow. Outside on the terrace tables and chairs are anchored in the sand of the beach, while in the house that serves as a main dining room, there's a feeling that you're in an evocative place that belongs to the Siam of the past. The room is filled with memorabilia from a time that’s long since gone: an old radio, a telephone with a dial, along with pictures and so on.

As you can imagine, just from this description alone, Krua Bophut is a rather special place. It’s definitely something different when it comes to the island’s dining scene. It’s extremely popular with holidaymakers and residents alike. Krua Bophut oozes genteel taste, and though it’s a stand-alone restaurant, it’s actually run by Bo Phut Spa and Resort, a luxurious resort, just a little further along the coast in the direction of Maenam.

Krua Bophut seems to harken back to some of Thailand’s most sophisticated roots, and this is true not just of the architecture, but also the food itself. The restaurant offers a wonderful selection of the best of the nation’s dishes, those that have

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been exported pretty much all round the world and made Thai cooking so famous and well-loved.

The menu is an impressive one, and there are now more than a hundred different dishes you can choose from. Even if you're an old hand when it comes to eating Thai, it might still take you a while to choose as there's so much that’s tempting. There’s a vast array of seafood along with different meats and there are also a number of vegetarian choices too. But not to worry if you’ve never eaten Thai food before, just ask the staff for some help and they’ll narrow down the choices for you. And if you're not used to spicy food, then this is also no problem as each dish has notes that include the degree of spiciness.

A great many dishes on the menu are influenced by the cuisine of the south of the country, and you'll find some quite fiery curries on the list. You can always ask the staff to tone down the spice factor if you think things are a bit too hot. Much of what you'll be browsing through on the menu is to be found locally. Fruit and vegetables that are grown on Samui are used where possible, and since we’re on an island, you can rightfully expect the seafood to be of the freshest possible kind. The market’s not far away and the catch comes in daily. You'll find a number of herbs are used in many dishes, bringing out the very best in the food. Depending on what you have, you can taste nuances of herbs such as, coriander, basil, lemon grass and of course kaffir lime leaves.

There’s a whole art to balancing tastes in Thai dishes, but you can rest assured that at Krua Bophut the chef is a maestro at this.

When you're ready, start with some of the restaurant’s delicious appetizers, for example, Chicken or Shrimp Satay or Shrimp Tempura. Or for something a little more substantial, try the Grilled Chicken Fillet with Spicy Thai Sauce. For salads, there's plenty on offer, but for a dish

you’ve probably never eaten before, opt for the Spicy Seafood Salad with Coconut Blossom.

For mains, you're again spoiled for choice. Enjoy fish dishes such as Deep-Fried White Snapper with Turmeric or Stir-Fried White Snapper with Three Spices. These are just a couple of ways in which the chef prepares snapper, and the menu lists quite a few more. There’s plenty on offer if you prefer meat. There are chicken, beef, duck and pork dishes.

In addition there are two special menus that contain a range of Thai dishes for you to enjoy.

‘Menu A’ begins with a selection of appetizers and then comes Thailand’s famous spicy prawn soup, Tom Yum Goong. A papaya salad is served next, then a green curry with chicken and finally white snapper.

‘Menu B’ starts in the same way, with a selection of appetizers and is followed by milder options.

They begin with Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup, followed by a mouth-watering salad. Roast duck comes next and is followed by some stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts. Both menus end, of course, with a dessert.

Going to eat at Krua Bophut is always delightful.

The ambience guarantees it’s romantic, while still being a great place to bring a group of friends or family. The food is sublime and the excellent team at the restaurant always see to it that the dishes are dependably tasty. So much so, that some holidaymakers will come here several times during their stay!

Dimitri Waring For reservations or further information, telephone 0 7743 0030 or 0 7724 5035. www.kruabophut.com

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Mid-Morning Mix Belated breakfasts, laid-back lunches, brunch always has you covered.

Brunch is your best friend on a disordered off-kilter day. You've missed breakfast but it’s still too early, sort of, for lunch. Yet you're hungry and maybe you’d also like to indulge in a drink or two. A hundred and more years ago you’d have been in a kind of culinary no man’s land, and you would just have had to wait for lunch. But nowadays, you can look at your watch and as long as it’s not late afternoon, you can seize the day, albeit groggily, and declare yourself ready for brunch.

Brunch is, of course, linguistically a mix of the word breakfast and lunch. Pedants in the 19th century wanted there to be two meals of this kind, brunch for any time near breakfast, and blunch if it was nearer lunchtime. Blunch never really caught on, so brunch covers everything.

But where did the meal originate?

It’s a relatively modern custom, yet no historian has ever managed to nail down where brunch comes from exactly. It could have originated in Britain in the massive hunt breakfasts that contained not just eggs and bacon, but hefty

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meat dishes and fruit and sweets. Up early to hunt, such meals later on in the day would be irresistible to most hunting folk. But there’s another hypothetical origin that’s a lot less decadent and posits a religious motivation.

Catholics would fast before mass, go to church, and come back hungry. By this time it’d be more or less lunchtime, but they would still be in the mood for a meal that leaned towards breakfast.

Perhaps both origins are correct. Who knows now? Or even cares? Brunch is a highly popular meal. Back in 1895, in the British publication Hunter's Weekly, Guy Beringer said of the hybrid meal: ''Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting. It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper.” And then, perhaps astoundingly, he went on to claim, “It makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings.” For a bold statement like this to get into print, it must indeed have been an amazing meal. (“You don’t need psychotherapy, darling – you need brunch.”) Or perhaps it was just the sheer

novelty of the idea of eating a mid-morning mix of captivating dishes.

However, it didn’t become popular in the United States until the 1930s. Trains travelling between the west and east coasts would stop off at Chicago for a late morning meal. Hollywood stars on the trains loved the meals and the press picked up on it. Hotels offered the meal on Sundays when most restaurants were taking a day off. And naturally, Sunday laziness did the rest; people wanted to sleep in and then go out to eat. Restaurants decided to open on Sundays to cater for the hungry and put on large spreads of food – and they offered cocktails, too. Some establishments offered signature cocktails while others opted for what’s become a classical brunch trio: Bloody Marys, Bellinis and Mimosas. For habituated drinkers it was a watery excuse – if ever one were needed – to get started early with the day’s intake. Brunch has never been an entirely respectable meal in some people’s view. Or let’s say it’s a meal that’s open to abuse, the way breakfast definitely isn’t.

These days brunch usually involves inescapable breakfast foods such as eggs, pancakes, sausages, bacon, ham, and so on. However, here it can include almost any other type of food served throughout the day. You'll also find roasted meats and poultry, seafood, and plenty of salads, soups, and other accompaniments.

And last but definitely not least some very tempting desserts. These are only the basics.

Brunch can turn out to be incredibly sophisticated, a meal that only top-notch chefs can ever hope to pull off.

Just because you're in Asia, hardly the traditional home of the brunch, it doesn’t mean to say that you'll just have to go brunchless into the blazing heat of the day. There are many places that serve this hybrid meal and Samui’s no exception. It’s not exactly an established tradition out here, but they're the ideal meal to have around the swimming pool on a bank holiday or at the weekend. Dinner always means it’s too dark to go in the pool so a languid morning and afternoon period is ideal.

But of course you don’t have to live here permanently to enjoy a good brunch; resorts and hotels regularly put them on, most often on a Sunday. Try Beach Republic’s Sunday Brunch, which features dozens of dishes, with oysters, salmon, lobster, ham, roast beef and lamb, along with seafood and sushi. There’s also plenty of Thai food, a barbecue station, desserts and an international cheeseboard.

Brunch already has a cachet for being a meal that's incredibly satisfying, and here on Samui it’s perhaps even better as you get to savour it right by the sea and in the most beautiful of surroundings. As an über-treat to round off the week it’s an excellent way to guarantee relaxation, enjoyment and, of course, fine food.

Dimitri Waring

The Rise and Rise of Thai Beer Thai beers are gaining ground all over the world.

While you're on Samui, there’s no danger of drifting through the day without coming across Thai beer. It’s not that anyone’s going to push you to drink it – plenty of islanders never drink at all – but it’s just that it’s ubiquitous. Even the most isolated hotel on the island will have a fridge full of beer. And once you're out and about, you'll find bars, restaurants and convenience stores all selling beer. And it’s mostly Thai beer rather than international brands.

The first thing that strikes many visitors to Thailand is that the beers tend to be associated with animals. Not just any animals, though. Not mice, or dogs or armadillos. Big, powerful animals. Elephants and lions, no less. Not only does each bottle has a picture of an animal on it, but the brands are named after the animals, too: ‘Chang’ is the Thai word for elephant while ‘Singha’ and ‘Leo’ both mean lion.

Amongst Thais, these beers are the stuff of daily life, and serve not just to provide comfort from the heat, but to bring the nation and its classes together. You can drink Thai beer in a bamboo hut with a straw roof on it, or in a sophisticated restaurant. The choice is yours, but the beer will be the same. Thai beer crosses all dividing lines with the greatest of ease, and more so because there’s relatively little choice when it comes to home-grown brews. There are just two main breweries and they're more or less equal in price, quality and popularity. There's no chance to be snobbish; no chance for any establishment

to shun a beer in favour of another one. So, sitting down with a Thai beer couldn’t be, well, more ... Thai.

There are plenty of international beers on sale, but these tend to be more expensive, so most people stick with national beers. And why not?

They're every bit as good, and these days are exported all over the world.

You might think that these beers have been around a long time. After all, brewing beer goes back some 6,000 years. Back then, brews were basically nasty-tasting drinks with lots of solid blobs floating on their gunky surface. But brewing got better, and relatively quickly. In Europe monks were dab hands at making beers, and some of their products are still selling well today. Was the pattern the same in Thailand? Did remote, historical figures brew beer and supply the Thai armies in their defence of the kingdom?

Or something along those lines? Most Thai traditions go back hundreds and hundreds of years, after all...

But not Thai beer though. A car salesman started it. Khun Boonrawd Sreshthaputra was a bit of an entrepreneur, to say the least. A former teacher, he started selling cars – this was in the early 20th century when they were a definite rarity in Thailand – and then turned his hand to running ferries across the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok.

He soon found that the new bridges were taking away his business, and there was nothing he could do about it. So he turned away from

transport and started thinking about beer instead.

Thinking was the operative word as he didn’t know a thing about it; he had no knowledge either theoretical or practical. Beer was new in Thailand; for anyone to drink it, they had to get hold of imported beer that had come from distant Europe. Despite the obvious expense, Thais were enjoying it. So why not a Thai beer made on Thai soil? The idea grew on him.

Government officials soon received an unusual request from the entrepreneur. He contacted them asking for their go-ahead to build a brewery that would manufacture beer. They liked the idea and gave him permission. So far so good. Just one problem remained: Khun Boonrawd just had to find out exactly how to brew beer. Like any good entrepreneur he wasn’t deterred by his lack of knowledge, or by the absence of anyone in the country who could help him out.

He sought out those who knew the most about beer. His mentors were far away in Germany and Denmark, so he went and stayed there, learning everything that he possibly could. He returned with no less than a blueprint for production. In 1933, the first bottles of beer rolled out of the Boon Rawd Brewery, as it was called, and were quickly gulped down. To say the beer was popular was a gross understatement. The orders rolled in as the beer rolled out. Demand outweighed supply, and the beer, known simply as Singha enjoyed phenomenal success. Khun Boonrawd passed on, but his name and that of

the brewery, as well as the beer are all still household names today, and if anything even more successful now that the beer’s exported.

Singha is now such a part of Thai culture that the unsuspecting visitor may just assume it’s been around for centuries. They now also produce a lighter and cheaper version of Singha, called Leo. It’s also extremely popular.

For many years, Boon Rawd had complete control of the Thai beer market, and the only competition that they faced was that of imported beers. And then, quite suddenly a new competitor sprang into the arena, or perhaps stampeded in – Chang. This happened just over 20 years ago. And Chang managed to get ahead of Singha to become the nation’s best-selling beer. It’s produced by juggernaut ThaiBev, which also produces some of Thailand’s best loved spirits. Khun Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi owns this vast and rangy company, and not surprisingly, is one of the richest people in the country.

The two companies face each other in a never-ending competition, much like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. And though both are popular, neither can let their guard down for a second. A commercial slug-it-out like this will probably go on for decades to come, and there are no other big contenders. However, it’s not quite as simple as that, as there are some crafty interlopers, who though miniscule in comparison are bringing freshness to the beer industry here. They’re impressing drinkers with designer beers, and

many people are more than partial to these newcomers. The products are known as craft beers and their makers’ one guiding aim is to maximize taste, and they do this as innovatively as possible. Their small microbreweries produce highly drinkable beers, but always in small quantities. If you're tired of staple beers, however good they may be, then you'll be attracted by the bright new world of craft beer – each beer aims to be unique, and most likely is.

In 1995, Thailand’s first microbrewery opened, Tawandang German Brewery in Bangkok, and was gradually followed by others. It’s a hard business to get into, as there's a very high tax on brewing beer, but there’s an increasing demand for more beers and different-tasting brews and this new departure looks like it’s going to gain strength. And by the way, if you're on Samui and wish to experience craft beers for yourself, the island’s only brewery is at The Bee’s Knees Brew Pub, on the lake road in Chaweng. Here a variety of beers are made on the premises and served to an appreciative public.

With both Chang and Singha now popular all over the world, it looks like they’ll be complemented by outstanding new artisanal beers. But whether you're a traditionalist or an aficionado of craft brews, you're bound to appreciate the great tastes of the nation’s beers.

Dimitri Waring

Daily Theme Nights From 7pm.

Monday Classical Thai Night Buffet - THB 590 Tuesday Catch of the Day - from THB 250 Wednesday Italian Night Buffet - THB 490 Thursday Steak Supreme - from THB 300 Friday Beach BBQ Buffet featuring live music and a fire juggling show - THB 690 Saturday Surf & Turf - THB 790 Sunday Roast Chicken Sunday - THB 390 Daily Happy Hours at Beach Bar Buy 1 get 1 free beers and cocktails from 12pm - 2pm l 5pm - 7pm l 9pm - Midnight Sentinel Band Enjoy music from the Sentinel Band - Monday to Saturday from 7pm – 10pm Dining on the Beach Moonlight beach dining with your own private chef, from THB 1,500 per person

Chaweng Noi Beach For reservations please call: +66 77 448 994 www.impiana.com.my/hotel/impiana-resort-chaweng-noi-koh-samui/

www.siamwininganddining.com

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Going Native Joining the locals at Kai Food & Drinks.

Nestled on the ring-road right in the heart of Maenam, Kai Food & Drinks is a local stalwart when it comes to quick and tasty Thai food. Kai is the Thai word for ‘egg’, and is also the nickname of the owner, Khun Pieangta.

For many residents in Maenam, Kai is the go-to place for a tasty meal. The drawcard is the sheer value of the food; the prices seem to have hardly changed over the last decade. Kai’s popularity is solely down to word of mouth and attracts a diverse clientele.

To find Kai Food & Drinks couldn’t be easier. It’s about 200 metres on the left after the traffic lights in Maenam as you head towards Nathon, on the corner with soi 5. If you're coming by car, park in the lane just opposite soi 5 on the right – you'll find plenty of space if you drive down a little way.

The restaurant is situated in an old shophouse, where wooden shutters open onto the street outside, giving the dining room a very open-air feel. It’s the ideal place to kick back and watch

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the world go by. You're welcome to linger, too, and with the friendliness of the staff, you'll not feel at all pressured to simply eat and go.

There are plenty of restaurants in Maenam offering the gamut of Thai food, but what marks Kai Food & Drinks out, apart from the great taste, are the long opening hours – many other places are only open for parts of the day, leading to disappointment at times. Khun Kai is open from 10:00 am until 9:00 pm daily, except Sunday. Her schedule starts long before she rolls back the shutters in the restaurant. Every morning you'll find her around 6:00 am at the local market, just down the road. Here she buys everything necessary for the day ahead. The first people to arrive want breakfast, and there’s a separate section on the menu just for this.

Khun Kai opened the restaurant over 20 years ago, and it’s been going strong ever since. She hails from Bangkok, where she grew up with a great love of cooking, watching her family make food and learning directly from them. She opened a noodle shop in the city and then moved to

Samui, where she first had a simple shop selling shakes before opening the present restaurant.

And her shakes are still a firm favourite. Try a thirst-quenching mango or watermelon shake; they're both excellent. Khun Kai also serves tea, coffee, green tea, ginger tea as well as beers and soft drinks.

pork salad. As with many restaurants, just have a word with the waitress about the degree of spiciness you’d like, if you're ordering something that’s traditionally hot. For very mild foods you’ll find, for example, several types of pad Thai, sweet and sour pork or chicken or stuffed omelette.

On the food side, her bestseller is her chicken massaman curry, followed by her green curries and then the tom yam soup. They're truly delicious and are astoundingly cheap, even more so given the quality.

In addition, if you order a day in advance, Khun Kai will go to the market and buy you a whole fish, typically a snapper, which she’ll prepare and cook for you. It’s a great way to eat a wonderful dish and, as with everything else on the menu, there’s no fear that you'll come close to breaking your budget.

But there's plenty more on the menu, and it’s all good. In fact Khun Kai has well over 50 dishes.

You'll also find a small selection of western foods such as filet of chicken, pork or fish and spaghetti. However, most people come for the Thai dishes and it’ll take you a good while to browse through them on the menu. For something a little fiery, try the som tam (papaya salad), perhaps the nation’s favourite salad – it’s delicious. Or you can have glass noodle salad with pork or chicken or a spicy and sour minced

And last but not least there's a choice of desserts.

They're typically Thai and revolve around fruits such as rambutan and banana. Unusually for a simple restaurant like this, you can also have banana flambé, no doubt the best way to finish off a meal here. It comes flaming to your table; a glass of Thai whisky is poured over the bananas in syrup and then is set alight. It’s extremely tasty!

Kai Food & Drinks has been satisfying its many guests for years now. In fact part of the charm of the restaurant is Khun Kai herself; she’s an unusually cheerful sort of person and is always uplifting to be around. And coming to the restaurant is a bit like being welcomed into a family home. It’s a very friendly place and even if it’s set on a busy roadside, the atmosphere here is always positive and relaxing.

You'll find small restaurants like Kai’s all over Samui but few are this good; the dishes are dependably tasty. Khun Kai is certainly an expert cook, as her diners will testify. She’s a very approachable figure and no matter how busy she may be cooking in the kitchen at the back of the restaurant, she makes time to be amongst her diners. Visit the restaurant on a Thursday evening and you can also enjoy Maenam’s weekly night market – it’s just around the corner.

Rob De Wet

Experience the very best in authentic Thai cuisine at Chef Chom’s Thai Restaurant at The Tongsai Bay Chef Chom's serves truly authentic Thai cuisine with an emphasis on local southern Thai cuisine. Wherever possible, ingredients are sourced locally and dishes are prepared from scratch.

This real Thai taste is the pride of the kitchen, and dishes are not 'watered down', the taste of Chef Chom's food is just the way Thais would have it.

Chef Chom’s is open daily for dinner from 7pm to 10pm. Tel: +66 (0) 77 245-480 www.tongsaibay.co.th

www.siamwininganddining.com

15

Veggie Hunt Identifying some of the vegetables that find their way to the dinner tables of Thailand.

One of the benefits of having a Thai partner is that you’ll often get surprises. These will assuredly take different shapes and forms. And one of the most frequent of these will be food.

Even the simple process of going out to eat will involve a learning curve, at least to start with. In the early days, when my girlfriend used to do all the ordering, I’d hear the world ‘farang’ a lot, usually accompanied by sympathetic smiles from the waitress. I couldn’t understand a word of it.

But the translation boiled down to “. . . OK then, so it’s three plates of normal food for you, plus one plate that’s not spicy for the foreigner.”

So, what are the typically Thai vegetables? What springs to mind when you think of Thai food?

Lemongrass, that’s for sure. It’s used extensively, particularly in the popular ‘tom yam’ soups. But, sorry, it’s actually a herb, although the leaves can grow up to three feet in length. What about basil – there are at least three kinds, used everywhere in curries and stir-fries. No. It’s another herb. Ginger? That’s a rhizome, or root, as are galangal and turmeric. Even the little pea-sized eggplants that are found in so many dishes are actually fruits. And so too, is the ubiquitous papaya.

That’s pretty much par for the course: the Thai nation must get through hundreds of tons of chillies a month. It’s probably exceeded only by the amount of rice they consume, although chillies are actually fruits, not vegetables. Rice is in fact a seed – of the grass species oryza sativa.

So right away, there’s another surprise; the basis of most people’s diet in this part of the world is actually grass seed. But even that takes second place when you are woken not long after dawn to discover your partner is chopping up wood to eat. Call me stubborn, but I still reckon that the bamboo shoots in my Chinese takeaways back home were the result of a tin opener, not a flipping great chopper.

This is annoying. Here we are, trying to do something really simple and work out what are the most popular Thai veggies. I know for a fact that every time I go out to a Thai restaurant, my food is full of vegetables. I can even get vegetarian Thai food, dammit! But let’s think about this a moment. Are we talking Thailand ‘Thai food’, or high-street Thai restaurant back-home ‘Thai food’? There’s a difference. A quick look at a Googled recipe shows the ingredients for a ‘Thai’ vegetarian stir-fry. It contains the expected garlic and chillies, and then carrots, cauliflower, shallots and broccoli.

And none of these, with the possible exception of shallots, are found in authentic Thai food.

And, immediately, that needs a definition of what we mean by ‘Thai food’. I’ve eaten Thai food cooked in Thailand by Thai chefs, and they’ve used ingredients like carrots and cauliflower. But they’ve been working in tourist restaurants, at one level or another. To my mind ‘Thai food’ is what Thai people eat, in the little local restaurants that are everywhere, the food markets, the street stalls and the myriad of noodle soup shops that suddenly appear after dark on street corners and outside closed stores.

It’s all made from ingredients they buy to take home to cook a family meal. And, believe me, there are very few actual vegetables that are commonly used.

Another aspect to point out is that the ingredients used vary enormously from region to region. If you look at the rural northeast of the nation, the farming region of Issan, close to the Laos border, you’ll find that they’ll commonly use a wide variety of flowers and leaves from different plants, for instance, that are hard to come across elsewhere, and in the main are very bitter. ‘Sadao’ leaves, for example, ‘samek’, ‘pak kadon’, ‘yanang’ or ‘tia to’. Other than in specifically ‘Issan restaurants’, it’s rare to find these used outside of the north east region.

(But it’s interesting to note that there are quite a

few such restaurants on Samui, in the same way that there are in any areas of tourism; people from the depressed northeast migrate to where the wages and tips are higher.)

So what actual vegetables are typically used in authentic Thai food? The answer is not what you’d expect at all! One of the most common foods over here is ‘kway tiao’ – noodle soup.

And typically, every bowl comes with the chopped stems and leaves of Chinese broccoli (kha naa). Plus you’ll also find this in stir-fries and with crispy fried pork dishes. (And you’ll also no doubt like to know that this (noodle soup) is the only dish that is eaten using chop sticks – a constant source of amusement to my Thai friends after they have experienced – and been disappointed by – Thai restaurants in the West, where many diners feel compelled to randomly use chop sticks!)

You’ll come across beans quite often, however.

Nearly all local Thai restaurants will provide a complementary plate of raw ‘vegetables’ to go with a meal, and the ‘long-beans’ (thua-fak-yao), chopped, are always a pleasantly crunchy supplement to what’s on offer. And with this you’ll usually find morning glory leaves (phak bung), Thai basil (horapha) coriander leaves

(pak chee) and sometimes cucumbers (phak tam leung). Down here on Samui, and in the rest of southern Thailand, you’ll also find ‘sataw’ beans if you’re lucky (although even these are actually seeds!). Quite pungent and something of a delicacy, particularly with seafood, they need to be fresh – hence their English name; ‘stink beans’.

Roots, fruits, seeds, leaves, herbs and shoots; everywhere you look, they’re all over the place.

Every dish you come across in Thailand is just crammed with them. And they’re the essence of authentic Thai cuisine. Lemon grass, coriander, kaffir lime, garlic, chillies, Thai and holy basil, and all the rest. But carrots, Brussels, turnips, beetroot and broccoli? No. You’re in the minority, if you’re a vegetable in Thailand!

Rob De Wet

Sabienglae restaurants offer traditional fresh seafood and cuisine in an authentic southern Thai style.

Come and enjoy our unique dishes, many of which you won’t find elsewhere on the island, in a relaxing atmosphere. An experience to truly complete your holiday.

Sabeinglae Restaurant

The Wharf Samui, Fishermans’s Village For reservation please call 077 430 094-5 16 www.siamwininganddining.com

Hin Ta Hin Yai, Samui Ring Road For reservation please call 077 233 082-3

Wimaan Buri Resort, Chaweng Ring Road For reservation please call 077 962 333

The Smart Place to Meet All day dining at The Coffee Club.

“Provide; good food using local ingredients, great service and excellent coffee, a welcoming and relaxed meeting place enriching contemporary lifestyles”. This is the mission and philosophy statement at The Coffee Club. Now ponder on this question for a while; how many companies do you know of, that continually focus and work really hard, to achieve their sometimes rather grandiose statements? Not many probably. Well, The Coffee Club may well be one of the elite few!

The Coffee Club is now a chain of over 400 stores in eight countries, and had its humble beginnings in Brisbane, Australia in 1989. Two local guys after a night out on the town, found themselves perplexed, as they couldn’t find a decent place to get a good cup of coffee. They decided that this needed to be rectified. A change was required, and the idea of ‘The Coffee Club’ was conceived.

There are currently two outlets on Samui, with a third in the planning stages. Both are in Chaweng. One is on Chaweng Beach Road near Soi Green Mango, perfect for great food and a wake-me-up expresso, before heading out into party-central if that’s your thing! The other is in Central Festival Shopping Mall, located on the ground floor, not far from Wine Connection, and is where many families and locals head for lunch. Lunchtime is the busiest time of day for both locations. Other Thai outlets can be found in Phuket, Pattaya, and Bangkok including Suvarnabhumi Airport.

When you arrive at any branch of The Coffee Club, you will immediately notice the light, airy, comfortable and laid-back atmosphere. The modern contemporary decor has an almost Manhattan loft feel, with high ceilings and large hanging canvases on the walls, depicting comforting coffees, frothy frappes and favourite foods. Lighting is soft, music is relaxed and definitely ‘in the background’. Various seating is available offering a choice between comfy sofas or tables and chairs, and you can choose to sit outside, or inside with air-conditioning. And there is free high-speed Wi-Fi; you just need to sign in with your passport or ID number when you register. If you have a problem, don’t worry, the friendly staff in their smart black shirts will be more than happy to help you.

The Coffee Club has gained a following amongst locals on the island, and is well-known for its

great all-day menu offering breakfast, lunch and dinner and the atmosphere of a café – casual and relaxed. The whole menu is available from 8:00 am until 12:00 pm, so you can order ‘The Big Breakfast’ from the breakfast section at 11:00 pm if you want to, or a ‘Classic Pepper Steak’ from the mains section with a glass of wine at 8:00 am! This is definitely not just your average coffee and selection of sandwiches and cakes type coffee shop.

They offer a wide array of dishes, offering everything from three types of pancakes and ‘Truffle Infused Scrambled Eggs with Roasted Portobello Mushrooms’ to gourmet sandwiches, burgers, wraps, fresh pasta and salads to ‘Petite Mignon Surf and Turf’. Firm favourites are ‘Eggs Benedict’, the ‘Strong Arm Angus Burger with Cheese and Bacon’, ‘Caesar Salad’, ‘The Coffee Club Chicken Club Sandwich’ and from the Thai menu ‘Chicken Cashew Nut’. Any spicy dishes are labelled with between one to three red chillies, one being mild and three being hot. So you know what you are letting yourself in for. If you want to mix up ingredients a little, or swap something for a vegetarian option, no problem, just ask the staff, they are more than happy to oblige where possible. And if your children are fussy eaters, no problem, there is a ‘Kids Menu’ section especially for them. Local ingredients are used wherever possible, but all the beef and barramundi fish is specially flown over from Australia.

And that’s just the food. The selection of drinks is just as plentiful. From juices, frappes, milkshakes and iced drinks to red, white and sparkling wine, beer, spirits and cocktails, and of course, coffee and tea. The coffee beans are sourced in South America, Asia and Africa and then blended in Australia to create their signature blend, and it is all UTZ Certified. This is the largest program for sustainable farming of coffee and cocoa in the world, and covers sustainable agricultural practices, farm management, social and living conditions, and the environment. It offers better working conditions and opportunities for farmers and their families whilst securing the earth’s natural resources now and into the future.

The baristas have all been expertly trained in the art of making an exceptionally good cup of coffee, so together with the top-of-the-range equipment they use, are all capable of producing a fantastic cup of coffee. Some cups

even come with the added bonus of some smart ‘latte art’ which is so popular in the coffee industry at the moment. And if you like a pastry or cake with your coffee, just wander up to the counter and choose from the extremely tempting selection on offer.

The Coffee Club really value their staff; they are well paid and take part in regular training sessions. They learn about cleanliness and hygiene, preparation and presentation of food and drinks, customer service and more. They are trained to listen to customers’ requirements or comments, and relay this feedback to the store managers, who then pass on the information to the regional managers. They then use this information to improve products and services. Changes to the menu happen four times a year and are based solely on this feedback.

The Coffee Club are obviously doing something right, their customers just keep on coming back for more. TripAdvisor confirms this with countless reports about how great the coffee and food is, how friendly the staff are and the great relaxing atmosphere, with lots of positive comments about the free Wi-Fi. It’s a place that is stylish yet affordable, where you can sit back and watch the world go by, catch up with your friends, meet business associates, work on your laptop or just catch up with your emails. If you are here on holiday, it’s a great place to relax and unwind. If you are here on business or with a large group and need to find a meeting room, the Chaweng Beach Road store has seating upstairs for up to 50 people that you can reserve.

So back in Brisbane, in 1989, late one evening two young guys conceived The Coffee Shop idea. They thought, researched, planned and worked, then worked some more. Now you can reap the benefits of a company that really does meet its mission and philosophy statement.

Enjoy!

Karan Ladd For further information, telephone 0 7741 4616.

Facebook - The Coffee Club Thailand

Relax@Samui Thai food - Seafood - European food Romantic atmosphere Private seaview cottages The best seaviews on Samui Bang Por Beach, Tel. 0 7760 2228

Take a bread cake and bakery Tel: 088 502 3112

Location: Samui Ring Road (nearly opposite Big C)

www.siamwininganddining.com 17

The Wine Page Decent wine from a box? Surely not!

“Lovely wine,” one of my party guests said, raising her glass in a friendly salute. “Thanks,” I said, slightly embarrassed and dumbfounded.

Why dumbfounded? Because she was the third person that evening to compliment the wine. It was an Aussie red wine from a five-litre box costing 1,500 Baht. A fruity Cabernet Merlot by the Yarra Valley’s talisman wine producer, DeBortoli. Yes, a credible wine out of a box, at an amazing price.

stores, which may devote half an aisle to them.

Mont Clair, Mar y Sol and Peter Vella are among the most popular names. (Mont Clair is passable, Mar y Sol reasonably adequate, but Peter Vella, unfortunately, is ruined by added sugar.)

Australian wine boxes, when you can find them, are usually the best option, but read the labelling carefully, and avoid any made from unidentified grape sources, or far worse, with added fruit juice.

For the mathematically challenged, five litres is the equivalent of just under seven standard 75cl bottles of wine. For the culturally incurious, wine in a box can be immensely popular, depending on where, and with whom, you hang out. I know that superior wine shops don’t even carry it, but the fact remains that about one in every four glasses of wine consumed in this country comes from a box. In Australia boxes have half of the wine market, and in Norway, of all places, they claim a third.

Encouragingly, the Nevada County Wine Guild, in California’s Sierra foothills, produces a magnum-size, organic bag-in-the-box wine called Our Daily Red, a saucy riff on the Lord’s Prayer. Being organic, the wine is sulphite-free, and soon becomes unstable in an opened bottle.

But not in the cask, which never admits air.

However, many retailers remain sceptical about the future for expensive wines in boxes. Indeed, Château Latour in a box sounds far-fetched at the moment. Even so, the wine box continues to move up. In Britain, with French imports like Piat d‘Or, the market for boxed wine is growing twice as fast as that for bottled wine. The huge Nicolas retail chain in France has been successfully selling Beaujolais and Côtes du Rhône in boxes for years. And there surely must be a future for the 18-litre box, the equivalent of two cases of bottled wine, which is meant for by-the-glass and by-the-carafe sales in bars and restaurants. Put simply, you get more wine for your dollar. Bang for buck ratio is much better wine from a cask over wine from bottles.

Rather predictably, old-school wine buffs dismiss boxed wine as inferior and uncouth.

And wine boxes are best known by the, not particularly flattering, name bag-in-the-box. In fact, the secret of boxed wine is the bag inside.

Although the box is rectangular, like a big breakfast cereal box, inside is an airtight bag that holds the wine. To pour, punch out the opening in the bottom end of the box, and pull out a plastic non-drip spout. Push the red button and fresh red or white wine jets into your expectant glass. (Much to the delight of eager partygoers. But less so, to the dismal, die-hard wine aficionado.) And because the bag is airtight, and contracts as the wine is poured, the wine will last, in perfect airtight condition, for a surprisingly long time. As an experiment, Jon Fredrikson, a respected San Francisco wine writer, once kept a five-litre box of Chardonnay in his refrigerator for almost six months, and reported that the last glass was a good as the first.

Originally, wine boxes were limited, principally, to downscale wines. Some people believe it was a way of clearing surplus wine from bumper harvests. But more recently, up-scale varietal wines, like Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon have appeared in the box format.

And I like to think that as the fans of those early, dubious wines, moved up in taste, the wines went with them. Australians claim to have invented the wine box (or cask, as they prefer) 30 years ago. Attempts to market the format in other countries floundered at first, but began to grow, as the old yuppie-style wine markets dwindled, in the late 1980s. As with other wine innovations, like the screw cap, boxes caught on in Europe before the Americas and Asia. Last year, a trendy wine tasting in London featured no less than thirty box wines, all of them serious entries from France, Spain, and Italy. In Thailand, wine boxes are now increasingly popular in supermarket chains and Makro type

Manathai Koh Samui 18 www.siamwininganddining.com

Samui Ring Road

Lamai

Telephone 0 7745 8560-4

www.manathai.com

There are now a lot of premium wines being put in a box that might surprise you. And one can drink a glass a night over six weeks, without worrying that the wine will oxidise and go bad. For me, this is a biggie. And if like me, your significant other wants a glass of white, and you want a glass of red, the wine cask is the answer. You can safely open both casks without being concerned that you won’t finish the bottle. It’s environmentally friendly, too. The casks are made from recycled material and leave a much smaller carbon footprint (half the size) than the equivalent bottle. And glass breaks, wine casks bounce. Ever dropped a bottle of wine? I have, it’s not pretty. Also worth remembering, there is no need for concern over aging your wine. This stuff is made to drink young. I can’t see there will be cellars full of wine boxes anytime soon (although I would be happy to be proven wrong).

I realize many consumers are still pretty insecure when it comes to wine, especially here in Asia, and insist on placing undue importance on the bottles, labels, and rituals. But, as the figures show, more and more wine drinkers are starting to appreciate the advantages of the wine box, and I have no doubt it’s here to stay.

Peter James

Opening Times 10am – 1am

Silavadee Pool Spa Resort

Silavadee Pool Spa Resort presents a wide range of restaurants and bars featuring a variety of cuisines to suit all tastes.

Premium cocktails and selected wines are also available in each outlet.

STAR

A stunning rooftop bar where you can sip our signature cocktails and enjoy some snacks while watching the sunset or gazing at the stars above.

Open: 17.00-23.30hrs.

The Height

Sun Deck

Wine and Cigar Lounge

Oering an extensive menu of delightful Thai cuisine, the restaurant has both air-conditioned and open air seating options, all with stunning views of the surrounding sea.

Open: 17.00-22.30hrs.

Exclusive dining on the deck with breathtaking views.Enjoy International delights in a romantic setting with your loved one. Please reserve in advance.

Refreshments, cocktails and snacks with a selection of premium wines and cigars to enjoy the breathtaking view.

Open:18.00-22.30hrs.

Open: 17.00-23.30hrs

Silavadee Pool Spa Resort 208/66 Moo4, Koh Samui, Suratthani 84310 Thailand Tel: (+66) 077 960 555 Fax: (+66) 077 960 055 www. Silavadeeresort.com www.siamwininganddining.com

19

Rice Barge &

Terrace

Fine Beachside Dining at the Rice Barge & Terrace Authentic Thai Cuisine WEEKLY CALENDAR MONDAY - COWBOY DAY Cowboy Steak Night Buffet @ 1,129 Baht/person. Children half price Advance reservation discount 15% Costume Theme Night: Cowboy style will get 1 free bottle of beer Entertainment: The Barge Band TUESDAY - GRILLED NIGHT Lobster & Seafood Basket for 2 @ 3,500++ Steak Set for 2 @ 2,700++ or Seafood Set for 2 @ 2,700++ Entertainment: The Barge Trio Band WEDNESDAY - HAWAIIAN STYLE Hawaiian Seafood Buffet @ 1,290 Baht/person. Children half price Advance reservation discount 15% Entertainment: The Barge Band and Polynesian show THURSDAY - COCKTAILS DAY Lobster & Seafood Basket for 2 @ 3,500++ Steak Set for 2 @ 2,700++ or Seafood Set for 2 @ 2,700++ Free Flow Cocktails 5pm-7pm @ 950++/person/hour Entertainment: The Barge Trio Band EVERY DAY - FREE STYLE Thai Cooking Class & Bartender Master Class - Reservation required Happy Hours: Hillside Pool 1pm-3 pm. Beachside Pool 2pm-4 pm Lobby Lounge: 6pm-8pm. Rice Barge: 6pm-7pm. The Barge 9pm-10pm Private Dinner 3,500, 7,500, 8,500, 11,000 baht. Reservation required Free Flow Local Beer (Singha/Chang) @ 550++/person/hour Open Bar @ 650++/person/hour - Gin, Rum, Vodka, Red Label, Local Beer, Juice, Soft Drink Open Bar @ 850++/person/hour - Wine, Cocktails, Spirits, Local Beer, Juice, Soft Drink SATURDAY - WEEKEND DAY Chef Signature Food Set Menu 1,350 Food Only, 1,850 with Wine Pairing Entertainment: The Barge Trio SUNDAY - PASTA NIGHT Fresh Pasta and Pizza Corner and Salad Bar @ 550++/person

Rice Barge & Terrace Nora Buri's Signature Restaurant Chaweng North For Reservation Tel: 0 7791 3555 E-mail: ricebarge@noraburiresort.com www.noraburiresort.com

Chaweng Beach Road Chaweng North

It’s all happening at Nora Beach Resort & Spa Tuesday Night- Siam Kingdom Thai Night. We invite you to experience a variety of traditional Thai dishes.

Price THB 850 per person.

Thursday Night - East Meets West. Enjoy our chef’s special buffet creations. Price THB 950 net per person. Children 6-12 years old half price. Entertainment: Polynesian Show & Mariposa Duo. Thai Cooking Class Learn how to cook 3 authentic Thai dishes with our Thai Chef. Price THB 1,500 per person Inclusive of chef hat, apron, certificate and recipe.

Fruit Carving Class Price THB 1,500 per person. Inclusive of chef hat, apron and certificate.

Daily Happy Hour Beverages Special offer 50% off (Except wine, Corona beer, all spirits by the bottle) Pool Bar 1.00 pm - 2.00 pm & 4.00 pm - 5.00 pm. Prasuthon Restaurant 6.00 pm - 7.00 pm.

Lobby Bar 7.00 pm - 8.00 pm & 10.00 pm - 11.00 pm.

Romantic Private Dining Dining on the beach with private chef and waiter/waitress.

Thai menu THB 5,000 per couple.

International menu THB 6,000 per couple.

Advance reservation required

For further information please telephone 0 7742 9400 E-mail: reservation@norabeachresort.com www.norabeachresort.com

20 www.siamwininganddining.com