Buffets In Thailand

[sorensen]

The is a huge difference in the quality of Buffet's which vary from very bad to exellent and usually this is reflected by price. There are of course customers who are enticed by being able to load up and eat until close to bursting pint, for those quality comes secondary. The top buffet's entice a lot of people simply with their variety of food that one can taste and many customers can be enticed, having experienced an exellent buffet, to visit the 'a la carte restaurant on their next visit or Hotel guests often have a buffet for lunch and eat a'la carte in the evening when there is simply more time.

I've been to many buffet's a long time ago when i used to travel a lot more simply because of that point. Also it gave me an idea of the chef's range. A really great Buffet includes freshly prepared steaks and pasta and carveries for roast beef and lamb, usually only cold starters and deserts as well a vegatables and salads are self service where the hot fair (besides soups and stews) is prept to order and served at manned stations.

My feeling is that buffet's will become ever more popular considering the world wide recession and budget restrictions passed on to executives traveling,

John

p.s. when I used to travel in europe and had time, I used to mostly eat out of the Hotel in the evening in small local restaurants where the food often was superior - nowadays I prefer old fashioned food and am not too hot on haute cuisine - especially when I see the BS spreading all over the place with the new fab of molecular cooking

I am en engineer and not a chef (but I like eating) and will love to know what "molecular cooking" is. Can anyone explain?

Robert

[hgvneil]

went to a good sushi buffet at a shopping centre near chatuak market in bangkok,cant remember the name or centre but it had a imax cinema inside,anyway the food came round on a belt,take what you want,help your self soft drinks pepsi etc 300 baht,went back again.

[JohnBKKK]

I am en engineer and not a chef (but I like eating) and will love to know what "molecular cooking" is. Can anyone explain?

Robert

Off topic, but a short eplaination - molecular cooking was pioneered by a spanish chef running a restaurant called El Bully - openes half a year only, closed the rest while they are playing with their chemistry sets - its basically changing the molecular structure of the food - example, an apple is deep/shock frozen with liquid nitrogen, than turned into some kind of gelleed snow flakes which are served on a mousse that used to be a pork chop but was de-structured in a centrifuge and turned into a mousse which is than served on a spoon with the apple snow flakes on top - pork chop with apple sauce gone through molecular cooking - and people pay an absolute fortune for that - El Bully is booked years in advance and now places all over the world copy this crap and you'll get your G&T in form of a gelly bean...

I figure its baby food gone mad

Edited December 29, 2008 by JohnBKKK

[sorensen]

Thanks for the explanation John. I would rather be on the receiving end of the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, than eating food like that. Bring on the Buffets and your Beef Wellington (still can't get that off my mind..and stomach).

Robert

[bonobo]

I happen to like buffets, and I make no apologies for that. I like to have numerous different tastes, and now that I can control myslef and don't gorge out, I hardly see how it matters if I have several smaller portions of different dishes or a larger portion of one dish.

Quality is a matter of taste (pun intended.) I happen to think that the buffets at the Bellagio and at the Hard Rock in Vegas are outstanding and well worth the $25 cost. Heck the king crabs alone make it worth it, in my mind.

Here in Thailand, the western-type buffets are quite a bit more pricey, but they are a good coice when entertaining mixed Thai-foreign groups. I happen to like the buffet at the Grand Hyatt, but there are others which are quite good.

And while I really don't like many of the Thai pork "BBQ" buffets around, such as BBQ Fiesta, the one on Rapprapruk (Buffet Party) is really quite decent for the price.

[thecatman]

For those of you that do like buffets, click on this link

Edited December 29, 2008 by thecatman

[bonobo]

For those of you that do like buffets, click on this link

Thanks for the link.

[Ulysses G.]

II figure its baby food gone mad

Anyone who serves deep fried turkey for Christmas should embrace this stuff. Some day, a lot of molecular cooking will be mainstream, but it will take a while to figure out what works and what doesn't - something like fusion cooking.

[sceadugenga]

Off topic, but a short eplaination - molecular cooking was pioneered by a spanish chef running a restaurant called El Bully - openes half a year only, closed the rest while they are playing with their chemistry sets - its basically changing the molecular structure of the food - example, an apple is deep/shock frozen with liquid nitrogen, than turned into some kind of gelleed snow flakes which are served on a mousse that used to be a pork chop but was de-structured in a centrifuge and turned into a mousse which is than served on a spoon with the apple snow flakes on top - pork chop with apple sauce gone through molecular cooking - and people pay an absolute fortune for that - El Bully is booked years in advance and now places all over the world copy this crap and you'll get your G&T in form of a gelly bean...

I figure its baby food gone mad

I saw this place on the Discovery Channel last year, (yes it's next year already!) and they were serving up small dollops of brightly coloured slop on huge plates and asking telephone numbers for it.

The guy doing the show went into such raptures they almost had to throw a bucket of water over him.

[bonobo]

Off topic, but a short eplaination - molecular cooking was pioneered by a spanish chef running a restaurant called El Bully - openes half a year only, closed the rest while they are playing with their chemistry sets - its basically changing the molecular structure of the food - example, an apple is deep/shock frozen with liquid nitrogen, than turned into some kind of gelleed snow flakes which are served on a mousse that used to be a pork chop but was de-structured in a centrifuge and turned into a mousse which is than served on a spoon with the apple snow flakes on top - pork chop with apple sauce gone through molecular cooking - and people pay an absolute fortune for that - El Bully is booked years in advance and now places all over the world copy this crap and you'll get your G&T in form of a gelly bean...

I figure its baby food gone mad

I saw this place on the Discovery Channel last year, (yes it's next year already!) and they were serving up small dollops of brightly coloured slop on huge plates and asking telephone numbers for it.

The guy doing the show went into such raptures they almost had to throw a bucket of water over him.

On Iron Chef America, they had a challenger from one of these places.  I have to admit, it was fascinating to see the chef do his work, and the dishes looked amazing.

But the proof is in the pudding, so-to-speak, and the Iron Chef trounced the challenger in taste by a huge margin. And isn't taste what is all about?

[henryalleman]

Short of the four seasons most of these buffets are questionable.

Sheraton Grande, JW Marriott, Shangri-la, Oriental, Westin, Marriott, Peninsula, Hilton Millenium, Sheraton - Too name but a few excellent buffets as good as and in some cases better than the four seasons.

Miracle Grand have an excellent buffet at Lunch time, you can choose between, Thai, European and Japanese food. Its rather expensive but worth every Bath.

[bkkjames]

Short of the four seasons most of these buffets are questionable.

Sheraton Grande, JW Marriott, Shangri-la, Oriental, Westin, Marriott, Peninsula, Hilton Millenium, Sheraton - Too name but a few excellent buffets as good as and in some cases better than the four seasons.

Miracle Grand have an excellent buffet at Lunch time, you can choose between, Thai, European and Japanese food. Its rather expensive but worth every Bath.

You mean that place out near the old airport?

Anyways, the best Sunday brunch buffets are Sukhothai and Marriot Riverside.

[sorensen]

You mean that place out near the old airport?

Anyways, the best Sunday brunch buffets are Sukhothai and Marriot Riverside.

bkkjames, do you recon that the Sunday buffet at Marriott Riverside is better than the JW Marriott buffet or same-same?

Robert

[bkkjames]

You mean that place out near the old airport?

Anyways, the best Sunday brunch buffets are Sukhothai and Marriot Riverside.

bkkjames, do you recon that the Sunday buffet at Marriott Riverside is better than the JW Marriott buffet or same-same?

Robert

marriot riverside, do a quick search on here for an old thread on this topics with pics, aroi!

[henryalleman]

Short of the four seasons most of these buffets are questionable.

Sheraton Grande, JW Marriott, Shangri-la, Oriental, Westin, Marriott, Peninsula, Hilton Millenium, Sheraton - Too name but a few excellent buffets as good as and in some cases better than the four seasons.

Miracle Grand have an excellent buffet at Lunch time, you can choose between, Thai, European and Japanese food. Its rather expensive but worth every Bath.

You mean that place out near the old airport?

http://www.miraclegrandhotel.com/restaurant.html

Are we talking about the same?

Anyways, the best Sunday brunch buffets are Sukhothai and Marriot Riverside.

[sorensen]

You mean that place out near the old airport?

Anyways, the best Sunday brunch buffets are Sukhothai and Marriot Riverside.

bkkjames, do you recon that the Sunday buffet at Marriott Riverside is better than the JW Marriott buffet or same-same?

Robert

marriot riverside, do a quick search on here for an old thread on this topics with pics, aroi!

BKKJames, I did find a lot of older treads about buffets, but none with pictures. Do you have the link?

Robert

[bkkjames]

You mean that place out near the old airport?

Anyways, the best Sunday brunch buffets are Sukhothai and Marriot Riverside.

bkkjames, do you recon that the Sunday buffet at Marriott Riverside is better than the JW Marriott buffet or same-same?

Robert

marriot riverside, do a quick search on here for an old thread on this topics with pics, aroi!

BKKJames, I did find a lot of older treads about buffets, but none with pictures. Do you have the link?

Robert

Found the site again http://www.pbase.com/alfredso/bkskt two thumbs up to the photographer, great job!

[bonobo]

I had heard some good things about the buffet at the Athenee on Wireless Road, so I tried it out on Sunday.  I came away rather disappointed.  For 1500 baht, the choices were rather limted. THere was one carved meat, several meats to be grilled, an adequate pasta bar, a couple sad-looking western dishes, a few Thai dishes, a minimal salad bar, and a limited dessert choices.

[bkkjames]

I had heard some good things about the buffet at the Athenee on Wireless Road, so I tried it out on Sunday.  I came away rather disappointed.  For 1500 baht, the choices were rather limted. THere was one carved meat, several meats to be grilled, an adequate pasta bar, a couple sad-looking western dishes, a few Thai dishes, a minimal salad bar, and a limited dessert choices.

BBO, don't believe everything you read in BK magazine mate. Sukhothai is very good. BTW, give the Grand Millenium a miss IMO.

[bonobo]

I had heard some good things about the buffet at the Athenee on Wireless Road, so I tried it out on Sunday.  I came away rather disappointed.  For 1500 baht, the choices were rather limted. THere was one carved meat, several meats to be grilled, an adequate pasta bar, a couple sad-looking western dishes, a few Thai dishes, a minimal salad bar, and a limited dessert choices.

BBO, don't believe everything you read in BK magazine mate. Sukhothai is very good. BTW, give the Grand Millenium a miss IMO.

What was sad was this was a friend of mine, one whom I have taken to really good restaurants in the US, Japan, and central and eastern Europe.  I figured he knew better.