When I passed by the pool area of JW Marriott Phuket, I noticed almost 80% of the room guests order a pizza from the Italian restaurant called Cucina. In taking the chance of their antipasto buffet with a choice of main course at THB880++, why not give it a try? It turned out it's an excellent Italian restaurant.
1. the open kitchen of Cucina. Definitely the pizza is on wood fire baking. 2. the green were very fresh and chilled - this is the good thing about a good restaurant not just paying attention to the taste but also to how to serve the food. If it'd be chilled, better be really chilled. If it's a hot dish, it has to be really hot.
3. Another simple but yet thoughtful idea is to have your own made crushed rock salt and black pepper in this nice crushing stone. 4. The tomato buns were very nice and warm-hot besides the bread stick and the white buns. I took them all!
3. Baked eggplant/squash in tomato/olive sauce layer. 4. the wind-dried beef and other cold cuts.
5. The wind-dried beef and raw beef slices are really good - very skillful cutting on the almost transparent raw beef slices and together with some very nice Balsamic vinegar. Then the parma ham rolled in melon is superb. They use some very fine parma ham - melting in your mouth with a strong aroma of the fat, and not too salty. The eggplant is also good and the tomato/olive sauce is a nice mix to it. I didn't leave any food on the plate. :) 6. Minestrone soup - this one is quite at average but as the buffet soup can't be done well due to the 70-80 degree warmth temperature for a few hours on the table.
7. Pink Mojito - this time they don't mix it with alcohol. Instead, they put pink guava juice and lemonade to go with the freshly twisted mint leaves. Quite a nice mix and good for the meal as an appetite drink. 8. See how much I enjoyed the parma ham, the wind-dried beef and raw beef - another round!
9. Roasted spring chicken - didn't expect it's really good and nicely roasted with some rosemary and very nice sea salt. The chicken does have the chicken taste. 10. poached sea bass - poached fish is quite a difficult dish especially if the seafood is not fresh enough. However, poaching is the best way for keeping the original taste of the food if it's done in a right way (i.e. the boiling water, if necessary some herb and the boiling temperature as well as the amount of the boiling water. If the boiling water is a bit too less, it would create a kind of sudden big drop in the cooking temperature. If it's too much, the original taste of the food will be lost.) The chef has done a really good job on this one.
11. choco mouse, pineapple pudding, berry mouse - quite at average. 12. Tiramisu on the top right and blue berry mouse with a variety of fresh fruit. The tiramisu is a bit too moist and sweet.
13. the restaurant inside - BTW, I just took this photo when the guests left - doesn't mean it's very empty and actually I could only get a table at 8:15pm. 14. the restaurant entrance.
6 comments:
OMG this is real Italian, how come even Phuket has one, but Bangkok ... :(
SEA,
How lucky you have chance to try all the good food and good places.
This Italian Restaurant does look tempting. So does the bread basket.
TC,
I think the two we had at Thonglor are very good Italian restaurants.
I'm a bit surprised with Cucina. TC, like what you said the skillful chefs fall in love with Thailand and the atmosphere of Thailand have trapped them. Maybe this is the thing those professionals would rather dedicate themselves in working in Thailand rather than staying at their own countries or in some countries they don't feel like staying. :)
SS, you really need to go have some research about the Italian cuisine in LA and San Francisco. The latter one has some very nice Italian cuisine. The good things are sometimes just an an inch in front of you but you may have just passed it by for miles.
Yes SEA, my life in LA is limited to 10-mile radius. And the only Italian Restaurants I go are Mi Piace and Louise at Old Town Pasadena, and both are on Colorado Blvd.
Too bad you don't come to LA any more.
The last time when I was in the Pasadena mall on Colorado Blvd., I was brought to an Italian restaurant and another Mexican restaurant, which are pretty nice. Mmh... a trip to LA of total cost for the ticket/hotel would be around HK$18k to 20k. If I spend HK$10K, I would stay in Oriental BKK for 3 nights and go to a pool villa resort for another 4-5 nights... Besides, the flight time is much less than that.
You are so right SEA. That is why I am in love with BKK now. I always thought it is expensive to travel far to Asia. But now I can tell you, even including air ticket to BKK, if I spend the same numbers of days in Vegas, the costs would have been double or triple(gamble not included).
Post a Comment