I will come clean, right at the beginning - Songkran is
not my favorite time of the year. Getting wet for a week as “fun” soon
begins to pall. However, this year Songkran was not all dirty ice water and
white paste - there was also an invitation to lunch from Vanjie Lauzon the
effervescent Assistant Director of Communications of the Dusit Thani
Pattaya. The Dining Out team readily accepted!
The Dusit Thani in Pattaya is one of the best hotels, and is also very well
established. In the middle of so many new hotels springing up, the Dusit
Thani Pattaya does not need glitz and glamor, instead it is a most welcome
oasis, and one inviting you to relax.
The Dusit Thani Pattaya has many restaurant outlets, and
the Cascade restaurant is easily found, being off the main lobby on the
right hand side. Comfortable chairs, unobtrusive staff and a warm ambience.
What more do you need at lunchtime, and it was lunch buffet we had come to
review.
The new executive chef at the Dusit Thani Pattaya is Alistair Carter, a chef
who has extensively toured the world with his toque at the ready, coming to
Pattaya in January of this year, having left Egypt as his last posting.
Talking with Alistair, one word kept being repeated, and that was
“authentic”. He does insist that all dishes be prepared and cooked in the
authentic manner, and especially those for this month’s Thai food lunch
buffet.
Alistair has planned to have a different lunch promotion
each month, with this one being Thai, and May being products using beef and
lamb. Since this is Thai New Year, it made lots of sense to theme this month
as Thai, and the Cascade restaurant the ideal venue.
Like all buffets, I do recommend that you tour the buffet tables first,
before heaping your plate, to find out later that you missed one of your
favorite dishes. This month is predominately Thai, but there are enough
western dishes as well. Some of the items on offer include (Thai) spicy
pomelo salad and charcoal grilled squid with spicy sauce. Moving on, there
was grilled pork with lime and chili sauce and sweet crispy vermicelli, deep
fried sai au and condiment, spicy young chili dip with vegetable.
There was plenty more with the very popular green papaya
spicy salad and spicy shrimp dip and fried fish.
Thai food must have noodles and there is a live cooking noodle station
preparing noodle soup, fried Thai rice noodle with shrimps.
Soups include Thai soup; spicy and sour seafood soup and a Western mushroom
soup.
And there’s much more with hot dishes including spicy and sour curry with
fish and vegetable, deep-fried chicken legs, steamed seafood in banana leaf
cup, stir-fried Chinese lettuce with crab roe, baked rice in pineapple, and
steamed jasmine rice.
The Khao Chae Station has such authentic items as steamed rice soaked in ice
cold floral-scented water served with traditional garnish items, and the
Thai dessert station; Khao Neaw Mamuang (sweet mango with sticky rice and
coconut), assorted Thai desserts, sliced fruits and two western desserts.
We
sampled many of the dishes, but could not possibly try everything, but those
we did try were, as Chef Alistair claimed, very authentic. Remember too,
that this lunch buffet is an ‘all-you-can-eat’ offer and at B. 399 ++ does
represent good value. I believe that this would be an excellent way to
introduce Thai cuisine to your overseas guests.
I had just sat back to savor the lunch, when Vanjie and
Alistair exposed my weakness - chocolate! On Thursday, Friday and Saturday
afternoons (from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.) the Dusit Thani Pattaya has a chocolate
afternoon tea, with all forms of chocolate items on offer. This is B. 255
++, and despite labeling myself as a pig, I indulged. And I am sure you
would too, when confronted with such delicacies. That’s my excuse and I am
sticking to it!
Dusit Thani Pattaya, Cascade restaurant 240/2 Pattaya Beach Road, telephone
038-425-611-7 Ext. 2476 and 2153, Fax 038 428 239, secure (dry) parking
within the Resort grounds. The Cascade Restaurant buffet runs from 12 noon
to 2.30 p.m.
