F&B Manager Christophe Rodriguez Lopez tells Phuket Post what makes the restaurant at Mangosteen Resort and Spa so special.

The concept for the Mangosteen is to offer our guests Mediterranean food with an Asian touch, as well as traditional Thai dishes. The Mangosteen Salad is probably our best known dish.

It is a combination of a mix of Western salad with green leaves and Thai Papaya Salad (the popular Somtam), green papaya, cashew nuts and prawns with a mint and chili flavoured dressing.

We also garnish it with fresh Mangosteens when they are in season.

The Thai menu is most popular with our resort guests who want to sample classical Thai dishes. It has a heavy emphasis on seafood as it’s easy for us to get it really fresh.

The dishes go beyond what is on most Thai menus; we really try to cover a variety of dishes from across Thailand. We also concentrate on presenting the food in a way that is special, with carved vegetables and large platters.

We try to make it like a feast.

The Phad Med Mamuang, Prawns sauteed with mixed vegetables and cashew nuts, is a much ordered dish as is the Haow Mok Poo, Blue Crab pudding flavoured with Thai condiments and baked in their shell.

The Seafood basket also sells very well. It is a selection of whole snapper fish, rock lobster, squid, blue crab, prawns served with salad and rice. It is also available with Phuket Lobster.

We also offer a variety of adaptive dishes, some people would call it fusion but I don’t like that name. To me, fusion just means small portions and at the Mangosteen our food is served in big, Mediterranean-sized portions.

I would recommend the Sunny Lamb Roulades. The lamb loin is stuffed with mushrooms, garlic and sun-dried tomatoes then coated with a fine champagne sauce and served with potato gratin.

But my personal favourite, and also my personal recipe, is the Vegetarian Raviolis. The raviolis are stuffed with yellow tofu cake, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes and basil then served with Neapolitan sauce.

It is a dish that I am very proud to have on the menu.

A unique attraction for our diners is our wine cellar. We are the only hotel in Phuket that has an underground wine cellar. The cellar is kept at a constant temperature of between 12 and 15 degrees and at a humidity of about 60%.

We have around 70 different wines from every continent and a total of over 600 bottles. Our current selection includes wines from Morocco, Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America and we even have Thai wine.

On special occasions we hold private dinners and wine tastings, these are by arrangement only.

Another attraction of our restaurant is the Sunday brunch. It is well liked by both locals and hotel guests. All the food is served as a buffet and there are five different themes; Continental, BBQ, Seafood, Italian and Belgian.

Belgian cuisine is not that well known but it is always well-received. The beef stew with beer is excellent! Guests that come for the brunch can also enjoy the use of our facilities including the swimming pool. We even provide the towels.

The Mangosteen Resort & Spa
99/4 Moo 7, Soi Mangosteen, Rawai
www.mangosteen-phuket.com
Tel: 076-289399