Courtyard Dining

It’s no secret that Marriott has big plans for its Courtyard resort brand in Phuket. Last month, they launched the first of three set to open in Phuket at a prime location just 200 metres from Surin Beach.

The Courtyard marketing strategy — targeting both families with children and travellers looking for a competitively priced quality accommodation minus the frills of a 5-star resort — had been worked out in detail from the moment of groundbreaking last year. So had almost all of the other details. Except for the restaurant.

“When this hotel started construction, the Momo concept was not yet refined,” says Theera Kanjana, general manager of the Courtyard in Surin, of the in-house restaurant. “We only had a general concept of what it should be. I came in, and with Marriott’s concept people, we developed what it should look like.”

The design is very appealing: a generous open-air space with a bar in the middle sits above one of the resort’s three pools. The kitchen at the rear of the space overlooks buffet tables used for the morning meal. Half a dozen computer stations stand at one side, lending more the atmosphere of an Internet caf้ than the sterile business centres found in most hotels. Momo2Go, a caf้-style counter between the lobby and the Momo restaurant proper, serves coffee, pastries and sandwiches for guests who want to grab something for take-away. “What we looked at is this: hotels like the Courtyard normally have just one restaurant, and how could we make this restaurant work throughout the day? ” Khun Theera says. “Everybody has to have breakfast, but what do you do with it for the rest of the day?”

Having come up through the Marriott ranks via the food and beverage department, Theera was in a great position to develop the Momo concept for the Surin Beach Courtyard, a concept that will now be replicated at the other Courtyards opening locally. A native of Bangkok, Theera spent several years working for Marriott properties in the USA, including a seven-year stint as banquet manager at the Marriott Biltmore in Santa Barbara, California, during the late 1970s and early ’80s. That was during the first few years of Santa Barbara-resident Ronald Reagan’s term as US president. As banquet manager, Theera worked to present a full state dinner at the Biltmore hosted by Reagan and feting the president of Mexico.

For the menu at Momo, Theera started out by producing great pizzas and some signature breads. Then he made sure he could offer many of the other things guests would expect, including popular Western dishes such as fish and chips. Plus, of course, he added some local colour. “There are three or four Thai dishes that everyone knows, for example phad Thai, green curry chicken and tom yum,” Theera says. “But in Phuket the fish is fresh, and the fish is good, so we did something with that, too.”

At a long Momo lunch, the kitchen showed off its sea bass, one of Theera ’s creations. It’s served up simply, with three fillets in a citrus-pepper sauce and a bowl of rice on the side. The meat was light and very fresh, the sauce a magnificent example of balanced Thai flavours hitting all the right notes: sweet, sour, salty and spicy. The phad Thai, too, was excellent. Our lunch started out with two examples from the pizza oven, including a tasty thin-crust California pizza with strips of roasted chicken, avocado and pumpkin. The finish? A robust cappuccino with some satisfying desserts: a rich tiramisu served in a coffee cup, a beautiful and fresh plate of Thai fruits and, of course, kao niew mamuang, a warm sticky rice with melt-in-your-mouth ripe mango and coconut cream.

Momo Cafe at Courtyard by Marriott Phuket, Surin Beach, 106/27 Moo3, Cherngtalay, Talang. 076 303 300.

— R.P.

Healthy Starts

Breakfast is the most important meal. That’s a commonplace. When we get up in the morning, we haven’t eaten anything since the previous night’s dinner, and after 10 hours our blood-sugar levels are low, leaving the body hungry for more energy. If we miss breakfast, we’re even hungrier by lunchtime, so we tend to eat too much. That’s one reason many people get fat.

Phuket people, on the whole, aren’t keen on missing breakfast. All around Phuket Town, for example, especially near schools, you see lots of breakfast restaurants. And Phuket breakfasts are different from those in other provinces, where there tends to be more emphasis on rice.

In this issue of the Phuket Post we present a number of distinctively local dishes.
Bukit, near the main Phuket Post office, attracts many breakfast customers. Rattana “Rat” Khaimook, the owner, explains the origin of the name “Bukit”: “We specialize in local Phuket breakfasts, so we looked for something appropriate. Bukit, Malaysian for ‘mountain’, is an old name for Phuket.”

Among the most popular dishes with Bukit’s customers are mee-hoon and ba-gut-tae. Ms Thawian “Deuan” Khaimook, the chef, describes the two dishes.

1. Ba-gut-tae. Chinese in origin, ba-gut-tae is popular among ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. Having migrated to Phuket along with Chinese settlers, ba-gut-tae used to be an expensive standard among rich people who ate in Phuket Chinese hotels.

In Chinese, ba means “small pieces”, and here it refers to short ribs of pork boiled with other herbs and served with spicy sauce. Khun Deuan recommends ba-gut-tae because, according to traditional lore, the herbs detoxify and energize. This makes it sound like an excellent hangover special. Ba-gut-tae goes well with hot rice.

2. Mee-hoon. This is white noodles fried with black-bean sauce, garlic and leeks and served with pork- rib soup flavoured with sugar, fish sauce, chilli power and sour sauce.
So if you’re bored with coffee and toast, try asking for ba-gut-tae and mee-hoon in breakfast restaurants around Phuket.

Bukit also offer other dishes, kanom-jeen among them. This buffet-style presentation of rice noodles with an assortment of fresh and pickled vegetables, boiled egg and more, all of it topped with rich curry sauces — is another old breakfast favourite among Phuketians.

Bukit is open from 6am-8pm, and also serve dinner. If you would like local food catered for your party, contact Khun Rattana Khaimook, mobile tel. 081 370-1452. She guarantees clean food and good taste.

— T.K

Seafood With a View

If you’re looking for a good restaurant that offers various kinds of Thai seafood as well as a cozy atmosphere, try Pak Nam Seafood restaurant, about three kilometres from the Rajabhat University intersection to Ban Kuku, on Rasdanusorn Road.

Pak Nam Seafood, not far from the heart of Phuket City, make an especially nice place to relax after work. For one thing, you can admire a spectacular sea view of Phuket’s east coast while you enjoy your meal. There is also adequate parking, no small consideration among Phuketians.

Given the restaurant’s choice of open-air or indoor areas, including comfortable air-conditioned private rooms, it makes an excellent venue for celebrations, business meetings or simply meeting up with friends.

Pak Nam Seafood serves various Thai seafood dishes daily. If you want to flirt with spicy food, we can recommend the yellow curry with rice noodles, which is a good Thai-style appetizer. If you don’t like hot food, try the tod man kung, deep-fried minced shrimp cakes with sweet-and-sour sauce. By now, you may be ready for main courses such as hor mok talay, steamed curry and herbs with seafood; pla krapong nueng manaw, or steamed snapper with lemon; and fried prawns with tamarind sauce served with hot streamed rice. Or why not go for a huge dish of crab fried rice, one local favourite? Ten people can enjoy sharing this yummy dish!

Most visitors to Phuket come to chill out on beautiful beaches, enjoying the swimming and sunbathing. But the fresh local seafood may be the next thing that comes to their minds. Pak Nam Seafood, close to the centre of Phuket Town, can be an excellent choice of venue to entertain your guests. Reservations are recommended (tel. 076 240 240).

— W.K.