Showing 1 - 10 of 10
Meat Me in Manhattan
Holiday Time, Noel Maclean, Published on 19/12/2018
» Arguably the definitive Manhattan grill room, the movie-set ready Bull & Bear at the storied Waldorf Astoria New York, is also now wide awake and in the finest of fettles at the pinnacle of uptown Bangkok.
Teleport to Tokyo
Holiday Time, Noel Maclean, Published on 01/12/2016
» In a few years, when the underground line being built beside it is completed, Hagi might be one of the best-connected Japanese restaurants in this fair city. Until then, Phahon Yothin MRT is your nearest station and the mega infrastructure project is requiring radical, though well signposted, redirection of the traffic.
Luce in the sky with truffles
Holiday Time, Noel Maclean, Published on 02/12/2015
» Luce - with the last letter pronounced like the 'e' in café - Italian Restaurant and Lounge at Eastin Grand Sathorn is the first Luce to be opened in Asia, and the fourth in the world, after Italy, Moscow and Frisco, the latter garnering a Michelin star four years running.
What's new at Next2?
Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 31/12/2013
» If ever there was a buffet that lucked out in the gene pool, this is it. Picturesque riverside location? Check. High-end design that at once delights the senses and serves vast volumes of freshly-prepared food without anyone's toes getting trodden on? Uh ha. And what of said comestibles? Are they truly top drawer? Well duh.
Growing older gracefully
Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 25/12/2013
» Since it opened on Songkran 1983, the rather quaint Thai restaurant nestling a quiet corner of the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok's open-air Parichart Court garden & upscale dining, shopping & art exhibition arcade, has been a leopard that has proudly stood by its spots.
Top Notch Teppanyaki
Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 17/12/2013
» Japan, France, USA, in that order, are the top three what? Absolutely right. Japan has 32 3-Michelin-star restaurants while France trails with 26 and the USA 12.
Up for the occasion
Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 19/12/2012
» Sofitel So Bangkok was only the second Sofitel So in the world, after Mauritius, and is distinctively conceptualised. Far from being another cookie cutter upscale tourist and business hotel, it is an elaborately designed, differently run world of its own. What's more, up there, above the surrounding rooftops, the sight line is clear across Lumpini Park to the iconic concrete canyons of Wireless and Siam.
URBAN CHIC design for dining
Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 18/12/2012
» You can tell Red Oven's heart is in the right place because, of all the fanciful names it could have come up with, given its dramatic design and view, it chose instead to give the salute to its plumbing, if you will.
Trails from the riverbank
Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 06/12/2012
» Under the midday sun, the view from Trader Vic's multi-ethnic cuisine restaurant is of a broad reach of river flowing fast to the sea such as inspired Joseph Conrad's tales of hapless expats getting lost in translation. The Chao Phraya - River of Kings, if you will - feels steeped in history and continues to evoke an age of romance. Forgetting the condos rising along its edge and focusing instead on high-gloss rice barges turned gin palaces moored closer by, just the sight of it makes you feel like rowing out to a schooner moored midstream and setting sale for the fictional Vic's spiritual home in Polynesia. One might also imagine the legendary bon vivant stepping ashore and emerging between a riot of waxen foliage with his mates, like an earlier age Anthony Bourdain in search of exotic culinary sensations with which to treat his compadres on his eventual return home. The welcome, a Thai-style orchid garland hung around your neck in a thin rendition of the Hawaiian custom, adds more to the atmosphere.
Two Icons one mission
Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 06/12/2012
» Why settle for less when you can have it all? If only for an evening, don't you deserve, at least now and again, the bare-hearted best?