Is There Any Better Meal Than Brunch? The Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok
It’s Sunday morning and you are feeling a bit jaded after Saturday’s late night festivities. you are hungry and You slept through breakfast and lunch is too far away to wait. What is there to do but meet your friends for a late morning feast, some hair of the dog, and toast the clever bugger who invented the concept of Brunch.
By Thomas Jones
On a recent Sunday morning I received a text from a friend to say he was in the Fullerton Hotel with his girlfriend enjoying the best Champagne free-flow brunch in Singapore. I had to laugh as I was on my way downstairs to the Thai equivalent at the Four Seasons Bangkok for exactly the same affair, all three-and-a-half hours of it. Isn’t it amazing how technology can bring friends closer together in an instant, even if just to gloat? The brunch at the Four Seasons Bangkok is a very popular event and even at 11.20 in the morning a queue was starting to form with hotel guests, expats and the well-heeled of Thai society chomping at the bit to gain access to their $US75 ++ Sunday morning constitutional. The layout is simple; a large, covered outdoor terrace and two air-conditioned indoor areas to suit all guests’ needs, with food counters spaced out amongst them from all the many corners of the earth; Indian, Thai (of course), Chinese dim sum, caviar (in the fish pond), meat and seafood, Mediterranean, Japanese, pastries and cheese (shades of France), a massive selection of desserts, and lastly, but definitely of no small importance, the free-flow wines, ales and spirits.
The food set up is grand and I knew that this was something I was going to have to do slowly and pace myself to get the most out of it. And so it was that to get the creative juices flowing at 11.30am on a post-late-Saturday-night Sunday morning it was a glass of Champagne and a plate of caviar and blinis to start, served up from amongst a stand of ice sculptures by a delightful woman standing knee-deep in a koi pond, suitably attired in a set of waders. This was going to only get better and, salivating, I was drawn to the Chinese table by the baby roast pigs and crispy pork loins hanging Hong Kong style behind glass. A plate of prawn dumplings, juicy bbq pork, some crackling and a second glass of bubbles at the table and the game was well under way. Passing one more empty plate to the waiter it was time for a sweet crispy pork chop (loving that pig) with apple sauce (vitamins), some roast beef (rare), and a slice of Australian lamb, (even rarer), chased down with some New Zealand mussels and oysters. This was followed by a break and a further glass of Champagne; purely for digestive purposes, of course.
Not forgetting my host nation I found myself at a table getting a lesson on how to prepare Soy Yam. I watched the chef drop chili flakes, dried shrimp shells, beans, tomato, green papaya and vinegar into a deep pestle before mortaring the life out of it and serving it up with a juicy prawn for my tasting pleasure. It was good but it was but a mere mouthful so I wandered from table to table window shopping at satay, tandoori, seafood, shwarma and falafel, and a whole Tasmanian salmon cooked in paper bark. Here I faltered and was offered a nice juicy slice with hollandaise sauce and asparagus. Stupendous, to say the least. Meanwhile my lunch companion was already streets ahead with a large plate of Japanese raw ocean goodness, another glass of champagne, and a plate of crepes soaked in Grand Marnier, urging me to catch up. It was time for sugar. It was well after 1pm by now, so not wanting to be outdone, I ordered some vodka Martinis and took a trip to the dessert table. It was fair groaning under the weight of all that chocolate, cake and cream and needless to say I had no problem alleviating the strain on the furniture. That mission accomplished there was only one more thing to do; eat some cheese. One thing my French friends have taught me is always leave room for cheeses, even if you have no room in your stomach. Vive la fromage!
The Four Seasons Bangkok brunch is quite a social affair with a camaraderie of over-eating formed between guests around the food stands and tables, which, by the way, have plenty of empty champagne glasses on them by the end. Obviously some are regulars and know more than just the faces but even as first-timers we were able to establish a friendly rapport with many of the other guests and have a good laugh. Eat, drink and be merry (and then go have a lie down), that seems to be the credo. The advantage I had over my new-found brunch buddies, however, was that I had a room in the hotel so I was only five minutes from that lie down…and at the end of a Four Seasons Bangkok brunch, believe me, there is nothing else you want more.
The Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok
155 Rajadamri Road,
Bangkok 10330
T: +66 2126 8866
www.fourseasons.com/bangkok
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