Combining traditional tastes of rural Thai kitchens with fine ingredients from around the world, Flare, located at Level 15 of the Hilton Pattaya, offers a Thai dining experience unlike others you find in fun city.
A display of traditional ingredients and a wall of wines that go well with the cuisine marks the entrance to signature subdued lighting and dark sheers that enshroud dining booths, providing symbolic separation while still being intriguingly revealing. It's a minimalist stage on which you could pretty much set any upscale f&b experience.
Working in cahoots with the hotel's celebrated Executive Chef, K. Supoj Suwanwong, Flare's Sous Chef, Puttipong Tinkratok, has created an intriguing menu that melds classics with a twist together with rarities meriting reappraisal and some cheeky newbies.
"Chef Chou" has the advantage that he's spent his whole career from age 18 learning Thai cuisine, a journey that has taken him to restaurants in all the regions of Thailand, thereby gaining an uncommonly in-depth knowledge and appreciation of a truly broad haul of dishes. A contract in demanding Dubai, meanwhile, acted as a kind of finishing school for learning to fine-tune the authentic cuisine to the tastes of the pickiest globe-trotting diners.
The menu is fairly classic — appetisers, salads, soups, curries, wok-fries, grills, signature dishes and side dishes and desserts.
But first was one of Chef Chou's amuse bouche offerings. This was a cube of chilled watermelon arranged with shavings of dried fish and topped with crispy shallot and sea salt — delicious in a definitively Thai way yet intriguingly different.
From the appetizers we chose Chae Nam Pla (350 Baht) — fresh Japanese sea scallop and Atlantic salmon in spicy garlic lemon sauce set with a frisson of micro greens. Spicy, succulent and fresh it was an excellent rendition of the classic dish premised on prime ingredients.
Hoy Prick Thai Dum (350 Baht), seared Hokkaido sea scallop with pepper corn sauce & morinda leaves, was equally outstanding. And the same for Yum Poo Nim, a salad of deep-fried soft shell crab with spicy green mango, roasted cashews and vividly purple edible flowers.
Another excellent salad is Yum Khamin Koong (350 Baht), a less common spicy salad of white curcuma & grilled tiger prawns, shredded coconut, cashew nuts and crispy shallot. This was juicy, mildly spicy and satisfying with the prime prawns accentuating the enjoyment.
This led us to be curious as to what Chef Puttipong would do with the Northeast's most famous dish, Som Tum (350 Baht) and the answer arrived in the form of a tableside presentation charmingly orchestrated by K. Chou. The presentation is a good idea because it's a colourful apparition, with all the ingredients, from the kung haeng to the lemon juice, presented mise-en-place in glass jars, thereby allowing diners to select or reject the various elements and personally supervise how many chillies go into the mix. Or none. And while you're about it, why not have a go yourself, under K. Chou's expert eye?
River prawns (1,200 Baht net/1 kilogram) are a regular special feature at Flare which prepares them in six ways: spicy lemon grass soup, steamed with chilli lemon sauce, fried river prawn with curry or tamarind sauce, deep fried with garlic and pepper, baked in clay pot and charcoal-grilled in banana leaf. We tried them wok-fried red-curry style and were impressed both by the fleshiness of the prawns and the succulence of the sauce.
As for the mains, TripAdvisor reviewers have been rating the restaurant's Masaman Nue (450 Baht), tender cubes of Australian beef shank stewed in red curry sauce served with roti, off-the-charts. However, Kaeng Som (450 Baht), sea bass battered in egg mixture with acacia leaves and deep-fried until crispy on the outside and firm and fluffy on the inside, onto which is poured at the table a hot and sour Thai curry with tamarind paste soup, is also state-of-the-art. As is yellow curry whole crab (1,500 Baht) which we dove into equipped with shell crackers, just managing to extract the delicious white meat without getting too messy. Another carnivorous selection, Kaeng Phanaeng (450 Baht), tender Australian beef strip loin in red and coconut curry served with half a boiled egg, is rich and satisfying.
Flare's signature cocktails are also intriguing, notably Another One Please (Thai rum, lime juice, pineapple juice & mint) (290 Baht), and there are wines from Australia, New Zealand, Chile, South Africa and France at 450 Baht a glass and 2,250 Baht a bottle up.
By now we were too full to contemplate exploring Flare's take on mango sticky rice (200 Baht) but the Bai Tuey Crème Brule (200 Baht), Pandan & taro custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel, sounded like it might go down without too much trouble. Served with three condiment dishes of rambutan stuffed with pineapple, palm sugar, and egg-based confectionary, the combination of French sophistication and Thai flavours was memorable. My host, on the other hand, could not resist Tub Tim Krob (200 Baht), Stuffed water chestnut in syrup and coconut milk Served with crushed ice, very fresh and prime as it brought memories of picking water chestnuts from paddies in Chiang Mai in his childhood.
So there you have it — great appetizers, salads, soups, curries, wok fries, grills and specialties of the house as well as desserts. Quoted prices are nett so this is still impressive value for such authentic cuisine prepared with such passion and creativity.
FLARE HILTON PATTAYA 333/101 Moo 9, Nong Prue, Banglamung.
Tel. 038 253 000 or email: pattaya.hilton.com
