Panorama restaurant has been quietly picking up plaudits for bringing originality to the Bangkok buffet scene.
The venue gives it a head start. Set on the 23rd floor, it commands a sparkling view across Rama IV to Ploenchit and beyond. The spectacle is most impressive from Panorama Deck, a long open air balcony where you can sit and dine and there is also a full bar and lounge seating. Inside, seen through floor-to-ceiling windows, the prismatic reflections are beguilingly jewel-like.
The long sweep of three theatre kitchens, each fully circumnavigable, offers multiple live cooking stations, making for engaging dining. Executive Chef Marco Turatti from Verona and French Pastry Chef, Hakim Ounas ensure top quality throughout.
The ground-breaking "Samba San" Buffet Dinner combines Latino spirit and Japanese finesse – "san" being the Japanese honorific like Mr, Miss or Mrs., and samba being the musical genre and dance style viscerally associated with the Rio carnival.
And that's what the New Year's Eve edition will be all about, including those gorgeous, tall, be-feathered, bikinied samba dancers!
Crowne Plaza is a very popular brand with Japanese salarymen and women so it behoves it to do a good job of Japanese cuisine at all times. Hence the standard of sushi, sashimi and makkis etc. is exemplary.
Brazilian guests are more scarce but it's all prime anyway. The main Brazilian feature is "churrasco", a Portuguese term referring to grilled meats, and the related term "churrascaria" which means "steakhouse". Churrascarias are those restaurants where the waiters move around with skewers, slicing slivers onto your plate. You keep a disc on your table turned to green if you want more and flip it to red if you need to pause or stop.
Choose from delicious cuts of Wagyu beef, ribeye, beef picanya fillet with parmesan, lamb rack, chorizo sausage, pork chop, baby chicken marinated with thyme and yoghurt, and, for sweet juice and a digestive aid, pineapple with cinnamon given the same grill treatment. A highlight is the flank steak lightly salted on the surface then grilled and you slice pieces off like a spit roast. The picanya is made with 1824 top quality beef from Australia.
Two special sauces for the churrasco are key: pineapple puree, sweet and juicy, and the Peruvian chiorescu, a spicy but not hot sauce with a delectable tang made from onion, garlic, mint, vinegar, salt, oil and parsley smashed in a mortar with lemon and seasoning.
As for the seafood, besides prime sashimi such as tuna, salmon, mackerel, crab, octopus and shrimps, sushis and makis, there are several Peruvian-style ceviche dishes of salmon, tuna and scallops marinated with a little lime, cilantro and garlic which go down brilliantly.
Then you have the prime seafood on ice ranging blue crab, rock crab, rock lobster, Alaskan king crab legs, soft shell crab, blue mussels, tiger prawns and, oddest looking but perhaps tastiest, sweet little "barnacles" from Spain.
Here too is exceptionally chunky, creamy and rich guacamole with crispy potato sticks and taco crackers.
You can also explore Thai and Chinese noodle permutations cooked to order. Plus a comprehensive shabu-shabu section with two soups - fish and chicken flavoured and all kinds of everything to mix in: beef, chicken, pork, fish, calamari, prawn, fish balls, mussels, eringhi, shitake, chiodoni and veggies. Plus cold cuts, hot dishes, extensive salads and comprehensive cheeses with crackers and condiments.
The desserts, courtesy of the French Executive Pastry Chef, are outstandingly varied and sumptuous.
As the samba music plays, you graze on mouth-watering delicacies washed down with caiprinhas, Brazils' national cocktail made with cachaça (sugar cane hard liquor), sugar and lime, along daiquiris, mojitos and tequilas from Brazil's friendly neighbours.
Among the wines, Lightbrand NZ Sauvignon Blanc sets the appetite with a smooth Australian Stonefish Shiraz (Coonwara Estate) and award winning Hugo Casanova Chilean Merlot and Savagarro Cabernet Sauvignon, along with a delightfully dry Arrogant Frog Grenache Blanc-Chardonnay.
PANORAMA Crowne Plaza Bangkok Lumpini Park. 952 Rama IV Road. Tel. 02 632 9000 or Email: info-cpbkk@ihg.com
