Sky Thai
James Fryer has a sweet and sour experience outdoors at the Park Hyatt’s Thai Kitchen.
As a child there was little more fun than being let loose on row after row of colourful sugary delights, scooping portions into a small paper bag while trying to avoid the heavier sweets and instead filling up on flying saucers. The Park Hyatt’s Thai Kitchen restaurant resembles a sweet shop for Thai-food loving adults leaving you feeling like a greedy kid all over again.
The menu at first appears to be reasonably priced – dishes all average around the Dhs 15 to Dhs 30 mark and are separated into several categories: wok, noodle, salads, clay pots, chargrill, fried and steamer – with no starter or main distinctions. It’s only when you notice the first page, which talks about the tradition of sharing Thai food, and then receive a recommendation from the staff that four or five dishes should be chosen per person, do you realise how it adds up to a more realistic cost.
Choosing so many dishes was great fun, and gave us a chance to try things we might otherwise not have gone for. We opted for a real mix from the categories, including seafood, meat and vegetarian options (there weren’t many of the latter). Within a couple of minutes of ordering, the various selections began to arrive a couple at a time – something I realised was possible as I peered into the goldfish bowl that was the restaurant, and noticed the chefs surrounded by large pots of their pre-made creations. We sat outside on the decked terrace under the pagoda, overlooking illuminated dhows travelling down the Creek in the distance. And although the atmosphere didn’t appear to be as buzzing as inside, the now perfect alfresco dining conditions and ambient beach music meant we couldn’t resist.
Our mutually-agreed favourites were the fresh and tangy seafood salad with chilli and lemongrass, the fiddly (but worth the effort) barbequed chicken with sugar cane, infused with smoky, char-grilled flavours, and the last dish to arrive, the delicious, light steamed shrimp soufflé. Mentions must also be made of tasty crabmeat wrapped in bean curd skin and too good, although somewhat spicy (despite a waiter’s claims they were mild), roast duck and green beef curries. But just as we all used to end up with a few undesirables in the bottom of our pick ‘n’ mix bag, a few of the picks covering our table had remained largely untouched.
The Thai-cuisine-staple fish cakes were the most disappointing – tough, chewy and almost completely unpalatable. The frogs legs came in a close second, as the greasy and fatty pieces really weren’t worth the effort to eat and hardly jumped out to be sampled for seconds. It’s probably best to also make sure you don’t opt for too many lemongrass infused choices – a good few of our dishes were overpowered by Thailand’s much loved ingredient. Even more shocking than the chilli and lemongrass was the staff’s hit and miss approach to service as other tables of formally dressed expat and tourist guests received a more attentive level of service than our own. Perhaps we were missing something. The table nextdoor had clearly been before and knew the score – they didn’t need to see menus and ordered only a couple of dishes each. Three or four at the most would be enough even for the very hungry – although ordering five does allow for the duds as we encountered.
The whole evening was a sweet and sour experience; we arrived to the delightful smell of authentic Thai cooking, were brought lukewarm steamed rice from a wicker basket and were baffled by our waitress’s insistence on making as much froth as possible with our Tiger beers – something only the Dutch can get away with. Fruit so fresh it was unripe came before I was told there was no ‘black and white’ coffee available. It was a mix of espresso, cold milk and ice – what was the rare, exotic ingredient involved there? The final annoyance came in the form of the wrong bill – a more expensive one than our own, at that. After day one, let alone four months, there’s no excuse for such slow, drawn out service, especially when a restaurant isn’t at full capacity. We enjoyed about six of our 10 dishes, and that’s probably about the right score for a restaurant that shows potential and probably deserves a second chance.
Thai Kitchen, Park Hyatt, Dubai. Tel: (04) 6021234.