Brasserie has built a large, devoted following in the last couple of years - part of the reason is the owner Alain Trabruin who treats the restaurant like his home, always welcoming everyone and making them feel special.
We have received several comments recently about our review last month in Phuket Town. The comments all said the same thing. More! Fair enough. We therefore have been searching for the best restaurants in Phuket town to keep you, our reader happy. Many of you love spending an evening in the old town, at a small club, listening to some music and having a drink. Before that, many of you need a great place to eat and we have hit the jackpot in that regard. Our review group headed down to the old town to try Brasserie which has built a large and devoted following in the last 2 years. These are truly devoted patrons and part of the reason they come is to spend time with Alain Trabruin, the owner who treats his restaurant like his home, always welcoming everyone and making them feel special.
As always, the hope is that you, the reader, will find some common ground with our opinions and use them to your dining benefit. The way we approach our reviews is to try a varied menu, more than once, and let our varied culinary experience guide us. Our group is formed by distinct food eating types. A professional (The food critic) who works full time in the gastronomy profession, a writer, myself (the experimental eater) who enjoys everything and likes to try as complicated and unusual food as possible and (the picky eater), who is Thai and careful not to venture too far and rejects a fair variety of offerings. In this way, we try to cover the gamut of food tastes and give an honest and diverse assessment of the restaurants that we review. We started out by ordering the distinct Belgian beers. You can’t go to a Belgian style brasserie and not order a Belgian beer in our opinion. They have many options available, we selected a Hoogarten, a fruity beer, slightly too sweet for 2 of us, the Tripel Karmeliet a full bodied and strong beer and the Kwok which was strong, too strong for the Thai reviewer.
They are all nice drink options for varied palates.Selecting the dishes was easy and we got carried away with our order. We started with Pata Negra, a Spanish delicacy that is a salt cured ham, a wild boar ham that only eat acorns. It is considered the most prestigious ham in the world and it certainly lived up to its billing as we fought over each last piece that melted in the mouth. Next, we devoured a canapé of smoked salmon, goat cheese, egg and truffle mayonnaise. This was absolutely delicious as well. Kate, our hostess who did a great job, then brought us a croquette of hot parmesan cheese with fried parsley and lemon, another exquisite concoction. Everything was so good that it was difficult to complain or comment negatively about anything. I chatted with a patron at another table who told me she comes regularly and has never had a bad meal there, plus she loves the atmosphere and of course, the company of Alain himself. We continued on with a Terrine from Smoked Salmon and goat cheese and once again, the group was extremely impressed. That was followed by a Singaporean Chili Crab which also was absolutely delicious. I started to feel like I was reviewing a Ferran Adria restaurant where there is nothing interesting to say except for “try everything”.We then were challenged in the quantity we can eat with 3 fantastic fish choices. Alain brought out a Tuna slab that was dark pink and perfectly fresh before cooking a piece of it. It was of course, delicious and was followed by a Sole Fillet in a creamy white wine sauce with North Sea shrimp on the side, and this was exquisite.
The final fish was a Atlantic salmon filet with a lemon honey sauce, the fish was perfect and if there was one thing to quibble about, the group though that the honey sauce was a bit too sweet for the salmon. As you can imagine, we were getting extremely full but we soldiered on trying to cover the range of options. The Roasted half chicken was crispy outside ad soft and juicy inside and was aided by several secret Belgian spices which we had a tough time discerning accurately. Again, perfect. Then we tried the Flemish stew, consisting of beef chunks stewed for many hours with onions, brown beer and other spices, apparently a traditional dish from Flanders. While full we also finished with the best known and favorite Brasserie dish, a pot of mussels cooked the Belgian way with onions, celery and parsley, Mariniere, white wine and garlic. Incredibly, you can taste each ingredient in the dish and it lives up to its stellar reputation.We were done but then Alain placed a few deserts in front of us to try. It would be impolite not to accept, right? First we tried the Brussels Belgian waffle which was topped with icing sugar and ice cream. Of course it was good. Then we attempted the Moeuleux Chocolate cake with was warm and fluffy outside and gooey with chocolate inside, a perfect combination.
We added a shot of liqueur as topping…finally we barely managed a few bites of a beautiful Crème Brule, as usual, a custard with bourbon vanilla under a layer of burnt sugar finished at the table, served with fresh fruit. It was all magical.We lingered at the bar afterwards talking to patrons who are there regularly, adding a familiar and intimate atmosphere to the restaurant. Everyone was very friendly and helpful. We are very happy to recommend the Brasserie to all our readers and strongly suggest you all get down there to give it a try. You will be happy you did, as for me, 5 extra hours in the gym out to get me back to normal after that amount of food.
BRASSERIE
18 Rassada Road, Talandnua, Muang, Phuket 83000 Thailand
TEL: +66 (0)7621 0511, FAX: +66 (0)7638 3452
Email: info@brasseriephuket.com
www.brasseriephuket.com
18 Rassada Road, Talandnua, Muang, Phuket 83000 Thailand
TEL: +66 (0)7621 0511, FAX: +66 (0)7638 3452
Email: info@brasseriephuket.com
www.brasseriephuket.com
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