Floyd’s Brasserie Phuket

Last week I had the pleasure of eating at Floyd's in beautiful Phuket, Thailand.
If your not familiar with the late Keith Floyd I suggest you check him out on youtube.com as soon as possible. While Julia Child is often credited with combining entertainment and cooking on televison, in my opinion it was really Keith Floyd who showed us just how much fun it could be. No matter where he cooked; a vineyard in Spain, a fishing boat rolling in the North Sea, or the center of an ostrich farm in South Africa, Floyd always made it exceptionally fun.
The Brasserie in Phuket, nestled in the back of the Burasari Resort surrounded by lush gardens and tropical pools, is his first restaurant in Asia. The menu is a mix of traditional European and French cuisine followed by a solid representation of classic Thai dishes. Not being terribly hungry we kept it simple and ordered three small starters.

Aromatic Crispy Duck Leg on Herb Salad


This was a perfectly cooked crispy duck leg, it was plump and juicy with a surprising amount of delicious meat that fell easily off the bone. The herb salad was nice, fresh micro-greens with a dash of balsamic, however the raspberry sauce was a bit to sweet for me and I made the mistake of mixing to much of it into the salad. This was my favorite of the three dishes that night, it was light and refreshing but the duck was also hearty and very satisfying. This one inspires me to cook with duck more often.



Poached eggs Burgundy Style
"A remarkable dish of free range eggs poached in a rich red wine sauce with lardons and croutons As generations of wine growers would say, quoting Fats Waller: its liquid ham and eggs ma'am!"


This dish was good, it really was similar to liquid ham and eggs. The eggs were perfectly poached, the smoked bits of ham were crispy and rich, but the amount of sauce was ridiculous. I'm a big fan of sauce so I made a little sandwich with some of the starter bread, some egg and as much sauce as I could get on there, I was still left with a deep bowl of soup at the end. The smoky Burgundy flavor of the sauce was great but the huge amount of it washed out the ham and eggs. It's a shame when a well prepared dish such as this one has everything going for it and then suffers from an error in plating.



Thai Fish Cakes
'The best on the island'

I've eaten fish cakes all over Thailand and these were truly the best. But a purist, or anyone allergic to shrimp would have a hard time calling them fish cakes. They were fluffy with sizable bits of fish all throughout but they also hid large nuggets of delicious shrimp. Shrimp and fish cakes are widely popular all over Thailand but I've never seen them mixed and I think it's a mistake to label them Fish Cakes on the menu. However they were really good and offered an impressive amount of seafood in a light and crispy cake.

Over all Floyd's was a really good dining experience. All the dishes were good, none of them great but the portions were large and the price very fair. All of these starters were priced less than 250 baht and the mains all seemed reasonable as well.
With the many excellent restaurant choices around Phuket and Bangkok I might not make it back to Floyd's anytime soon but I will continue to watch his timeless cooking programs and pay tribute to him every time I pour a little wine in the cooking pot and a lot in my glass-

Classic Floyd cooking ostrich on the farm-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypoH2Z3khZ0

www.keithfloyds.com