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By Kit C. Cauw
When people ask me why I was first drawn to Thailand,
I always feel somewhat ashamed, sinful. As a Peace Corps Volunteer
in the Nineties, my motivation for coming here stood out among those
of my peers like a singular prawn in a bowl of duck curry. They
were here to explore Buddhism, to learn about the culture, to share
America's "goodness", to save the rural poor. That my
primary interest was food never failed to draw peels of self-righteous
laughter.
Nearly ten years later, however, most of my fellow volunteers are
long since departed. Many precisely because they missed Mom's cooking.
I, on the other hand, have returned to my adopted home and continue
to enjoy Thailand's stellar cuisine. One of my favourite things
about this country is that I can balance my budget by eating locally
for a few nights before indulging in a Western fancy. Outside of
Bangkok, no place is easier to embark on tours of world class cuisine
than Phuket, where excellent beach-side huts serving fresh seafood
and Thai favorites stand shoulder-to-shoulder with restaurants of
international repute. In Rawai, on the southern end of the island,
I recently left the local eateries behind for an evening in Thailand's
"other" world.
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Gracing a rocky bluff at seaside, the Evason Phuket
Resort is the only five-star hotel in the area. One arrives through
a coconut plantation, then rises to the top of hill, where the resort
perches with stunning views of Ao Chalong Bay and its many islands.
The restaurant complex is built above the shore; one can almost
feel the spray of breakers crashing against the walls below. The
central restaurant here is named, aptly, Into The View. To the left
is Into Thai; down one level, one arrives at Into Fusion, the most
elegant, romantic, and formal of the three. A line of booths has
been sculpted from the wall in white stucco, each with the feel
of an individual grotto, illuminated by candles recessed into the
plaster. I couldn't decide if they look more Mexican or Greek, but
there is no doubt that they are capsules of rare intimacy.
On the night we visited, rain had been falling since late afternoon,
so the patio tables were closed off, covered in plastic tarps. On
a nice night, however, dining under the stars, just above the sea,
would be exquisite here. We ate instead at a table near the booths.
The view of black islands rising from black water, fishing boats
with bright white lights strung out to attract squid, and the odd
long-tailed boat cruising the shoreline was lovely even from this
relative distance.
In keeping with the Evason's theme of earth tones and natural materials,
the white walls of the cave area are contrasted by dark woods, heavy
cotton place mats and napkins of deep orange, similar in colour
and tone to Hawaii's famous red dirt. The bamboo director chairs,
with thick canvas seats of a subdued, flat red, have been stained
black to match the solid wooden tables. Plates and silverware are
black, hammered metal, and the cover of the menus is of the same
rugged substance. Not surprisingly, the servers here have well-defined
arm muscles!
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After much dithering about, I chose to start with
hot apricot, salmon, soba noodle and enoki salad with mirin and
ponzu dressing, while my girlfriend opted for a more traditional,
in Thai terms, satay prawns with green papaya salad. Though satays,
small skewers of meat marinated in coconut milk, are as common in
Thai markets as green papaya salad, the substitution of prawns is
a Western twist. They were divine, fresh firm, sweet and perfectly
complimented by the peanut sauce. Both dishes were beautiful to
look at, the bright pinks and reds jumping off the dark plates.
My salmon was slightly smoked, playing nicely with the sweet flavour
of the apricot sauce, and the soba contributed a nutty touch to
the dish's harmony.
Just as we were regaining our appetites, the main courses arrived,
salmon and prawns on kaffir lime and pistachio noodles with chili
caramel sauce for her; kaffir lime crusted lamb loin with indian
spiced eggplant and galangal gazpacho sauce for myself. Just consider
for a moment my dish. It begins with the Thai kaffir lime, followed
by a Western lamb, then Indian spices, South-East Asian galangal
(of the ginger family) and Spanish gazpacho! The only way it gets
any better than this, in my humble estimation, is if it tastes as
good as it sounds. This was better. I couldn't have been a happier
diner; I caught myself humming as I chewed. The lamb was exquisite,
the galangal imparted a welcome zing and the soft eggplant provided
a pleasing textural contrast. The key, after all, to fusion is the
alignment of elements into correct proportion. One doesn't want
India to annihilate Spain, for example. If only the real world could
achieve the accord created in this single entree!
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The salmon and prawn pasta, one of the restaurant's
most popular dishes, was also superb. I had expected chunks of fish
and shrimp in a creamy sauce. Instead, a generous slice of salmon
fillet rode a bed of pasta, flanked by rows of succulent prawns
skewered on lemongrass stalks. The salmon was tender and cooked,
again, to perfection, in a word, moist. In another, mouth-watering.
The first two courses of dinner had filled me with delight, but
as I delved into a pandanus tiramisu and a bowl of homemade cinnamon
honey ice cream, a pang of sheepishness and regret struck. Into
Fusion has exactly what I like in a formal restaurant. Romantic
atmosphere, great service, innovative, tasty cuisine. Even the ice
cream selection is under fusion's creative spell, with such flavours
as Guinness and watermelon & pepper sorbet. In all, there are
forty flavours, beating Baskin Robbin's 32 by a whopping eight!
and all are homemade right here. Yet I'd been deprived of this extravagence
for eighteen months! How could I, a fusion lover and food writer,
have lived in Phuket this long and never dined here before? It seemed
a crime of dire consequence, one which I must endeavor to atone
for with diligence. Indeed, I vowed that this evening would mark
the beginning of my penance, a reparation which I must carry out
on a regular basis
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