Red Snapper
Chaweng Beach Road (Main Street), Next to Chaweng Regent
84320 Koh Samui
Tel: 0 77 422 008
Website

This restaurant has been around for a long time as part of the Chaweng Regent which was one of the earlier five-star style properties in Chaweng. I am always suspicious of hotel restaurants which all too often are little more than a trap for those staying in the main hotel. Although most good Bangkok hotels do have a decent eatery, I have not always found that to be the case so far away from the capital.
The Red Snapper is described as a bar and grill, and even as a pub restaurant. Well, that it certainly is not. Well not my definition of a pub restaurant. I was greeted on the steps by an English manager, who turned out to be the assistant F&B manager (go for maybe another title). What that told me was the management either thought that there was something wrong, or they were putting real effort into getting the Red Snapper right! As I later saw the Executive Chef and the GM (I think) having a discussion, I suspect the latter is the situation.
The room itself has a typical modern elegant décor with a open bakery section as a display area. In addition there is an extensive salad bar which I never used although I could have added salad to my main course. The bar section is out of sight from the restaurant.
The menu is one of those shiny coloured things that theme restaurants produce. And in many ways the items on the menu are typical modern menu items with sections for salads, soups, starters, pasta, main courses, grills and side orders. Somebody had obviously spent hours writing up the descriptions of reasonably standard menu items, but probably carefully modified by the chef.
I had Classic Caesar salad with crispy bacon, anchovies, quail egg, parmesan and garlic croutons: Caesar salad would have done! I did suggest to the waitress that I would not mind extra anchovies. She shot back that all too familiar Thai response: that would cost extra. In any event it was a good Caesar Salad with half a quail’s egg at two corners of the plate and an anchovy fillet at the other two corners. No extra anchovies and no extra charge I concluded!
For the main I had slow-cooked N.Z. lamb shank on minted sweet potato and pumpkin mash with green peas, although I did toy with the idea of Pernod-flamed white prawns with fragrant curry, coconut cream, banana and rice. In any event I enjoyed my lamb shank and it was presented well. The most remarkable point was that when the plate was delivered, the waitress used a cloth and warned me not to touch the plate because it was hot. That is a first in Thailand! I noted the waitresses used a cloth to take all hot dishes to the table.
I had an impressively presented chocolate cake as my dessert.
All in all a good meal in comfortable surroundings. There was not a lot that was anything other than good. The restaurant was full and that in itself says a lot as it is clearly not the cheapest in Chaweng. It is a quality place to eat. To me it lacked that ‘je ne sais quoi’. Somehow it did not hit the spot. My conclusion was that there were too many staff. Early on I had different staff at my table all doing different things at the same time: serving bread, serving wine: taking an order. As it got busier it got better. Maybe just a touch soulless: but that is something virtually impossible to fix in a hotel dining room.