Rockfish
Overlooking Kamala Beach from the Patong end.
33/6 Kamala Beach Road,
Tel: 076 279732

I saw the sign on the main road and followed it to the Rockfish. The language of the sign saying ‘awesome views’ suggested I would find a farang manager when I got there. I did and he was a friendly Aussie.
The Rockfish is only a small restaurant on a covered terrace about 15 feet above the beach. The level above has a bar, the kitchen and the loos. This is one of those idyllic locations that people go to Phuket for. However I tend to find that restaurants with this kind of view are normally very much a local operation serving so-so Thai food. That is not the case here. The menu is fairly limited but it was made clear that if they had the ingredients, they could cook it. Thus the menu was more about showing the ingredients available and an indication of the cooking style. That style I must call ‘fusion’: but as that is getting an iffy reputation let me say ‘good fusion’. Or should I say ‘sensible fusion’. This is not somebody putting a strange spice with an unlikely meat just to prove it can be done. This is much more about taking local products and putting them together in a genuine cross between Thai and European cuisine. My main problem with fusion menu items is that you do not really know what you are going to get. On the Rockfish website they list: Tuna and salmon ceviche with green mango, Thai herbs and lemon wasabi jam: QED.
We started the proceedings with a bottle of white wine from Alsace and later had a Bourgogne Grande Ordinaire, neither of which I had ever seen before in Thailand. Both were good, sensible drinking wines at around a 1,000 Baht. The wine list was interesting and well chosen with more than enough choice and range without being a catalogue.
As for the food, I had prawn spring rolls with coriander from the menu and J had a prawn and avocado salad off the menu. For mains I had roast duck with Szechwan spices and J had salmon with saffron. The food was difficult to fault but for me the sauce of the duck was a touch too spicy as it killed any taste the duck may have had. But the coriander in the spring rolls was fresh, and it was a clever little dish. All our food looked very good as you can see from the photos. I suppose the point about fusion is that you are saying to the chef: feed me, surprise me! The test is then “is it a pleasant or unpleasant surprise?” I am sure that at Rockfish the former is the norm.
An excellent lunch in a great location with some interesting food, and there was never any suggestion that we should not hang about untill late in the afternoon and happily it was well passed 4 pm by the time we left.

Rockfish Website