October 26, 2005

Madison at the Four Season's Hotel

Madison
Four Season's hotel
Rajadamri Road
Bangkok 10330
Tel: 02 250-1000
Website

Madison is described as a contemporary steak house and is one of the varied dining options available in this top-end hotel. I was going to try the Biscotti, the Italian, but looked at both menus online and decided to go here instead. After all there are an awful lot of Italian restaurants in this town.
One of my main bitches about this hotel is the signs, or rather lack of them. The policy appears to be wander around and look aimlessly for what you want, or find a passing employee who knows the way. I was virtually standing in Madison when I asked the way to be told it was only feet away. When I complained about the signs they were pointed out on the windows, but I could not read them from 10 feet. (My eyes are not that bad)
I found the room disappointing. It is narrow and brown. Comfortable yes but not exactly inspiring. Add to that a lack of customers and it really was not very exciting at all. The wine list is interesting in the way they have divided up the wines between grape varieties. There are vast lists of Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blanc's from around the world. But I found the lumping of Muscadet with Gewürztraminer confusing and I was totally confused to see that the Cabernet Sauvignon section consisted of a vast list of Clarets, all of which are blends, and then in the Merlot section more clarets from Pomerol including Chateau Petrus (95% Merlot 5% Cabenet Franc) at 200,000 Baht a bottle. Over twice the price of a bottle of Romanee Conti I saw elsewhere in Bangkok! The wine list might have been interesting, but it was not cheap with very few bottles under 2,000 Baht a bottle. They did feature some Thai wine with Monsoon Valley at 1,250 Baht a bottle. I did not drink that but I do at my local Indian! And I have become quite fond of it!

The menu is heavily into grills in particular steaks, although there is a small broadly based selection of alternative main courses including fish and chips and venison. For starters we settled on a bowl of steamed prawns to be peeled, and crab cakes. The massive prawns were impressively served on a bed of ice. They looked very good and fulfilled their promise admirably, served with suitable dips. I enjoyed my crab cakes which were rich with real crab.
For mains we both opted for 10 oz Angus rib eyes. That is a big steak when you consider that 8 oz is the norm in most restaurants I have ever worked in. Here the option was 10 or 12 oz and that was so with all steaks except the fillet (tender loin) offered in 6 oz or 8 oz options. Vegetables were extra and we had a selection of well-prepared and well produced mash, mushrooms, creamed spinach and asparagus (Thai). I had ordered my steak medium rare and I could not fault the cooking.
For puds I had forest berries shortbread with rich vanilla ice cream. Looked good and was well up to standard.
The food was excellent and the service good. It was, as already indicated, a little soulless and it is not cheap. I do not normally talk about price as it can vary so much depending upon what you eat and drink. However this restaurant is not for the financially challenged, but I suppose in a genuine five star hotel you can expect that. There is a Sunday Brunch here and in this general area which I am told is first class and includes all you can drink at just over 2,000 Baht per head.

Posted by at 2:08 PM | Comments (0)