The Boathouse Phuket, a long-standing food destination on the island, has been refurbished and updated by its new Singapore owner, Hotel Properties. Guests not only have the option of indulging their palates but also trying their hand at making their own meals.
SINGAPORE (May 7): A pungent mixture of chilli, garlic and coriander root splatters my face as I clumsily work a pestle and mortar for the first time in years. I am in a private dining room at The Boathouse Phuket, attempting to make a spicy glass noodle salad with prawns. The dish is the appetiser in a three-course Thai meal I managed to whip up during a cooking class that was the highlight of my recent stay at the boutique hotel.
When I arrived at The Boathouse the previous day, I immediately recognised the narrow driveway of the building from a trip to Phuket more than 15 years before. It was known as Mom Tri’s Boathouse at the time. I remembered lunching in a restaurant that exuded a 1970s charm and opened onto Kata Beach. The property was acquired by Hotel Properties in 2016. It was subsequently closed for a five-month refurbishment and reopened in November last year.
The Boathouse now looks far more modern and elegant, but it has retained its original relaxed beachside theme. Its 39 guest rooms and suites are furnished to the highest standard and offer just about every amenity one would expect at a top-end hotel — including a choice of pillows. But it is really the standard of service at The Boathouse, and its F&B offerings that set it apart.
“We are a restaurant with rooms,” says Max Chin, general manager of The Boathouse, on the afternoon that I arrive. In keeping with the boutique nature of the property, the staff — many of whom have worked in the hotel for years — casually greet guests by their first names and effortlessly remember their preferences and plans during their stay. “We ensure guests are well taken of,” Chin says.
The centrepiece of the hotel is its restaurant, which serves everything from traditional Thai dishes to popular Western fare, all paired with an appropriate wine from the hotel’s extensive, award-winning cellar. Pinyo Thippimas, the F&B manager at The Boathouse, tells me the cellar is probably the largest in Phuket, with about 600 labels and more than 2,000 bottles.
Before sitting down to dinner, I would also recommend asking for one of The Boathouse’s signature cocktails. On my first evening, as I watched the sun set on Kata Beach, I had something they called a Tom Khrong, which was sweet, spicy and smoky all at the same time.
Food, glorious food
The culinary high point of my stay at The Boathouse was a very sumptuous dinner on my second night, which included a Massaman lamb curry, a very spicy pork rib khua kling, banana blossom and prawn fritters and a vegetable soup with prawn paste. During my stay, I also experienced the Friday’s Wine Lunch, which consisted of a three-course meal with free flowing wine; a Pinto-style lunch of simple but delicious local food in traditional Thai tiffin containers; and a Champagne dinner, which is pretty much what it sounds like.
The Boathouse is not about ostentatious consumption, though. I found the staff eager to explain how everything they served was made, and offer me items that were not on the menu. On my final morning at the hotel, they suggested I try their deliciously light misua noodles, which turned out to be just what I needed after three straight days of feasting.
The Boathouse also offers its guests a cooking class, which put me in touch with Thai food in a way I had never experienced. This included a trip to the nearby Mae Somjit market, where one of the hotel’s chefs showed me various raw ingredients that would be used in dishes I was to cook. Among the things that stood out were the wide variety of eggplants and seafood on sale. Also, I tasted some of the sweetest pineapples ever, including one variety that had an edible core. Even if you are not planning on joining the cooking class, wandering around the market is quite a nice way to spend an hour or so.
Guests at The Boathouse who participate in the cooking class have the option of picking out ingredients from the market and asking the chefs to adapt the menu accordingly. Being totally inexperienced in the kitchen, I decided to stick to the menu they had created. Later, however, I wondered if I should have been more adventurous. As it turned out, without having to do any of the tedious prep work and with the close supervision of an experienced chef, I am rather talented in the kitchen.
Kitchen adventure
Apart from splattering myself as I began pounding the ingredients that would form the dressing for my spicy glass noodle salad with prawns, everything else went smoothly. In fact, my appetiser course came together quite well, except that I was perhaps a little too generous with the glass noodles.
Next up was a green curry with chicken. Again, under close direction from the chef, it turned out quite well. I also got the hang of tasting the dish along the way and adjusting the addition of ingredients such as fish sauce and palm sugar. The chef also helped me avoid rookie mistakes such as stirring the dish too vigorously after adding the eggplants, which would have resulted in a bitter taste.
The most impressive looking of all the dishes I made that afternoon was a pineapple fried rice with crab meat, green peas, raisins and cashew nuts. I learned that the one thing I should have added to every other fried rice dish I had ever made was a generous dash of curry powder — seriously, it makes all the difference.
For dessert, I made “crystal water chestnuts” in iced coconut milk, commonly known as “red rubies” in coconut milk. I could have done a better job of slicing the water chestnuts into uniform sizes and coating them more evenly with tapioca flour before dropping them into boiling water. But the dish still came out tasting quite good.
As with most of my other meals at The Boathouse, the food was matched with wines. At this meal, I was introduced to wines produced by GranMonte Estate, located in Asoke Valley, Khao Yai. The winemaker, Nikki Lohitnavy, whose family owns the estate, graduated from the University of Adelaide only in 2008, with a bachelor’s degree in oenology together with an honours in viticulture. Since then, she has been making a name for herself as something of an authority on tropical winemaking and raising the international standing of wines of GranMonte Estate — and of Thailand, in general. “We’re very proud to support her,” says Chin.
The cooking class took up pretty much the whole afternoon, because we stopped to eat each course right after making it. But it was time well spent. While many meals I have had at top-end restaurants around the world have quickly faded from my memory, my kitchen adventure at The Boathouse will not be forgotten for a long time.
