US author and restaurateur, Su-Mei Yu.

Banana, orange, yogurt and honey may sound like a tasty snack, but in the hands of author and restaurateur, Su-Mei Yu, they also make for a refreshing face scrub.

Yu – who runs a pair of award-winning restaurants in San Diego – is on Phuket to demonstrate century-old healing techniques at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale on 21 June.

The acclaimed restaurateur and author returns to Thailand often to gather new recipes and in the process she has also learned how many of the great Thai ingredients can be as beneficial to skin as they are tasty.

The free afternoon seminar at Villa Royale will give Yu an opportunity to show off some of the healing methods she has collected for her new book, The Elements of Life, A Contemporary Guide to Thai Recipes and Traditions for Healthier Living.

Born in Bangkok, Su-Mei Yu moved to America when she was still a teenager. It was not until many years later that she would discover a passion for cooking and open her first restaurant, Saffron Thai Grilled Chicken in San Diego’s India Street. The speciality of the house is a dish that Yu recreated from her memories of the grilled chicken that vendors near her childhood home in Bangkok would sell.

Such was the popularity of the Thai restaurant among San Diegans that Yu was soon encouraged to put together a cookbook. Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking came out to rave reviews in 2000 – the same year that she opened her second restaurant on India Street, Saffron Noodles and Saté.

Cracking the Coconut was a huge hit, named one of the “10 Best Cookbooks of the Year.” by both The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Yu also received The Julia Child Award for Best First Time Author from The International Association of Culinary Professionals.

Su-Mei Yu's new book, The Elements of Life.

For her latest book, The Elements of Life, Yu again dug into her childhood memories of life in Bangkok and supplemented those recollections with recipes picked up during her many return visits to Thailand. This time the set out to create a collection of recipes that did more than sate the appetite.

As I child, she remembers neighbours cooking yah nang greens to cure the fever. Her mother’s remedy for fever was a rich soup made with chicken, ginger, scallions, and sesame oil. Coconut milk with cassia leaves stewed together relieved insomnia and a potion brewed from red beans and Chinese dates calmed the nerves.

During her visits Yu has also learned how the flavour and taste of different ingredients can influence well-being: the bitter taste in bitter melon, for example, reduces fever and sugar palm increases the body’s heat with its sweetness. Spicy chillies enhance the appetite, while the pungent flavours in ginger and shallots reduce bloating.

For her demonstration at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale, Su-Mei Yu will be focusing on the revitalizing effects of different ingredients. She will show how lime can cure dandruff, lemongrass restore lustre and how coconut can eradicate split-ends. She will also reveal how to use tomato to relieve acne and papaya, honey and the radish-like daikon can take years off your face.

Su-Mei Yu’s Beauty-Spa Kitchen, a demonstration of alternative uses for ingredients easily found in the kitchen or garden to make natural beauty and health treatments, will take place at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale, Kata, on 21 June, 2.30pm. Admission is free. Call 076 333 569 for details.

A facial feast at Mom Tri’s Villa Royale is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

A hanging sculpture at Brush Restaurant and Lounge

Phuket’s art scene is often described as vibrant, but the exhibits at Brush Restaurant & Lounge in Kalim this month actually do vibrate… they also twist, twirl, roll and rotate.

The Kalim Kinetic Art Fair is the brainchild of Brush’s owners, the family Underwood, and has the aim of drawing together young local artists and designers to create art that moves – both emotionally and literally.

A month in the making, the father-son team of John and Zac Underwood opened up the doors of the Underwood Art Factory to help aspiring “Kineticians” create their mobile masterpieces. All the best entries to the project will be on show at the closing party at Brush Restaurant on 25 June, including two pieces by the Underwoods; a wave sculpture John worked on with Zac, and a perpetual motion machine.

“Kinetic art is interactive, not-so-mainstream, alternative art,” Zac explains. “It doesn’t have a definition, which is why it’s so flexible. But it excites the imagination, incites curiosity.”

Bringing new artists to this dynamic medium was only the first part of the plan, John hopes that the Art Fair will become an annual attraction for Kalim – the quiet beach just to the north of big, bright, brash Patong.

A home for art in Kalim at Brush Restaurant & Lounge

“My family is very attached to Kalim,” John says. “We think Kalim needs something that sets it apart – an ideal that allows people to come here and enjoy it year after year. So I’m hoping [the Kinetic Art Fair] is something we can do in June every year”

Brush was once, in fact, the Underwoods’ home. After the 2004 tsunami, John rebuilt it as a restaurant, incorporating some of the visual wildness that has become his trademark.

Underwood’s signature style incorporates materials at their most elemental level. Rust is relished and the abandoned is brought back to serve an active role in the imagination.

“I work as much as I can with recycled materials,” he explains. “To me, this century is about how we do things with fewer resources. It’s the simple end, not the technical end of the environmental side. Every time we do a project we try to incorporate recycling into it. I know now that’s becoming more and more popular.”

He is possibly best known locally for his work on the stunning Indigo Pearl Resort at Nai Yang Beach, where the tin mining theme gave John the opportunity to delve deep into the junk pile to create stunning visuals all around the resort.

The Underwood factory, on the bypass road, could easily be described as a giant kinetic art exhibit. Grinders send arcs of sparks leaping into the air, lathes and lasers dance a flickering jig and dedicated workers busy themselves, heads down, amidst the shifting piles of strange and often scary inventions, art in progress and ongoing projects for hotels and resorts around the world.

It is here that the ideas of the young artists have been brought to life for the Kinetic Art Fair; from on-paper proposals to perpetual motions.

“We think Phuket really needs a platform for kids, for everyone, to express their creative identity, so basically it’s just about getting people involved,” Zac says. “It’s going to be wicked!”

The best of the kinetic artworks exhibited during the Fair will be auctioned off at Brush Restaurant and Lounge during the closing party on 25 June, with proceeds going to local charity. Call 076 340 348 or email info@awpr-phuket.com or info@underwood-phuket.com for details.

Brush Restaurant is out to create a Kinetic Kalim is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

It's Hot!

FLAME in name and flame in cooking. Phuket’s first garden rotisserie from the stylish Twin Palms Phuket Resort, FLAME, will open in June next to its highly popular BAKE bakery in Cherng Talay, just outside Laguna resort.

The open style building will enable diners to see the chefs in action and food can be eaten either on the FLAME patio, or in BAKE’s air condition building next door.

FLAME will open daily from 10am to 10pm with take-aways and home delivery available. Details of a grand opening will be available in coming months.

Twin Palms is one of Phuket’s iconic hotels, set on stylish Surin Beach with Catch Beach Club very popular with locals and patrons alike. Its BAKE bakeries in three locations around Phuket are very popular for their fresh baked goods, cool environment and excellent service. BAKE is open fro9m 7am to 7pm daily. The boutique hotel itself established a new level in Sunday brunch which remains popular.

FLAME – Great New Twin Palms Garden Rotisserie is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Try this. You won't regret it.

Thais are very inventive and creative when it comes to their famous cuisine. Krua Thammachart [Natural Kitchen] restaurant in Soi Phuthorn in Phuket Town is indicative of this…it is a tree house restaurant that grew out of one of Thailand’s famous food stalls 18 years ago.

Specialising in Thai dishes, the restaurant is spread over three or four levels of timber structure surrounded by spreading green branches and leaves. It is a very Thai experience.

Good Thai food at an affordable price. Try the fish cakes, hot but not too spicy; the tofu seaweed soup and, the great Thai specialty, mango with sticky rice in fine coconut milk.

Prices range from B80-B150 for most Thai dishes and B200-B300 for Western dishes.

Somjet Jaiyen, the owner, and his wife Sirijit work the crowd.

Worth a try.

Natural Kitchen – Phuket Restaurant In The Trees is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Anyone for tapas?

You don’t have to be a party animal to enjoy the eclectic atmosphere of the new Tapas Tree supper club/nightclub at Laguna, but it helps.

The former Kargo Indian restaurant still retains the giant [not real] palm tree in the middle, but the bar has been shifted to one side to make way for the enthusiastic dance club that Tapas Tree morphs into as the night wears on.

The opening on Friday, 25 February set the tone of things to come with some excellent ladyboy dancers and singers followed by a band with DJ, “The Biggest Loser” personality Garry Holden making a welcome return to the turntable after his magnificent double Triathlon/70.3 Ironman feats last year.

Tapas Tree is a welcome addition to the myriad of bars, pubs, spas and restaurants lining the entrance way to the Laguna Phuket complex. It is a supper club first, then as the evening wears on the tables are cleared and the dancing begins.

Very much in the mode of Phuket Town’s famous Ka Jok See, probably its most popular late night dance and entertainment venue.

The tapas are tasty, the music loud and the dancing pretty good. Worth a visit.

Tapas Tree Restaurant and Nightclub – Something Different at Laguna Phuket is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Brush will be an artistic centre on Phuket

John Underwood, an understated, almost 60 Australian, has a vision for Phuket’s art scene: create a centre of excellence where artists of every hue can gather and display their works.

That place is Brush, Underwood’s new restaurant on Kalim Beach with fantastic sunset views, a eclectic tapas menu from an award winning chef and with the potential to become the focal point for the Phuket artist community.

Sculpture, painting and other forms of conventicle art are on the “menu” at Brush. But Underwood also has other, more creative ideas.

“Why not do an exhibition of those crazy mudflaps on Thai trucks with pictures of movies stars, such as Silvester Stallone? Or why not tattoos? They are now universally accepted all over the world by everyone. Why not an exhibition of the best tattoos on Phuket?”

Such creativity is expected from John Underwood by those who know him. After 19 years on Phuket he has developed a reputation for producing works of art out of every conceivable type of material, much of it recycled, at his Underwood factory on Phuket’s by-pass road.

He has worked with most of the large hotels on Phuket, including doing the design for Indigo Pearl, a northern island resort noted for its unusual look and feel.

Brush is his latest project, very much aimed at bringing the island’s highly varied artist community to the public–and together.

The restaurant will stage exhibitions, fashion shows, kinetic art [moving art] shows. In fact, anything that has an artistic bent to it, Underwood is willing to give it a go.

A model might be Bangkok’s now famous Bed Restaurant, where patrons lie back on comfortable “beds” to eat food while watching artists at work.

Patrons at Brush won’t be lying down, but the restaurant is laid out in such a way that a fashion show, or a sculpture beavering away while other eat and drink, could carry on in front of appreciative eyes.

Brush Restaurant To Paint New Art Scene On Phuket is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Succulent dishes every night.

Tuesday night is Indian night. On Monday it’s Italian and on Saturday its Thai streetfood.

Banyan Tree Phuket, flagship of the worldwide Banyan Tree group, is offering themed cuisine evenings until March, 2011.

Chef Benoj Pother, from India, which has a history with the Banyan Tree through several large scale weddings at the hotel, is the man who prepares food such as an Indian starter with a slight Thai twist of marinated pumpkin and cashew nuts.

Another is a goat’s cheese salad with yellow curry, Pilau or basmati rice with a varietty of curries, including lamb dopizaa, chicken korma and fish curry.

But that is just the Indian fare. Apart from the Monday, Tuesday and Saturday nights already mentioned, on Wednesday Thai food, Thursday Chinese, Friday Seafood and Sunday a Sunday BBQ.

Banyan Tree is probably better equipped than most Phuket based hotel chains to mount an “around the world” cuisine night. Already it has hotels in China, Korea, Indonesia, the Maldives, Mexico, the Seychelles and United Arab Emirates with other planned for India, Vietnam, Portugal, Greece, Morocco and Oman.

Eat Your Way Around the World Banyan Tree Style is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

The Boathouse, from Kata Bay.

Mom Tri’s Boathouse, the island’s first five-star boutique hotel, which opened 21 years ago on Kata Beach, has been sold to the owners of the luxury Trisara resort.

Narong Pattamasaevi, Executive Chairman of Three Dolphins Co, which owns and operates the very-high-end Trisara hotel and property development, announced yesterday that Three Dolphins had signed contracts to complete its acquisition of 100% of shares in The Boathouse Inn and Restaurant Co, plus other related real estate properties in Phuket including the Oasis restaurant next to the Boathouse.

Mom Tri’s Villa Royale, the small upmarket resort and restaurant on the headland just south of the Boathouse, is not part of the deal.

The Boathouse – the name was changed a few years ago to “Mom Tri’s Boathouse”, though the new name never really stuck – will now be called The Boathouse Phuket & Oasis. It has just 33 rooms, three suites and two pool villas, but has established an international reputation thanks to its standards of service and its excellent cellar.

For many years it was the centre for Phuket’s tiny group of  intelligentsia and literati,  thanks to its Chaophraya Literary Society, which had regular meetings featuring known writers from around Thailand. The hotel still occasionally stages such events.

The hotel can also justly claim to have launched wine drinking in Phuket, by selling excellent wines in the 1990s at almost no mark-up in order to foster oenophilia on the island. It has since won international awards for the quality of its cellar, including Wine Spectator Awards of Excellence from 1995 to 2004, and Best of Award of Excellence plaudits from 2006 to 2010 – the only place in Thailand to win the “two glasses” accolade since 2006.

To go with the wine, the  Boathouse Wine & Grill restaurant is known for its gourmet Thai and French Mediterranean cuisine, under the spoon of Executive Chef Jean-Nöel Lumineau, the only Maître Cuisinier de France working in Thailand.

Narong said the new owners are dedicated to continuing in the same tradition. “More than just a hotel on the beach, The Boathouse, remaining under the management of [General Manager] Louis Bronner, has inspired a loyal following of visitors, appreciating its friendly superb service, gourmet food, the best wine collection in Phuket and one of the best wine cellars in the Kingdom of Thailand,” his announcement added.

Mom Luang Tridosyudh Devakul, better known as “Mom Tri”, told the Observer, “The reason behind selling most of my assets in Phuket, of which the Boathouse is only a minor part, is that I’ll be 70 in just over a year. It is time to retire!

“I will devote my time and the proceeds from the Phuket sales to developing the Traidhos 3-Generation Community in Chiang Mai.

“The Boathouse was sold to K Narong because he has a similar vision for it’s future as I do. Funds will be invested to bring the hotel and restaurant back up to its past glory, and the Boathouse staff and present management will be in good hands.”

Phuket’s iconic Boathouse sold to Trisara owners is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Circus tent meets the Ritz in Il Palazzo.

It’s a circus tent and it’s the Ritz. It’s gourmet. It’s high opera and it’s chips, chips, chips, beer, beer,beer. It’s the Naughty Nineties (1890s, that is) and it’s the Terrific Tens (2010s). It’s absinthe and Toulouse Lautrec, or Coke and Norman Rockwell. And it’s not over until the fat lady sings.

It’s Phuket Palazzo, a serious contender to rival Phuket FantaSea for big parties who enjoy good food and fine entertainment, including acrobats, jugglers, singers and dancers and a transvestite chicken chased by a mad chef.

Management is Russian but the cast comes from everywhere, including China, Vietnam, Europe and even Kenya. Il Palazzo is on the road to Kathu Waterfall, in the sane enclave as the wakeboarding lake.

Tickets, including a five course dinner, are B3,500 for ringside tables, B3,200 for other tables, and B1,900 for children. Right now there’s a two-for-one offer. Book through the website.

And now we’re going to let the pictures do the talking.

Pole dancing with a new twist.

The Mad Chef has the waitresses all in a whirl.

This is how to use your suspenders. Suspended from the big top.

A man with balls. He juggles up to six at a time.

The chairman - from Kenya.

A delicate balancing act.

Did we mention the ambiguous chicken? We did.

It's not over until she sings.

Phuket Palazzo – ritzy big top opens in Kathu is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.

Steak Samkong in Chalong. Photo courtesy of Island.Life.Photos

Those who know their way around Phuket Town will tell you that when it comes to restaurants, Steak Samkong is very high on the list of places giving value for money.

The place is owned by a Thai guy who spent many years as a cook on cargo vessels, so the decor is, shall we say, practical, and the food is not haute cuisine. But it’s tasty and filling and won’t put a big dent in your wallet – expect to pay between 50 and 250 baht to feel well satisfied.

The Thai food is simple and traditional – try the fried rice, the Kway Tio or the Phad Thai – and there is also a comprehensive menu of Western food, including a standard “American” breakfast, a variety of good sausages, steaks that won’t bend your fork, and good chips.

The good news for people in the south of the island is that Steak Samkong has now opened a new outlet at the Home Pro Village, just north of Chalong Circle. The prices are the same as those at the original restaurant: go for a club sandwich at B65, a plate of spaghetti for the same or a Caesar salad for B79 – just a few items from the menu.

There’s also beer (naturally), cheap wine and a big coffee menu. On an island where eating out is becoming increasingly sophisticated (and therefore increasingly expensive), this is a fine down-home antidote. For more pictures, go to Island.Life.Photos here.

The original restaurant, for those who don’t know it, is on Yaowarat Rd, roughly halfway between the Bangkok Hospital and the Vachira Hospital.

Steaking a new claim in Chalong is an article from: Phuket Observer - Phuket lifestyle magazine.