Love with a laid-back taste

BANGKOK’S newest upmarket restaurant and bar Abbot California Cuisine on Sukhumvit Soi 31 has opened just in time for Valentine’s Day and is celebrating the feast of love with live gypsy jazz and a five-course dinner set guaranteed to make the heart beat faster.

Named after Abbot Kinney Boulevard – a stretch of funky bars, restaurants and art galleries on Venice Beach, Los Angeles – the restaurant boasts a bohemian vibe and offers patrons a choice between casual dining on the ground floor and more formal restaurant seating on the mezzanine level. It is operated by Bed Lifestyle, a food and beverage affiliate of Bed Buzz Creative Communications Agency, formerly part of the Bed Supperclub Group.

The kitchen is under the supervision of Rene Michelena whose food is heavily influenced by southern French and Italian cooking, as well as other Mediterranean influences and inspirations from across the Americas. Michelena, who cooked in the USA for more than 20 years and won many awards, is a proponent of farm-fresh cooking with an emphasis on local seasonal produce.

On February 14 and 15, he will offer a five-course Valentine’s Day set menu priced at Bt1,750 per person. The starter is an aphrodisiacal serving of freshest Eagle Rock Oysters on the Half Shell with plum verjus and cracked coriander seeds, which can be enhanced further with the addition of an optional caviar accompaniment.

For the second course, diners can choose between Tender Grilled Duck Breast with pea eggplant, pancetta, grapes and Job’s tears and Spicy Tomato & Crab Salad comprising verdant servings of baby jade lettuces, warm and spicy crab vinaigrette with a butternut-miso puree.

Pasta lovers will be delighted with a third course of Homemade Chilli Pepper Fettuccine with barbeque erengi and morel mushrooms, smoked cherry tomato, broccolini and roasted garlic cloves.

The main dishes are more than enough to extend the long amorous night ahead and offer a choice between 150-day grain fed Cape Grimm Tasmanian Beef Sirloin with rocket salad and shiraz reduction and Sustainable Portuguese Sea Bream Fillet, spiced up with chorizo and kale pistou, watercress and fresh fig-balsamic crema.

The dining experience ends two palate-teasing desserts: Mascarpone Salted Caramel Semi Freddo with pomelo-raspberry salad accompanied by a warm molasses-ginger spiced cookie and a Chocolate Birthday Cake with white chocolate Grand Marnier mousse and croquant – a duo of indulgence perfect for this romantic occasion.

Every couple ordering the special menu will have their names entered in the lucky draw, which earns the winner a dinner party for six in the private dining room with a five-course tasting menu personally introduced by the chef. 

 

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

Abbot California Cuisine on Sukhumvit Soi 31 is open daily for dinner from 5 to 10 but on Valentine’s Day until 1am (last order at 10). Call (02) 258 6250 or visit www.AbbotBangkok.com and “abbotbkk” on Facebook.