Ma Maison Resturant Review

After 4 successful business meetings yesterday, I decided to celebrate a new business deal by having dinner at Ma Maison, often described in magazines as the best French restaurant in Bangkok. French cuisine is by far my favorite, and with the last visit to Indigo in Silom a real let down, I thought I’d try Ma Maison, situated on the ground floor of Nai Lert Park hotel in Wireless Road.

The restaurant over looks one of the most beautiful gardens I have seen in Bangkok. With the bleach white table clothes and the huge wine glasses, I was looking forward to seeing the food and wine menu. When the menu was bought over, it was only available in English… I’ve never understood this, posh restaurants in Thailand not translating the menu to there own language?

After trying to translate as much as I could to my girlfriend, she suggested I choose and we share our meals. I’m cool with this as we both get to taste different dishes. Then come the wine list… they only had African wine by the glass… as my girlfriend doesn’t drink wine, that’s one of the things I enjoy about eating at nice restaurants, they generally all sell wine by the glass. Anyway, they had a promotion on to promote African wine this week, so I was unable to order a glass of French red which I thought was a bit of a let down.

Now onto the food. We ordered the Monk Fish, which resembled Fish Pie with mash potato… nothing special. The other main we had was Pigeon Torte, which was Pigion meat in a pastry pie with cuscus. I ordered the Pigion medium to rare, however it was well done.

Then the Chef come out to see how our meal is… I never get this as well… I just think it’s a chance to show off, but maybe I’m wrong and some people like that personal touch?

For desert we shared Creme Brulee with fruit compot which was curdled and the sugar on top which is meant to be crispy was soggy… another disappointment. The other desert was Rose Peach Shurbert in a sugar basket, which is by far the highlight of the meal.

The service was okay, but not silver spoon. The decor and the garden view is stunning, while the food disappointing and no French red wine by the glass was a let down. The restaurant has been trading for more than 20 years, so maybe I just eat there on an off day.

For the 2 mains, 2 deserts and 2 bottles of water, the meal come in at 3,800B (55 squid) Next time I think I’ll give Le Normandie at The Oriental Hotel a try where men are required to wear dinner jackets!