Prime Steak, Best Steaks in Town
One of Bangkok's newest riverside hotels, the Millennium Hilton, also has its latest upmarket meat lovers' refuge, a steakhouse called Prime. It opened about 1 year ago, just before the happy reintroduction to Thailand of beef from the US and Europe.
The restaurant imports all the bovine and marine accoutrement's needed for this type of dining, including king and queen prime cuts, served at table-side, plus T-bones and other steak with a choice of béarnaise, peppercorn, red wine, mustard, horseradish or mushroom sauces. Main-course steaks are a minimum of 10 ounces, so bring a healthy appetite.
Crab cakes and steak tartar appear on the starters list, along with Fine de Claire oysters, which you can also enjoy as part of a seafood tower, along with mussels, shrimp, crab and lobster tails. Caesar's salad is mixed at table-side, which may seen a cute idea but not that interesting.meta:desc One of Bangkok's newest riverside hotels, the Millennium Hilton, also has its latest upmarket meat lovers' refuge, a steakhouse called Prime. It opened about 1 year ago, just before the happy reintroduction to Thailand of beef from the US and Europe. The restaurant imports all the bovine and marine accoutrement's needed for this type of dining, including king and queen prime cuts, served at table-side, plus T-bones and other steak with a choice of béarnaise, peppercorn, red wine, mustard, horseradish or mushroom sauces. Main-course steaks are a minimum of 10 ounces, so bring a healthy appetite.]
What is cute are two small loaves of bread served hot from the oven, side-by-side in the dish they were baked in. And there's a vast wine list, strong on clarets, with 10 options by the class. The only downside, all prices on the menu are subject to 7 percent tax and 10 percent service charges.
The restaurant has hired the manager and some former staff of the New York Steakhouse, and locals will recognize several other familiar features, from the wing-backed leather chairs to the reservation place names on the tables.
Near the entrance of the smallish narrow room there's an open kitchen with blazing wood-fired ovens where chefs finish the steaks. Large circular tables fill the central area under a low ceiling dominated by a mass of spotlights, welded like a sculpture of inverted pots. Booth seating lines the walls, and there's a walk-in wine cellar that can be booked for private parties.
For all its quality, Prime has bizarrely marred its natural setting. I had grabbed the central bay window, only to find a cage welded to the front of the hotel that requires you squint at the river through a tennis court-like mesh. Nevertheless, this is a good place for a posh dinner, perhaps following an afternoon wandering the Thonburi temples. Hilton's Prime, opening hours are from 6 pm to 11 pm weekly.
