Author: John Curtas

LOTUS OF SIAM is Ready for Its Closeup

The renovations took two months longer than expected, and the wine bar won’t be fully operational for another two weeks, but here is your first look at the new, improved and expanded Lotus of Siam.

It will be, by far, the classiest digs in all of Commercial Center, but Saipin Chutima assures us not a darn thing’s gonna change on the menu…and America’s best German wine list promises to just keep getting better and better.

Expect the wine bar to be packed with industry and non-industry oenophiles from the day it opens.

MOzen Lunch

MOzen sits on the third floor of the Mandarin Oriental and serves as a three meal a day restaurant for the hotel’s well-heeled patrons.

Chef Shawn Armstrong oversees an operation that’s as adept at turning out superior sushi as it is an authentic lamb curry or first rate braised short ribs and pork bellies.

He and his staff have to be the culinary equivalent of a utility infielder because they never know what Arab potentate, Chinese high roller or Japanese mogul might stroll through the doors at any minute.

After two meals here (breakfast and lunch), we’ve yet to find a flaw in any of the food (except for sous vide-ing the meat – something we can excuse in a busy hotel restaurant)….and the elegant/intimate setting and the view and the service might put it at the top of all the three-meal-a-day hotel restaurants in town.

Once we have dinner here, we’ll let you know.