Saffron

 

On our final night at Baan Rim Nam we visited Saffron on Sea; a restaurant that we had heard was the best on Koh Chang.  Our host Ian confirmed this could well be the case and said he always liked to take people who thought they had seen most of what Thai food had to offer.  Ian recommended some dishes to try, including a banana flower salad, some pork and prawn parcels and the whole fish dishes; apparently they serve the fish on their side as if about to swim off your plate.  Ian arranged a pick up taxi to come and collect us and right on time the affable Mr Jum arrived to whizz us along the island roads to Saffron.

The restaurant is located right on the cliffs overlooking the sea.  We should really have come at dusk to see what I can only imagine would be awesome views of the sun setting over the sea, but as it was it was perfectly tranquil with a covered bar and restaurant area and a larger open terrace. 
 
We'd had a couple of Changs on the deck at Baan Rim Nam, (an impossible dusk pastime to resist) so we ordered large refreshing glasses of papaya and lemon juice to drink. 
 

We asked for the pork and prawn parcels but sadly they were off the menu, so we opted for the banana flower salad to share.  The food took a while to come but everything is made fresh from scratch, the kitchen is open plan and if you want to you can go and watch your food being created.  I say created as there is real creative flair in the beautifully presented dishes that they serve here.  The presentation of the food and the freshness of the ingredients really made the food exceptional.

The banana flower salad was an artful pile of huge sweet prawns, banana flower, (which we'd never had before) the most pungent and aromatic thai basil, fierce chillis, peanuts, and shredded green papya, carrot and probably a myriad other herbs and spices that I'd struggle to name.  Altogether it worked in a symphony of zingy, sweet (but not too sweet) and sour, aromatic freshness; Thai food at its best, even better when servied in a banana leaf.


I probably should have given more consideration to my main course as I opted for prawns (again) with a tamarind sauce.  This time the prawns came with head and tail attached and were just as delicious but the tamarind sauce was, in my opinion, a little too heavy on the sweet and not enough on the sour.  


The boy went for another big fish, white snapper again.  The fish, as promised, was served placed artfully on its side, dressed with chillis, holy basil, green mango, coriander and cashew nuts.  I had fish envy.

Saffron is run by a lovely lady called Ting, who was at pains to tell us that she had just employed lots of new staff who were just learning the ropes.  As it was our first visit we didn't notice any dip in quality.  We rounded off the night watching Chinese lanterns being floated off from the beach below and digesting one of the freshest, most refined  meals we ate during our stay here.