RESTAURANT REVIEW #2 - FRIDAY BRUNCH @ ISAAN, GRAND HYATT

Weekends must be only meant for lazing around, relaxing and breaking away from the monotonous weekday routine to leave you energized and rejuvenated before the hectic week ahead.

This is where a Friday bunch perfectly fits into the picture. Large spreads of delicious and colorful food, lovely ambience and a peaceful atmosphere to catalyze some interesting conversations qualify as some of the basic criteria a brunch must meet in my opinion.

Isaan at the Grand Hyatt meets each of the above 100% !

As you enter the restaurant, you are immediately welcomed with smiling faces and experience overwhelming Thai hospitality. You know you are in the right place instantly as you walk past several aisles packed with beautiful food and as the large windows stream sunlight lighting up the place giving the visitors a feeling of coziness yet such positive energy.

The brunch is themed around the largest Thai market called Chatuchak with several stations of food including live counters.

3 packages are being offered a soft drink brunch for QAR280, a special beverage package including house wine and a selection of Thai beers for QAR395 and the Moët brunch for QAR680.

Food are primarily categorized into stations based on the type of preparation such as Grilled/ Fried/Steamed/Soups/Stir-fry/Salads/Soups/Curries/Rice and Noodles and Dessert.

One could either visit the various stations and pick up food just as a normal buffet or also has the option to hand over the respective table token and choose dishes which would be served hot at the table. The latter concept especially works well for the fried and grilled dishes so that you could enjoy them fresh and piping hot.

A plethora of options were available which is exactly what is expected from a brunch and also quite expectedly, it is quite impossible to try each and every dish.

Every dish was served with such freshness and flavor. And I am going to attempt to capture some of the dishes in the spread and also my favourites.
          

Grilled/Fried

Chicken satay, Fried chicken, Prawns toast, Grilled Lobster, Baked fish, Fish cakes,

Especially loved the prawns toast and fried chicken served with a wide choice of dipping sauces such as sesame, soy, plum, sweet chilli.

Steamed/ Soup

Mini Dumpling, Normal shrimp/ fish dumpling, Sea weed soup, Congees with an assortment of condiments

Mini sweet chicken dumpling were especially delightful with the mix of a sweet and savoury tastes.

Stir-fry and Salads

Green papaya salad, beef stir fry, minced chicken salad and a chicken-lemongrass salad, sea food–crab salad and much more

Chicken lemongrass salad and minced chicken salad were my favourites.

Curries

Yellow chicken curry, beef and lamb curry preparations were offered with hot steamed jasmine rice.

Yellow chicken curry was decent though I had loved the chicken panang curry even more during my previous visit

Rice and Noodles

Pad Thai, Fried rice and a few other options were available

Desserts

Thai sticky rice with mango and coconut cream , Rice pancake with banana and coconut sauce, Fresh fruits and also some colourful traditional Thai sweets

Thai sticky rice with mango was the highlight and comes highly recommended. It was lip-smackingly delicious and so were the hot pancakes with banana.

Additionally, complimentary Thai green tea was also being offered.

At the end of all this, it is quite easy to understand as to how you can most effortlessly and blissfully lose yourself into a food coma.

Maybe Grand Hyatt must start marketing their rooms with the brunch so that you can crash land into bed immediately. This is the potential that brunches have ! J

Lastly, if I don’t mention about the level of service at Isaan, I would be committing a big mistake. Service was extremely brilliant and the staff were extremely polite and down to earth, a true extension of the Thai culture. At one point, the Head Chef-Chef Wachira greeted me so warmly since we had known each other from a cooking class I had attended there months back.

In all the Isaan brunch is most definitely worth the price and the trip to the other end of Doha.

Easily ranks high among the several brunches Doha has to offer.

So go ahead and pamper yourself this weekend !

Criteria	Weightage	Points given	Overall
Food	50%	4.5	2.3
Service	20%	5.0	1.0
Ambience	20%	5.0	1.0
Value for Money	10%	4.0	0.4
			4.7

Verdict :

Excellent JJ

This Brunch runs every Friday from 12:30 pm until 3:30 pm.

Isaan

Grand Hyatt

Doha

Tel: + 974 4448 1234

http://doha.grand.hyatt.com/en/hotel/dining/Isaan.html