The greatest strength of Pandanus is the setting. It’s a beautiful place, with a head-to-toe slickness that so many restaurants aspire to but never quite attain. The look is French country home—distressed white wooden tables, whitewashed walls, textured pillows and lampshades, gorgeous fresh flowers, patio seating outdoors and, at night, flickering candles everywhere you look. Behind a huge wall of glass is a spotless designer display kitchen staffed by smartly dressed cooks, who are constantly in motion but never seem to break a sweat. Even on weeknights the restaurant is usually full, with an exhilirating, buzzy atmosphere of attractive young Thais and expat diplomats engaged in cheerful, animated conversation. But don’t expect the food to be equal to the setting. It can be good but is more often than not disappointing, especially when you consider that you’re paying five-star hotel prices. The menu, with its slogan-like names and headings, is all at once creative, slightly pretentious and sometimes confusing; it is lengthy but repetitive and features modern interpretations of classic Thai dishes, East-West fusion and international items, and ubiquitous favorites like Caesar salad plus the occasional unexpected offering such as French fries topped with chili, green onion, bacon and cilantro cream. They’re especially keen on soft-shell crab, salmon and lettuce here. Combining two of the three is a salad of mixed greens with one large soft-shell crab that was delicious but lukewarm and soggy, while the signature spring rolls filled with lettuce and smoked salmon is a boring dish that can’t even be saved by a seafood dipping sauce that is overwhelmingly spicy-hot. Whisky-marinated deep-fried chicken wings are tasty, but again you don't get much. The Thai dishes here are nicely presented but toned-down (and priced-up) too much for our taste, as with our order of nuea pad krapao (beef fried with garlic, basil and chili), which we enjoyed but think that B280 should buy more tender beef or at least a bigger portion. They seem to be more consistent when it comes to desserts; the chocolate peanut butter mud pie doesn’t look like a pie but tastes just fine, for example. Service is generally good although they could probably use a couple more people on the floor during peak hours. We also wish they wouldn’t serve water without asking you if want it and then later make you pay for it.
