Wanting to switch up date night? Marriott Bonvoy’s food festival offers swanky cuisine at affordable prices
Skip the Netflix and takeaway
If you’re like us, whenever you and your partner are trying to decide what restaurant(s) to try out this week, hotel restaurants rarely pop up on the list of possible options. And we get it — there can be something weirdly intimidating about marching into a hotel that you’re not staying at. Plus, with so many hotels and resorts sprawled across Bangkok alone (not to mention the entire country), it can be overwhelming to compare the different menus and try to figure out what’s good at each place. Wouldn’t it be handy if someone else just put together a list of hotel restaurants across the nation, complete with menus and price points?
Here’s the good news: this May and June, Marriott Bonvoy is launching “Eat Out with Marriott Bonvoy,” a nationwide food festival that rewards members with curated dining discounts at nearly 40 hotels and resorts across the country, including locations in Koh Samui, Hua Hin, and, of course, Bangkok.
Each participating establishment has three different menu “tiers” that offer discounts ranging from 20 to 50 percent. Tier 1 menus are priced at B950, Tier 2 is priced at B1,150, and Tier 3 is available for B1,450.
Three menus per restaurant at nearly 40 restaurants is a lot of choices, so we’ve handpicked a few that would make fun date options.
While the W Koh Samui has three very different menus on offer, we’d recommend the Some Like It Hot set for a date that is (literally) spicier than your typical steak-and-wine night. As part of a mala hot pot set, diners choose whether to go down the meat (think juicy pork belly, beef striploin, and classic chicken wings) or seafood (i.e. delicious salmon, tiger prawns, and mussels) route. We personally say opt for seafood since it’s, you know, Koh Samui, and although you can choose between a clear chicken soup or hot mala soup, we definitely recommend the mala to keep things spicy and exciting. If you and your date are the competitive type, for a really fun night, play a game to see who breaks and reaches for a glass of water first.
Look, a full-on dinner date is nice, but sometimes you just want to cozy up with one another and have a chill, low-key night out. With its rooftop bar setting, the Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park’s Begin & Entrée Set is ideal for dates where you want to take your time nibbling on snacks and drinks — but in a fancier environment than, say, on your couch with bags of chips you’ve grabbed from the nearest 7-11. The two-person menu covers both food and beverages, letting you choose two drinks from a fine list of gins, and three sharing snacks from a menu that includes non-boring options like spicy chicken popcorn, angry salmon rolls, and spicy tuna tacos.
We love living in Bangkok, but wouldn’t it be nice if we were one of those millionaires who could afford to whisk their date away to another country for a day? While we unfortunately don’t have any suggestions on how to become a jet-setting millionaire who only flies private overnight, we can recommend the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel’s Bonvoy offer: a series of Italian menus that are the next best thing to jumping on a jet to Rome and having dinner by the Colosseum. Splurge on the Tier 3 set and enjoy a bottle of the house red or white wine while you devour some perfectly-cooked spaghetti and some seriously creamy, mouthwatering gelato.
You know what’s better than a great dim sum deal? A great dim sum deal paired with a luscious sparkling wine of your choice while you and your date take in the Bangkok skyline. The dim sum package at Bangkok Marriot Hotel The Surawongse will have you seated at their gorgeous open-air Yao Rooftop Bar, the sun setting in the background as you go all out on some of the best dim sum Bangkok has to offer. We say opt for the Tier 3 set and treat yourself to Yao’s signature peking duck tower (yes, an entire tower).
Everyone knows that dessert is the best part of a meal, so how about a date where the entire meal is (kind of) dessert-based? The Mango High Tea at The Westin Grande Sukhumvit, Bangkok is a fun twist on your usual high tea — as the name suggests, the theme of the menu is sweet, juicy, mouthwatering mangoes. We’re talking mango caramel banoffee cake, battered white fish served with roasted caramelized mango, a classic mango with sticky rice in tart form, and (our personal favorite) a mangomisu. If you and/or your date has a sweet tooth, we honestly can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon than to voluntarily enter a full-on mango coma.
Like we said, these are just a handful of options available as part of Eat Out with Marriott Bonvoy. All you have to do to take advantage of these offers is sign up to be a Marriott Bonvoy member, which also happens to be completely free! Bookings are now open and can be done through the Eat Out with Marriott Bonvoy website.
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