Whether you prefer Western or Asian cuisine, all four restaurants at Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park are worth a try

For the past five years, Goji Kitchen Bar in Marriott Marquis Park in Queen’s Park in Bangkok has been one of my favorite buffet restaurants for international cuisine.

When people ask me to recommend the best buffet in town, the name Goji is always mentioned. This 400-seat restaurant not only has a fun-filled market-style atmosphere, but its cooking quality and wide variety of cuisine have reached a 5-star rating, and it exceeds the price tag.

It has been more than a year since I last visited there because the current ban on dine-in seems to be endless.

Of course, the lockdown in Bangkok does not mean that gourmets must isolate themselves from their favorite foods.

Spicy Tamarind Glazed Grilled Spare Ribs and Grilled Rice Skins from Siam Tea House Thai Restaurant.

Goji, like other restaurants under the brand of Marriott Marquis Park in Bangkok, ensures that the gourmet needs of diners are met by providing special takeaway dishes.

The choice-basically Western dishes such as pasta, pizza, soup and salad-is insignificant compared to the 300 dishes in the buffet.

Fortunately, the typical and most popular items here include grilled chicken Caesar salad (275 baht) and braised lamb leg in red wine sauce (565 baht). They are the two dishes I ordered last week.

Seafood fried rice from the Pagoda Chinese restaurant, with scallops fried with loofah, egg white and asparagus with spicy Shanghai sauce.

The salad is satisfactory for every element. A piece of grilled chicken and parmesan cheese shavings are placed on a neatly arranged bed of crispy lettuce leaves. On the side and in a separate container are thick creamy anchovy sauce, aromatic homemade garlic croutons and crispy bacon cubes.

I know Goji's Caesar Salad is one of the most delicious and addictive salads in this city. For this reason, my son always goes to the custom-made salad bar every time he goes there.

Even when delivered, the salad proved to be superb, a perfect complement to the main course braised lamb shank.

Goji Kitchen Bar's braised leg of lamb with mashed potatoes and Caesar salad with grilled chicken.

The leg of lamb is generous and served with roasted red onions, garlic, carrots and small beetroots. Lamb is tender, the result of long cooking, red wine and herbs, until the gravy forms a bittersweet taste.

A lot of gravy also helps to enhance the buttery flavor of a lot of mashed potatoes.

Other options worth trying are the grilled Norwegian salmon in white wine cream sauce; premium Australian ribs with pepper sauce; wagyu cheek stewed spaghetti with parmesan cheese. Family packages are also available, starting at 1,875 baht, including drinks.

Anchan nom turf or sweet milk with butterfly pea flowers.

My takeaway also includes some other dishes from Pagoda, Siam Tea Room and Akira Back.

Pagoda is a Chinese restaurant headed by the famous Cantonese chef Oscar Pun from Hong Kong.

The dishes I choose from the pagoda are based on the chef's recommendation.

There are signature dishes, including fried black grouper in XO sauce; fried pork ribs in Zhenjiang sauce; fried beef tenderloin with Sichuan style dried chili; fried okra in Laoganma sauce; and the best-selling steamed mud crab with glutinous rice with lotus leaf.

The fragrant and spicy Shanghai sauce asparagus fried scallops (590 baht) and scallops and scallops seafood fried rice (490 baht) are worthy of the chef's distinguished image.

Siam Tea Room Thai restaurant’s grilled ribs are topped with spicy tamarind glaze and baked papa, which is said to be the most ordered takeaway dish.

I ate barbecue ribs (425 baht) and crab curry, banana shrimp and kelp (480 baht). Both dishes exceeded my expectations.

The ribs are cooked well until the meat is tender and easily fall off the bones. They displayed a wonderful mixture of sweet and savory, with the wonderful aroma of charcoal flue-cured tobacco and Thai herbs.

At the same time, the curry satisfies my harsh taste with a spicy vanilla coconut broth, which is rich in crab meat and shrimp.

My lunch also included exquisite ringi pizza with umami aioli and truffle oil (350 baht) and a modern sushi roll called Perfect Storm (450 baht) from the innovative Japanese restaurant Akira Back.

Akira Back is a Korean-born professional skier from Aspen, Colorado, who later became a chef. In 2018, he opened his own restaurant of the same name on the top floor of Marriott Marquis Park in Queens Park, Bangkok.

Ringi Pizza is the vegetarian version of the chef’s best-selling tuna pizza. Super-thin and elastic Ganoderma lucidum mushroom slices are layered on top of the flaky shell, and the outer skin is pasted with grapefruit mayonnaise, and decorated with micro perilla leaves and white truffle oil drizzle.

The perfect storm roll is the spicy unity of shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, salmon aburi and jalapeno mayonnaise in sushi rice.

Dessert is a cold milk drink called anchan nom sod, or sweet milk infused with butterfly pea flowers (85 baht). Enjoy it.

Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park Hotel provides door-to-door and takeaway services from 11 am to 8 pm daily. Orders can be placed in the restaurant’s Line account: @GojiKitchenBar, @SiamTeaRoom, @AkiraBackBKK and @Pagoda, or through the hotel’s restaurant reservation hotline 02-059-5999. You can also order via third-party food delivery apps, such as Robinhood, Foodpanda, and Grab Food.