REVIEW: Conrad Koh Samui (1st visit)

We were enthusiastically greeted at the entrance to the lobby of the Conrad Koh Samui. Our bags were taken and loaded on to a buggy as we sat sipping sweet lemongrass tea, whilst completing the check-in formalities.

We booked two free nights using UK Hilton credit card certificates and booked the third night at 50% off BAR via Hilton Premium club Thailand.

Standard villas are numbered 1xx and 2xx. We asked in advance for a villa in the 3xxs (the interiors are almost identical, with a slightly upgraded entertainment system), the reason for this is that villas 307-310 offer some of the most spectacular, uninterrupted views and also benefit from being close to the breakfast restaurant and the bar where happy hour takes place.

Our request was confirmed upon check-in and we were told that this was due to the fact that we were HHonors Gold members (courtesy of UK Amex Platinum). We were also told that we were also entitled to pull a mystery gift coupon from a box, I left it in Kamara’s hands and she won us a free poolside ice-cream!

I love the abundant use of wood and the addition of small decorative artefacts and paintings to give an unmistakably Thai feel.

The fruit bowl that came with the room was great, we also got a welcome gift of macarons and some turndown cookies (on the tray, on the bed).
The rooms come with an iPad that has the concierge app loaded on it, as well as having connectivity to the room’s Apple TV. I need to get one of these office chairs too, it was insanely comfortable (I’m guessing it was the real deal and not a replica).
Turndown service included water, the aforementioned cookies… and a bedtime story.
I waited until the following morning to take pictures of the room, when the light was better; starting with the view from the bed. There is zero need to close your curtains here, the privacy is absolute (unless you are scared of a rogue sailor, committing an act of telescopic perversion).
Thai wall art.
The bathroom was as big as the bedroom and dominated by the oversized circular bathtub. Naturally, with this being a 5* resort, there was an insane amount of marble on display. I really like the open plan design, which allowed loads of natural light in.
Nice reflection.
Motley Crue could host a party in this thing.
Again, I love two things here. 1. The glass walls mean that you can see the ocean from the gigantic rainfall shower. 2. The rainfall shower is friggin’ gigantic.
We were offered a choice of amenities upon check-in, we selected Shanghai Tang (the other options are Tara Smith and Refinery [as seen in the BA First Class amenity kit]). In addition to this there were ceramic dispensers filled with what was unmistakably Aromatherapy Associates product.

We saved our turndown cookies so we could eat them with a cup of coffee, as a pre-breakfast treat.

Tapping firmly into the zeitgeist with the complimentary Macarons.

The minibar was well stocked although there weren’t a huge number of coffee pods for the Philips machine. The Evian wasn’t free but the locally branded bottled water was both free and plentiful. We never needed to call to get more.

Not a bad setup for writing trip reports.

Reading material.

Wireless headphones and iPad.

How great is this headboard? I’m a sucker for geometric design.

The wooden box was filled with games like Scrabble and Jenga.

We loved the digital radio stations, which we could play through the Bose surround sound system. Our favourite was the 90s dance channel (hard to go wrong with a stellar lineup including: Culture Beat, 2 Unlimited, Strike, Corona, Snap!, Haddaway, Baby D, Blue Boy, N-Trance, Utah Saints…).

Good though the interior is, the real star of the rooms at CKS is the outside area, featuring a saltwater infinity pool with one of the most spectacular views ever.

The view to the right of our pool. As you can see, we had a good amount of separation from these neighbours.

The sun loungers as seen from the bathroom.

This GoPro shot gives you a good idea of the size of the pool.

The neighbours on the other side were closer but we neither heard nor saw them. Above us you can see one of the 2 bedroom villas. They could see us from a couple of spots in our pool but otherwise nothing.

I can’t really think of a better place to catch up on some reading.

On a clear day, you can see for miles.

Of course, with such outrageously awesome surroundings, we couldn’t help but take a million pics of ourselves.

You may be surprised to hear that this picture did well on social media.

As did this one.

The villa design is quite ingenious. The overhanging roofs of the bedrooms grant a high degree of privacy from villas above; this is further enhanced when the parasols are open.

Even from quite obtuse angles, the walls provide almost total privacy from others.

You may have spotted some hammocks and man made islands below. We’ll come to those in a bit.

Much like our stay in Busuanga, a defining feature of our time at CKS was the awesome majesty of the sunsets.

Our villa 309 was super close to the breakfast venue: Zest. This meant that we could just walk over when we wanted, without having to wait for a buggy. The slopes are seriously steep at CKS and depending on your villa’s location, this could easily mean a 25 minute walk to breakfast otherwise.
The approach to Zest (and buggy pavilion).
Breakfast was very busy every day, so I felt bad snapping pictures of people. Here’s a stock image from the Conrad website. I can verify that it is accurate…

The buffet was compact but decent, I like how they integrated some refrigerated compartments into the walls, although they had no doors. In addition to hot and cold buffet items there was an egg and waffle station plus a noodle station.
Our routine went like this: find an outside seat and order tea and coffee plus Thai Eggs Benedict from the a la carte menu. Head inside and grab bottles of freshly squeezed juice plus plate one of food. Coffee would be waiting for us. 5 minutes later the Thai Eggs Benedict would arrive.
The Thai Eggs Benedict came with Penang curry sauce (surely this makes them Malaysian?) and pork floss. The luminous green liquid is freshly squeezed guava juice, it is delicious. One morning, a troupe of drummers and dancers paraded through the breakfast venue. I understand that this is a regular occurrence.

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The main pool as seen from breakfast at Zest. The actual beach doesn’t have particularly nice sand, so they built a fake beach for people who want white sand.
With everybody having their own pool, the main pool was generally quite empty. We popped down a couple of times to grab a quick lunch and both times it was like this.
Above and right, you can see the long balcony of Zest restaurant.
Hard to get tired of this view!
…or this one.
We were always greeted with a complimentary ice tea drink. Our water was kept constantly topped up too.
With our 50% discount the prices were very reasonable. The pizzas worked out at £9 for example. Happy hour at the CKS is an ever evolving beast, a number of venues have happy hours, with slight overlaps, which means you can go on a bar crawl every day! The Azure Happy hour is the earliest of the lot, running from 4pm-6pm.
Not a bad place to have lunch.

The food was ok but certainly nothing special. Which is how I would describe most of the ‘regular’ food options at CKS.

After lunch on the first day, we made our way down to the beach. As you can see, the sand was pretty rough and rocky.

There were a couple of the man made islands out in the water. To be honest, they weren’t particularly comfortable, there’s no shade and the sand and plants looked scraggly and worn down.

The ocean hammock on the other hand? Awesome.

As we arrived quite late on our first night, we thought it would be quicker and easier to have dinner at Zest, the casual dinner option.

The service was immensely friendly and helpful, which I guess you’d expect when the place was this empty!

I like how the space looks so different at night versus breakfast time. Conrad hotels always seem to make great use of lighting.

We loved the mixed bread basket. The bread came with oil/balsamic mix as well as a basil oil dip. The spicy Thai crackers were served with shrimp chilli oil.

K ordered mint tea with her dinner. This was presented in a somewhat elaborate fashion.

The Gaeng Jued Woonsen Gai Sub. A giant portion of rich and flavourful chicken, tofu, noodles and vegetables. This starter could serve as a meal in itself.

One of the things I look forward to the most, when I visit Thailand: Larb. I was asked how spicy I wanted it. I said “unbelievably spicy” (In England I tend to use the terms “ludicrously spicy” or “the kind of spicy you’d serve to your worst enemy”). It was pretty spicy but I guess they’re scared of hospitalising the customers here. This is less of a concern for the owners of street carts in Bangkok…

Kamara went for the Penne Pomodoro, which she said were cooked al dente but not particularly exciting (which is probably as good as this dish can get).

I’m not sure what my main course was. It looks a little like Pad Siew. I can tell you this though. All the Thai food as CKS was great, whereas the Western dishes were usually just ok. This, for me, was not a problem.

Dinner at Jahn Restaurant

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Whilst the food thus far had been perfectly adequate, we were hoping that the CKS’ fine dining restaurant Jahn, would kick things up a notch.

The building is located a buggy ride away from the rest of the resort and has expansive and uninterrupted views of the five islands (up above and to the right is the main lobby).

As we arrived, we spotted a family posing for a photo.

This is what they were looking at.

Aura bar and lounge is a small outdoor seating area, more so than an actual bar. It is located to the left of the stairs in the family pic.

Jahn is on the right.

The building itself is beautiful, the glass walls really serve to highlight the astonishing view.

The staff at Jahn are really friendly and will repeatedly offer to take pictures of you.

We arrived early so that we could catch the sunset.

The dining room is quite small so reservations are a good idea.

Jahn certainly boasts an extensive drink selection.

Our server suggested the table one in from the corner, to us. She said she preferred the view because the corner column is quite thick and blocks the islands slightly. She said we were welcome to move though, if we liked the other table better.

We liked the view just fine.

When we checked in we were given coupons for 2 free drinks, as part of our HHonors gold welcome. We figured that this would be the perfect venue to redeem them. I went for a delicious Tequila based drink.

You can just about make out the rim of K’s Martini here.

OK, one final sunset shot.

Whilst Jahn offers a tasting menu, we decided against it. We had been eating so much up until this point and still had an even more elaborate dinner booked for the following evening. Nonetheless, our a la carte meal was served with numerous amuse bouches, sorbets and mignardises.

First up was a very fresh tuna tartare.

We both ordered the Tom Yum soup as our starter. It was prepared table-side. The herbs were sat in an infusion chamber within a teapot and stock was poured on top. Immediately the spectacular aroma filled the air around our table.

The soup was then poured from the teapot onto our dishes, each containing two enormous grilled prawns.

K’s main course was a phenomenal interpretation of the classic Pad Thai Thalay. It was served as three mounds of rich noodles, encased in egg nests (just like at Longgrain in Melbourne!). Each nest was then topped with a freshly grilled piece of seafood: prawn, lobster tail and scallop. The dish was accompanied by a miniature buffet of spices, condiments and sauces.

I opted for the Barbary duck curry with pear puree, galangal and purple potato dumplings. The presentation and execution were great but flavour wise I preferred the Pad Thai (which was actually the cheapest main course on the menu).

We were almost ready to burst after our dinner, so we decided to forego a dessert. This meant that we were able to navigate the after dinner mignardises which ended the meal, with our dignity (mostly) intact.

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The wine cellar can accommodate up to 8 guests but looked a little bare when only set up for two. Perhaps they could place some decoration, even just wine bottles, to fill the space.

You know you’re in for a good meal when you have less glassware in your whole apartment than what is set down in front of you.
Our Tasting of Truffle menu.
We took the opportunity to snap some pics whilst our server was bringing us our starter.
Mega carbs.
Ready for action.
The meal started off with a bang. The scallops were ultra fresh, the cauliflower puree was a delicious meringue of opulence and the truffle vinaigrette really added an intense spark of flavour to marry all of the elements together wonderfully.

We accompanied the meal with a Schubert Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, it was keenly priced and was versatile enough to work well with all of our dishes.

The Artichoke and Black Truffle veloute was small but packed a huge flavour punch.

It was like drinking a Piedmontese meadow. Earthy, salty, creamy and fresh all at once. Divine. They sure as hell didn’t hold back on the truffles either.

Next came the prawn (also a repeat feature of the Jahn menu), served this time on a thick, unctuous and rich risotto of wild mushroom and truffles. What this dish lacked in presentation it more than made up for in flavour. We may or may not have licked the plates clean (an advantage to having a private dining room).

Before the main course, we were served a grapefruit sorbet to ready our tastebuds. I found it to be too sweet and would have preferred something a little more bitter.

The main event: Beef Tournedos Rossini.

This was just unreal. The meat was perfectly rare yet still managed to deliver a satisfyingly charred crust. The foie gras was similarly cooked to perfection. Just a little pink inside and almost as big as the Tournedo. The sauce? Oh man, it was out of this world. Insane. More plate licking.

At this point we were already loosening belt buckles and increasing the power of the air con. Yet still we had two courses to come. Firstly the dessert: Black truffle panna cotta with an almond biscotto. I’m not much of a dessert guy but this thing was pretty damn good.

Finally a deliciously ripe and smelly Taleggio. Served with membrillo and candied macadamias… plus a selection of handmade chocolate truffles. We got this to go. We had a snorkelling excursion planned for the following morning and we didn’t much fancy sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The professional manner in which the take-away boxing took place, makes me believe that we aren’t the only ones who’ve elected to tap out and live to eat another day.

The journey to the reef.
As you can see, this particular reef is pretty busy. Both above the water…
…and beneath.
We definitely had the coolest boat out of everybody on the reef!
Looking pretty cool with my pink snorkel.

After the reef, the next stop was a beach located on a beautiful bay. We had pre-ordered some quite expensive and almost entirely protein free lunches before departure. If you do this trip I would definitely recommend against this and instead bring some cash to buy something from the locals. We enquired with the boat crew to see if they had an arrangement for us to charge anything from the beach sellers to the room. One of the crew members, Nil, said no but he insisted on lending us some cash to buy a coconut. We told him not to worry but he kept insisting that it was ok so we thanked him profusely and made sure to put some cash in an envelope with his name on it and left it with reception as soon as we got back.

Picture postcard views from the bay.

Our beach. You can see the red parasols of the local food vendors under the trees.

Abs rapidly disappearing as a result of the mammoth food consumption.