A story of how the best Ragu Bolognese I had was on the beaches of Patong, and how food brings people together.

Time: 4/5
A sauce that simmered over 3 hours, and a friendship that developed over 3 evenings

Effort: 3/5
Stirring a pot occasionally for several hours after dicing up some vegetables and throwing in the ground meat

Making friends through food

Let me tell you the story of how I had a very special Tagliatelle Bolognese in Thailand.

In November of 2022, I had the fortune of spending a lovely week in Phuket for vacation. In between the scuba diving, massages and enjoying coconuts on the beach, there were ample opportunities to sample the local cuisine: curries, Tom Yum broths, stir fries, and plenty of the world-famous Thai street food. We even took a Thai cooking class so we could take home some of the culinary inspirations we got there.

It surprised me, then, that out of the kaleidoscope of flavours that danced on our our palate: the tug-of-war between sweet and spicy, the fruity tang of tamarind, and the heady aroma of kaffir lime leaves, the one that left the deepest impression on me was a relatively familiar one.

We lived in the Patong area in Phuket. One fine evening, we were looking for a dinner after a pleasantly exhausting day of diving. Flipping through the menu of one of the many restaurants that lined the main road, we saw Tagliatelle Bolognese and Lasagna among more local fare. That in itself was not surprising, as many restaurants offered European cuisine to cater to tourists.

A tall European man rose from a table and came to speak to us. In truth, we first thought he was a tourist enjoying his meal, but it turned out he was the owner. Tall and thin, Oscar’s eyes shone with a youthful vigour that belied his age. Possessed of a flair for the dramatic, his ears would wiggle with excitement as he punctuated conversations with a grin and a wink.

Oscar runs the Amber Residence with his wife Claudia. Originally from Bologna, they assured us that Claudia made the sauce and pasta every day for the shop, and promised to make it for us just like they did in Italy. And she knows her stuff too – she went to culinary school back home.

We felt more like Thai food that night, but we did return on another evening to make good on their promise. That night, we were regaled by tales of Oscar’s adventures in the various countries he had been, and the couple told us about their beautiful children (quite literally, their daughter works as a model in France) while we enjoyed their lasagna. One thing led to another, and we found ourselves invited to their home to learn how to make Ragu Bolognese and fresh tagliatelle.

The sauce was made over the course of an afternoon, alternatively swaying to the soothing baritone of Mario Biondi and dancing wildly to the throbbing beats of Maneskin. Claudia took us under her wing with a hug and a motherly smile. She showed us how to make fresh egg pasta, and we rolled the dough out with a 50-year-old pasta machine brought over from Italy – something I saw all the time on Youtube and always wanted to try for myself.

We enjoyed the results in a dinner party held the next day, along with some of their friends: Dio, a burly Australian expat with a serious adrenaline addiction; and Lisa, a local with a love for Italian culture who was taking a break from studying in Napoli. We stayed well into the night, savouring this last evening we had in Thailand.

All in all, this is a story about how the love of food and laughter brought people together from all across the world. It is one thing to know that we are more similar than we are different, and quite another to experience it first hand. And so, I dedicate this post to the power of food, as well as to the health and happiness of those with which we shared our Ragu Bolognese that night.

So, check out the Amber Residence if you pass by Patong in Phuket. Rent a room, get a massage, try the lasagna. Not a paid post, unless you count Oscar and Claudia’s generous friendship and hospitality.

Oh, and before you start calling me Served With Pasta, please know that Bolognese sauce is a very meal-prep friendly topping for rice bowls (;

Dramatis Personae

Meat

A 50/50 mix of ground pork and beef. We used a kilogram of meat in general, which serves 10. It’ll be cooked over gentle heat in the pot, without browning.

Vegetables

A carrot and three small onions, diced very fine then sweated in olive oil. Claudia had a food processor, which made things significantly easier. There’s no garlic in this bolognese, because it’s a recipe for the shop and not every customer likes garlic.

Tomatoes

A very large can of whole tomatoes with their juice, about 1kg by my estimate. They’ll get broken down with a wooden spoon in the pot and cooked down. Oscar gets them from a grocer who imports them from Italy. Nothing beats the taste of home, after all.

Seasoning

Salt, pepper and a chicken bouillon cube. Everything gets tossed in Parmesan cheese at the end. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find Parmesan by the block in Phuket so we have to make do with the powdered stuff that comes in a bottle.

Claudia’s secret

She swears by a splash of balsamic vinegar to brighten things up, and I can’t disagree with the results.

Tagliatelle

An egg for every 100g of double-O flour, kneaded together with a pinch of salt.

Executive summary

1. Dice carrots and onions. Sweat them in a large pot in some olive oil on gentle heat, along with a pinch of salt
2. Once vegetables are softened, add the ground meat. Keep the heat gentle. Stir with wooden spoon to break up the meat.
3. When the ground meat is half-grey and broken up, add tomatoes along with some salt. Have enough liquid to cover the solids.
4. Stir the pot occasionally for 3 hours. Towards the end, add a splash of balsamic vinegar. Taste and adjust for seasoning. Exchange recipes for pickled zucchini and limoncello while waiting to move on to the pasta.
5. Knead flour with eggs for 10-15 minutes, until elastic. Cover with a towel and let the dough rest for a few minutes
6. Cut the dough into more manageable, fist-sized pieces. Pass it through the pasta machine on its thickest setting, fold the dough over in half and pass it through again.
7. Pass the dough through the pasta machine on progressively thinner settings while dancing to music and sharing laughter, until dough is about 1mm thick.
8. Pass the thin sheets of dough through the pasta cutting attachment. Toss tagliatelle with a bit of flour to separate them, picking up and dropping the noodles from at least shoulder height for style.
9. Allow the bolognese to cool, then refrigerate overnight to develop flavour. Lay pasta out on large sheet pans to dry out.
10. Invite friends over for dinner the next day. Reheat sauce on the stove or in the microwave. Boil pasta briefly for 1-2 minutes, then toss in sauce. Top with grated Parmesan cheese.
11. Enjoy the food and the company. Try to learn Italian. Fail. Have fun anyway.

Play by Play

What a quaint little (huge) pepper mill! The peppercorns go in from the top, and the grounds fall into a little cabinet at the bottom.

A food processor made short work of the carrots and onions. They went into the pot with some olive oil, salt and a bouillon cube. They were followed by the ground meat once they’ve softened and turned translucent.

This sucker gave us so much trouble. Hurray for Oscar saving the day with his mastery over the positively geriatric can opener.

Tomatoes join the party. As we stirred, the ground meat and the tomatoes got broken up. The tomatoes released plenty of moisture, so there wasn’t a need for any extra water. We ended up needing the whole 1kg can to cover the meat. At this point the sauce needs to simmer for several hours, which freed us up to make the pasta.

Here we are, with the eggs and double-O flour. It seemed to me that the eggs in Thailand have pretty thin shells – we spent some time picking them out of the dough as we rolled it out later.

100g of flour for each egg, kneaded for a good 15 or 20 minutes until elastic. It helps to use one’s weight rather than one’s arms, locking the elbows out and leaning on your palm.

Time for the dough baby to take a nap while we set up the pasta rolling machine, share music of our respective languages, and dance.

Cutting the dough into manageable pieces, we rolled them out thinner and thinner. Apparently, even though it’s fresh pasta, it still tastes better if it’s left to dry out a bit so Claudia had us come back for dinner the next day. The sauce definitely improved after a night in the fridge.

The next day. The pasta got a brief 1-2 minute boil, before being mixed with some of the reheated sauce. There’s way more sauce and pasta than we needed for six – some of it was for the shop.

Buon appetito! Dinner is served, with pickled zucchini over toast for starters. The beer and stories start to flow, and we get a crash course in how to swear in Italian among many other things.

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