Buondi Da Noong - Ristorantino-Thappraya Road

[Eddie9]

BUONDI DA NOONG

RISTORANTINO

 

 

Buondi da Noong is my favourite restaurant in Pattaya. It lies in a sort of half-basement beside the pavement on Thappraya Road, on the same side as the soi 11 turn off for Café des Amis, the restaurant many are naming the best in Pattaya (in the thread ‘Which are the Top 5 Restaurants in Pattaya?’). Buondi da Noong, I’m told, means Noong’s Good Morning, a name capable of more than one interpretation to the monger, and I think a romantic one not a commerical one, and ristorantino, not surprisingly, means small restaurant.

          The other day I was at Buondi da Noong at twilight watching four Americans struggling with the menu. They were clean-cut young people and the first question on my mind was how they had come to stop at this restaurant of such unpromising location. Cars and buses whizz past on the six lanes of roading between Jomtien and Pattaya and who would think that this bit of roadside was anywhere to stop at? If you are here enough an accident will happen on the road, a dog knocked down by a baht bus, a pedestrian by a motobike. Everyone will flood out of their premises to look or help. In the restaurant customers and staff alike will return inside with a solemn air –– though there is usually one person who appears cheered up, giving everyone a wolverine smile.

          I listened to the waspish, skeptical Prom Queen main character of the American group quizzing a bewildered Thai waitress whether they made their own bolognese sauce and if the pasta was fresh. I wanted to tell them to just order and trust whatever instinct had led them here. Instead they each handled their menus as if huge Butterflies were in their hands, the wings flicking back and forth as they quested through the pages faithlessly, before, with the synchronisation of an American Football Cheer Group they got up and fled. If they just knew that for years at high-season Italian familes waited patiently on bar stools the opposite side of the road for their chance to eat – over-popularity eventually solved by a small price rise across the menu. Still, it is not an expensive place to eat. The bolognese is BHT 150, the carbonara BHT 200. A small basket of sliced bread comes for BHT 30. The red and white wine, both pleasant, are BHT 100 a glass. Chang water is BHT 20. Perhaps because it is a ritorantino there is no pizza. An immensely filling lasagne or succulent fillets of beef or pork with french fries steer us close to BHT 300. On that note, if you come with a girl-friend, it may be sound economics to let the Thai Lady eat first, in whatever stinking alley or unhygenic night-market she favours, on the basis that food that isn’t spicy doesn’t answer for her and Thai food is far cheaper.

          What is the greatest dish here? For me it’s the mixed salad (BHT 80).

Everyone no doubt has three or four things they’ve eaten in their life they’ll never forget. In my case one was a kebab from the window of fast food restaurant in Athens, eaten on the pavement of a sloping, tree-shaded, hot dusty road down to the harbour. Another was a beef and carrot stew, sticky and spicy, served in a cast iron skillet at table in Deagu, South Korea, in a corner restaurant at a huge junction which specialised in this one dish. And the last, and perhaps most memorable––for being absolutely unexpected––was a sandwhich picked up while wandering around the outskirts of Bordeau city, years ago. When it was time to eat I found I had a soft roll whose salad filling was quite illogically delicious – perhaps it contained one of those country French tomatos that are a paradigm shift to the city nob of what a tomato can taste like. I reveal my own rather rough tastes by this catalogue, but the mixed salad at Buoni da Noong is delicious – and how often can one say that of a salad? It is dressed before being served, contains lettuce, tomato and slender strips of red cabbage and carrot and rings of the mild Thai onion – some, soaked in the dressing of oil, red wine vinegar, salt and sugar are always the last thing to be consumed - and it is served on a green concave plate in the shape of a cabbage leaf which makes it easy for one to pick around with ones fork for whatever one wants to put on on it, with none of the nuisance of lettuce leaves flying off on a plate or the need for investigation and turning-over to discover what is below in a bowl. I think we all have to admit how rare it is to find a restaurant dish with which there can be absolutely no quibble. In fact we may be left completely amazed when we find one. It is attractive to look at and delicious to eat.

          I say the restaurant is in a half-basement for the ground falls away steeply from Theppraya Road. It’s a single square room with two open sides, one which faces the pavement three feet up, the other an un-named side lane. The floor is tiled, a recessed ceiling of Western derivation provides cheerful lighting after nightfall, the tables have plaid cloths, otherwise the room is entirely Thai in its décor: fading pots of poinsettia from Christmases past, happy clay figurines of Buddhist children (roughly equival to garden gnomes), framed pictures of Thai royal family, horoscopes and maps of the herbalist and physician, saffron-dyed paper flower chains and coloured gauze. Votive souvenirs gather dust. At the cashier’s booth an appetising side-plate of spagetti arrabbiata sits among the golden corner-statuary and fetishes. No chord or note of music has mercifully ever been heard in this restaurant, except the blaring one-truck pop concerts that occasionally go by on the road.

          The female Thai staff have not changed in fifteen years. There is a Lady Havisham figure, a twinkle in her eye suggesting she was once and may still be a great sexpot, who has let her hair go wild and grey. The service is cheerful and quick and the staff never fail to wai when guests arrive or a bill is paid. I have never noticed a Thai male among the seven or so staff and the proprietor himself is somebody who often passes in and out but rarely stops. Not a fancy host by any means, there is an oil painting of this genius and his Thai wife (surely Khun Noong) in younger days. Now he looks a curmudgeon of the first order and I love him for it. He is small, strong and I don’t know if he is God or Goblin. He sometimes cruises through Pratamnak on his easy-rider motorbike. Perhaps his household is there somewhere, perhaps he is on other business. The restaurant may be assumed not to absorb all his interest after so many years––and the women run it perfectly anyhow.

          Talking of which, three Thai women run the small kitchen and prepare the Italian dishes with great precision, yet I suspect they do not eat this food at all themselves. It may be no exaggeration to say they’ve never even tasted it. When people cook food that they don’t themselves eat the prognosis is usually very bad for its quality and correct seasoning. But I’m not suggesting that the kitchen at Buondi da Naang is very different from a hundred other kitchens in Pattaya, and thousands down the length and breath of Thailand. Is it because they have a great cuisine of their own that Thais are prepared to learn another one properly? Is there some inborn respect for food because their own is so good? I honestly have no idea, but I find it a striking and attractive phenomenon of Thailand. In Hong Kong for instance Filipinas fill many of the positions in the kitchens, a people inclined to be careless I find and this inevitably translates into sloppy, thoughtless service. Thais seem to have a genius for giving the farang what he wants, not only in food perhaps but certainly food – whether it’s spaghetti carbonara or indeed an English breakfast.                                                                                      

          If I haven’t convinced you this restaurant is anything special come and do a pepper grinder test. How many pepper grinders are unsatisfactory, either because they never worked well from the moment they were purchased or because they have become blunted and clogged? It’s common. We’ve probably struggled on occasion ourselves to have a decent pepper grinder in our kitchen. It is these small details which we notice if our visits are repeated. Whether there is paper in the bathroom, whether there are mosquitos and if the restaurant deals with them. The small things tell us if there’s somebody taking quiet care and attention behind the scenes, when we’ve become immune to any big logo outside the restaurant, any nice branding or colourful advertising. The pepper grinders here are, I may say, a triumph.

[Kreggerz]

I would suggest avoiding the pasta with pesto there. The pesto sauce tastes exactly the same as highly processed bottled pestos you can buy at Friendship.Yes they are from Italy, but so what, no serious Italian cook serves bottled sauces of any kind. How good can an Italian restaurant be that serves bottled pesto or if I'm wrong, tastes exactly like bottled pesto?

 

I do not understand the excitement about this restaurant except that it is cheap. Asking if pasta is fresh is a fair question ... they are asking if the pasta is made in house or dried. Obviously it is usually dried unless a clear claim on the menu says differently. 

 

That said, I kind of like the minestrone soup there and the spaghetti vongole is OK. Also their cold meat in tuna sauce.  I had their lasagna years ago and wasn't impressed. 

 

For a much better very casual Italian restaurant (mostly Italian customers) with maybe slightly higher prices for some things try:

https://www.facebook.com/latavernadelpassatore

 

As you can see they have daily specials, definitely worth checking out. 

BTW, their pesto (Ligurian style) is remarkably good. You can get it as just pesto or with potatoes and green beans. 

[expatdude]

Is that Massimo's new place?

 

Scuse my French, but it's way the fuck outside of Patters.

[Kreggerz]

Which place are you speaking about? 

Neither one is far outside of Pattaya at all.

The place I mentioned is off Soi Buakow!

[expatdude]

Hm, on their map on Facebook it's north of Sri Racha.

[Kreggerz]

Hm, on their map on Facebook it's north of Sri Racha.

The map is wrong.

It's down a soi close to the new hospital on Soi Buakow, Pattaya, opposite side, there is a motorcycle repair shop on the corner.

Closed Mondays.

[Eddie9]

I would suggest avoiding the pasta with pesto there. The pesto sauce tastes exactly the same as highly processed bottled pestos you can buy at Friendship.Yes they are from Italy, but so what, no serious Italian cook serves bottled sauces of any kind. How good can an Italian restaurant be that serves bottled pesto or if I'm wrong, tastes exactly like bottled pesto?

 

I do not understand the excitement about this restaurant except that it is cheap. Asking if pasta is fresh is a fair question ... they are asking if the pasta is made in house or dried. Obviously it is usually dried unless a clear claim on the menu says differently. 

 

That said, I kind of like the minestrone soup there and the spaghetti vongole is OK. Also their cold meat in tuna sauce.  I had their lasagna years ago and wasn't impressed. 

 

For a much better very casual Italian restaurant (mostly Italian customers) with maybe slightly higher prices for some things try:

https://www.facebook.com/latavernadelpassatore

 

As you can see they have daily specials, definitely worth checking out. 

BTW, their pesto (Ligurian style) is remarkably good. You can get it as just pesto or with potatoes and green beans. 

 

I think there are innumerable good Italian restaurants in Pattaya, perhaps as customers we benefit from the competition between them, and I have no doubt the restaurant you particularly like is one of them, Buondi da Noong just happens to be my favourite and I've tried to convey something of why.

[Kreggerz]

Sure, but having an actual Italian chef usually helps a lot. 

Also, can I ask you to try their pesto there and see if that changes your opinion of the place?

I can tell you're a professional writer.

When does your book about Pattaya restaurants come out?

[Eddie9]

Sure, but having an actual Italian chef usually helps a lot. 

Also, can I ask you to try their pesto there and see if that changes your opinion of the place?

I can tell you're a professional writer.

When does your book about Pattaya restaurants come out?

 

Writing? No, nothing like that, a hobby more than anything and I'm often a lone diner stewing up various thoughts about the restaurants I visit.

 

A friend ordered spaghetti & pesto takeaway the other day and I shared it - wasn't so great I admit although she did reheat it in the microwave before we ate.

 

As for having an Italian chef, Buondi da Naang has one, he also has three very good Thai sous chefs.

[Kreggerz]

Well, I must say I like your writing style better than your restaurant recommendations. 

I also think that American group that you mocked really didn't miss much. 

[Eddie9]

Haha I'll settle for that

[Kreggerz]

Haha I'll settle for that

Me too.

What's with the weird font?

[mpm]

Great write up Wellsa, been eating hear regular for many years, I have the Americano with beacon and chiles while the lady has seafood spaghetti also we share a tuna salad...great lunchtime spot with the same welcoming staff that seem to have been there for years..Prices have gone up of late but the food is nice...