Restaurant reviews in Pattaya and Bangkok

[SirL]

38 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

I always assumed that the extra payment got you a fuller plate rather than a larger plate,......Wont say any more about this though as the topic has moved on.

All I wanted was exactly what was shown in that publicity shot, on a visibly larger plate, which I didn't get, and it appears is never served to the people paying B299.  Can we leave RH behind now please?

 

31 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

Would the same size plate really be 39B in Pier 21? I've eaten there and it's fine, but I dont remember the servings being unusually huge. If it really is the same size serving then 125B would be too much here for me.

I'm not suggesting either the Pier21 servings or that So's Place one were unusually huge.  I'd say both are par for the course size-wise, which is why I think B125 at So's P is a bit high but I'm not complaining much.  I'd normally be expecting to give 7, 8 or 9 for value to these little Thai roadside places, but I only gave So's P 6 for value.

I had a more delicate Japanese lunch today, which will appear here tomorrow, which was a bit small though that's OK for me just now.  I'm feeling a bit delicate.

[soi16]

Paprika in this dish is it a MUST minimum 2 different colors.

Some Thai places add only onion and that is it!

 

[Sticky Fingers]

This is 60+10 Baht at my favourite "roadside" just on the other side of Third Road. It's a big serve and I always demolish the food!

[baddog666]

6 hours ago, SirL said:

So's Place                                       Food: B125

A friendly little street restaurant with all the standard Thai classics at reasonable prices

I'm not feeling my best right now. I've got something in my throat and nose from a dirty a/c somewhere, and I'm feeling a bit pumpui from too many AYCEs, so I'm playing it smaller and simple to eat.

So's Place is a small roadside restaurant around the back of The Avenue shopping centre. It's a likeable place, with friendly staff and good music (Eric Clapton, ZZ Top, mixed blues) playing. One of the waitresses, named May (not in pic below), looks good and has a cute ass. Although she's a little large for my taste, she'll have more than her fair share of admirers.

 

The green blob is in slightly the wrong position here.  So's Place is actually on the SE side of Soi 15, not right inside the Avenue Centre.

The menu is much the same as last time I was here, all the standard Thai classics at reasonable prices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just had chicken and cashew nuts, which was tasty and good.

 

 

Food taste: 6/10 Good tasty standard version of this classic.

Value for money: 6/10 Is B125 a little high for chicken and cashews in these sort of roadside places? I have the idea B80 or B100 is the par price, but I'm not sure of current prices.  If the exact same thing were sold in Pier21, it would be priced B39 and someone would say that was too cheap for a review.

Would I return? Yes certainly. So's Place is close to my condo and it's a nice place to visit. Who cares about the odd B25 or B45 the chicken & cashews may be high? It's a small friendly place, and a bit of a tip will get you recognition on future visits.

I like So's ... first discovered it a few years back while I was staying at Areca/Evergreen .  So is a great cook and very friendly . I don't feel the prices are out of line..... the portions are good, the ingredients are fresh and always cooked to order.

The funny thing is, it's not exactly a restaurant ( only ) , not exactly a beer bar ( only )... but tries to be both.

 

 

[SirL]

5 hours ago, Sticky Fingers said:

This is 60+10 Baht at my favourite "roadside" just on the other side of Third Road. It's a big serve and I always demolish the food!

Looks good (value)!  Can you give precise details of where this is please?

I want to go to Steak 9 on 3rd Rd soon, which looks great value as well.  But I can't go everywhere immediately and I've got to be still delivering good ideas in a month's time!   (pressure)

 

2 hours ago, baddog666 said:

I like So's ... first discovered it a few years back while I was staying at Areca/Evergreen .  So is a great cook and very friendly . I don't feel the prices are out of line..... the portions are good, the ingredients are fresh and always cooked to order.

Yes there's a lot to like about So's, and others will have a better idea than me on current pricing around town of a chicken + cashews.

 

I've spotted that my pic of the So's chicken + cashews wasn't all that helpful because it may have made it appear very large.  I'll try to include a knife or fork or some familiar object in food pics from now on, to give a size perspective.  Sorry.

[KittenKong]

7 hours ago, SirL said:

I've spotted that my pic of the So's chicken + cashews wasn't all that helpful because it may have made it appear very large.  I'll try to include a knife or fork or some familiar object in food pics from now on, to give a size perspective.

Looking at the picture carefully, the size of the individual cashew nuts make me suspect that the dish was actually quite small. Chicken breast is the cheapest meat available in Thailand that I know of: currently under 50B per kilo in Makro. Cashews are more expensive, but you dont normally get many in a dish like that.

[Kreggerz]

I find So's So So. Nothing really special. The atmosphere is more bar like than I like in a restaurant. Have had some major issues there like the laab being served without roasted rice powder. 

[SirL]

1 hour ago, KittenKong said:

Looking at the picture carefully, the size of the individual cashew nuts make me suspect that the dish was actually quite small. Chicken breast is the cheapest meat available in Thailand that I know of: currently under 50B per kilo in Makro. Cashews are more expensive, but you dont normally get many in a dish like that.

I'd say it was about an average size portion of chicken + cashews, but my pic did make it look big.  Sorry, I'll try to include a fork or something from now on.  It tasted OK, but the thing that IMO makes So's more attractive than hundreds of similar roadside rests around town is the friendly atmosphere and music, not the food quality or value.  So's is so so, nothing really special.

[SirL]

Someone wondered what I would think of the smoked salmon ("ss") I bought several days ago.  I finally got around to scrambled eggs + smoked salmon at home for breakfast just now today.  (I'm getting more healthy and recovering an appetite)  It was this brand of ss:

Salmon taste: 5/10 Very average, very farmed tasting, no particularly unpleasant taste but I'd be very surprised if anyone chose this in a blind comparative tasting of several ss's.  My wife's sister sent us for Christmas just recently a beautiful side of ss from one of those Scottish free range sort of mail order smokers, and that tasted about 9/10, much much better than this.

Value for money at I think about B150: 5/10 It wasn't a particularly large quantity for the price

Would I buy it again? I hope not.  Can anyone recommend a better smoked salmon that can be bought in a supermarket around Pattaya?

 

[SirL]

Osaka                                               Food: B250

A delicate, correctly cooked lunch box of crispy tempura that was very very Japanese.

Osaka is a small Japanese restaurant halfway along the east side of Tukcom. It would be easy to miss it when walking along as it's so small – the best way to spot it is to look for that orange and black sign high up. My thanks go to the BM here who mentioned it a few weeks ago.

There were no other customers in the restaurant whilst I was in it at about 1.30pm on a weekday. I'd guess that most of the customers were Japanese, and they came mainly in the evenings and at weekends?

The menu is about 20-30 pages long, and includes all the standard Japanese dishes. I aimed for the set meals at the front of the menu as I thought they'd be better value and be combinations including a bit of everything. Unless you know Japanese food well, picking one of these may be best for your first visit.

I chose the Obento C, a set meal with an assortment of tempura and grilled salmon. The tempura included prawn, squid, fish and vegetables.

I was watched throughout my meal by a good woolly cat guarding the front door, who it turned out was called Momo. To me this is a good thing, I like cats. Makes a change from admiring the asses of waitresses?

One thing to note is that in the first instance I only was only given chopsticks to eat with. That's no problem for me, and no doubt some western cutlery would be produced if requested, but it might trouble some guys.

Food taste: 7.5/10. I do know a bit about Japanese food, having got as far as getting engaged to a Japanese girl earlier in life, who taught me a lot. This wasn't complicated Japanese cooking, but the tempura was fresh, obviously very quickly fried as it should be, and brought to me piping hot.

Value for money: 7/10. It was priced about right, but the portion size was, shall we say, Japanese size. It was small, delicate, cooked just right, exactly what a restaurant like this should be and what I'd been wanting and expecting. Maybe not a restaurant to choose if you're a bunch of rugby players feeling very hungry. This restaurant might better suit the lady in your life.

Would I return? Yes, it was just what I wanted at a time I'm not feeling my best, I don't currently want vast AYCE pig-outs. Next time I'd choose one of the set meals again, perhaps the Tonkatsu set. I might have the Obento C again, actually, in a month's time. I'll be going to Yamato soon.

I'm sorry this post is getting attacked by unwanted menu pics below that I don't seem to be able to get rid of.  Please ignore these pics below

 

 

[KittenKong]

20 minutes ago, SirL said:

Can anyone recommend a better smoked salmon that can be bought in a supermarket around Pattaya?

If you go to BigC on Klang you will find several types of smoked salmon.

They sell the one you bought, which I would describe as "standard". I think that one is around 130B for 80g. But for 30-40B more they sell a 100g package of a different brand which I liked a bit more and which I think is better value, though there isnt a lot in it. I eat it as a sandwidh with home baked crusty bread rolls and a bit of salad, and for that it seems fine. It can be found in the section where they slice processed imported meat products to order (ie the deli counter), and it comes in a fairly plain package. Confusingly the Thammachart packs that you bought are in a different location. 

And then in the chilled wall cabinets near the imported cheeses you will find some brands imported from France. These cost a lot more: around 300B. I dont know how much better they are, if at all. I did get a discounted one once, but I cant say that I noticed a huge difference. Back in Europe I used to buy packs for a couple of Euros or less, or around 70B. Very similar taste to the one you bought.

And at Makro you will find frozen smoked salmon trout for about 135B, which is somewhat different and worth a try.

[KittenKong]

I should add that you can find very upmarket imported products in places like Villa Market, and Foodland, and the big Tops supermarket in the basement of Central. Prices are eye-watering and even higher than at BigC.

[SirL]

1 hour ago, KittenKong said:

If you go to BigC on Klang you will find several types of smoked salmon.

They sell the one you bought, which I would describe as "standard". I think that one is around 130B for 80g. But for 30-40B more they sell a 100g package of a different brand which I liked a bit more and which I think is better value, though there isnt a lot in it. I eat it as a sandwidh with home baked crusty bread rolls and a bit of salad, and for that it seems fine. It can be found in the section where they slice processed imported meat products to order (ie the deli counter), and it comes in a fairly plain package. Confusingly the Thammachart packs that you bought are in a different location. 

And then in the chilled wall cabinets near the imported cheeses you will find some brands imported from France. These cost a lot more: around 300B. I dont know how much better they are, if at all. I did get a discounted one once, but I cant say that I noticed a huge difference. Back in Europe I used to buy packs for a couple of Euros or less, or around 70B. Very similar taste to the one you bought.

And at Makro you will find frozen smoked salmon trout for about 135B, which is somewhat different and worth a try.

Thanks.  I'll go back to Big C and have more of a look.  The one I bought was located in fresh fish just next to fresh salmon.  At home in France I often buy the discount Carrefour own brand of ss, which I'd give a 7/10.  Yes, the cheapo one in France is quite a bit better IMO than that one I bought here.

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, SirL said:

I'll go back to Big C and have more of a look.  The one I bought was located in fresh fish just next to fresh salmon. 

Yes, it's very confusing. Different brands of smoked salmon can be found in three completely different places there. I expect that Thammachart has some sort of promotional deal with BigC to put their display in a prominent position.

[SirL]

I swung through Villa Market on the way back from lunch, and they had quite a few smoked salmon in stock

To be honest though, if the game here is essentially the French stuff imported chilled, and at two or three times the price of back home, then I don't think I'll bother for my eight weeks here.  There's lots of Asian food I should be eating here, rather than overpriced stuff I can buy better in my hometown. 

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, SirL said:

To be honest though, if the game here is essentially the French stuff imported chilled, and at two or three times the price of back home, then I don't think I'll bother for my eight weeks here.

There's a reason that on my yearly trip to Europe my luggage weighs 10kg on the way out and 60kg on the way back: it's full of groceries!

Overpriced imported foodstuffs and poor choice of local ones is a big complaint here.

[soi16]

4 hours ago, SirL said:

two or three times the price of back home,

I know 3 home smokers in Pattaya area.

-cold smoked

-warm smoked

-gravad

About 900b/kg.

[SirL]

Wednesday Retox curry special @ The Queen's Arms                          Food (and beer): B149

Too many economies made, so there wasn't much end result

The Queen's Arms is one of the newer Retoxes in the busiest part of soi Buakhao.

I'm trying to be positive in writing this, because I admire the way the Retox group has identified it's pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap MO, and I'd like a business that's so customer-orientated to continue to succeed. 

The green blob here is again slightly wrong as the QA is actually on the SE side of soi Buakhao.

I didn't even look at the menu, so no pics of it, sorry. All I looked at was

and I ordered that curry special that I'd come specially for.

An included beer appeared first

The food arrived fairly quickly. Sorry I forgot to get a fork in this pic, which I wish now I had done (see below). The curry was quite tasty, though a little thin, but it contained only five chunks of chicken. The small pieces of naan were OK in a not risen way, but the poppadum was surprisingly good and melted nicely in my mouth.

The trouble with this special, for me, was that there wasn't much of it. The picture I wish I had taken was this one when it first arrived, showing the depth of curry in the bowl – the curry was only about an inch deep and there'd have been plenty of fork prong visible.

If it's true that Indian food has to be surprisingly expensive in Thailand, then IMO B149 looks like a price point that, in order to hit it, so many economies must be made that the final product IMO ends up being a bit mean. I got far more value out of the B249 Dee Lounge Indian Lunch described in post #43 here several days ago than I did out of this meal, and I'd much prefer to return to Dee Lounge than to a Retox for this special. I'd prefer the Retox group re-design their Indian special to hit the B199 or B249 price point, making things a bit more generous, but I guess maybe a judgement has been made that there's more demand around Buakhao at B149 than there is at a higher price. In re-designing the special, personally I'd have no problem taking out everything but the curry and the naan, in order to have more curry (in particular the chicken itself) and naan.

Food taste 6.5/10 It was OK, but a little thin. It was more like a soup than Chicken Tikka Masala as I know it.  If it's the spices that make Indian food expensive, I wish there were a less perfectionist approach to cooking, omitting a few of the expensive spices, that would create a not-so-high-cost end product. Whatever these expensive spices are, they shouldn't be in it if it means only five chunks of chicken can be included in order to hit the price point. Chicken isn't expensive.

Value for money 6/10 I know it was cheap, but there wasn't much of it and it felt a bit mean.

Would I return? No, not really, sorry. I can't really think of any reason I'd want to put down B149 for this again any time soon. Even on soi Buakhao, I wonder if there are many guys who eat this twice. It sounds as if it sells out quickly, in which case I reckon there are plenty of guys around Buakhao with a different idea of portion size and value from me.

Maybe the fault is mine in expecting too much at a low price.  I think I'll open my wallet wider in the near future for Pattaya restaurants.

[KittenKong]

46 minutes ago, SirL said:

If it's true that Indian food has to be surprisingly expensive in Thailand, then IMO B149 looks like a price point that, in order to hit it, so many economies must be made that the final product IMO ends up being a bit mean. I got far more value out of the B249 Dee Lounge Indian Lunch described in post #43 here several days ago than I did out of this meal, and I'd much prefer to return to Dee Lounge than to a Retox for this special.

Yes, Indian food is generally way overpriced in Pattaya. There's no doubt that bargains, Indian or otherwise, are much more readily available in Bangkok, probably due to extra competition. And the Indian food there is generally much better than it is here. I know myself that when I'm there, with few exceptions, I often pay barely half the price I would pay for a similar meal here.

That said, I think that the price paid for this meal at Retox, which includes a decent beer, is similar to what you would pay in other outlets here for the same thing without a drink. In fact there is a place near me that advertises a "special" of chicken curry, rice and Naan for 200B: that's with no beer and no poppadum. So I think this one is fair value for what it is. When I last had it I found it tasty enough, and there was a suitable amount of the curry for the rice. Of course things may have changed since I last had it. Either way I certainly dont know of anywhere that does anything better for that price.

[Pheat]

1 hour ago, SirL said:

Maybe the fault is mine in expecting too much at a low price.  I think I'll open my wallet wider in the near future for Pattaya restaurants.

Give the Robins Nest Tuesday night Indian Buffet a go 299 B inc a soft drink starts 5.00PM I gave it a go last Tuesday pretty decent for the price the Beef Madras was especially tasty.

[SirL]

On 1/18/2018 at 15:11, KittenKong said:

there was a suitable amount of the curry for the rice. .....

I certainly dont know of anywhere that does anything better for that price.

I think a crucial issue in this is whether you like eating rice, ie whether (a) you pour the sauce over the rice and mix it up, or (b) you mainly ignore the rice and eat the curry direct with the odd mouthful of naan.  I'm (b), so there wasn't much in that curry special for me, but (a)-type curry eaters would find a fair bit of rice in this special to please them.

For B149 yes there seems to be little else in Pattaya, but as I wrote I'd be happy to pay a bit more, say into the mid-200's and I may find some other ideas at that sort of price, keep following.  I think at the Dee Lounge mid-200's level there are places that deliver far more value for money than this Retox special.  I've just returned from Bangkok where I had a Marriott buffet lunch today for B235 with Eatigo that I liked a lot.

 

For Indian food, I will try Robins Nest quite soon.  I want to go to that Chicken Tikka Masala place in the Big C Klang food court (B170 or so?).  I've heard of an Indian buffet for B200 up in Naklua.  Of course many Indian restaurants do thalis at about B200, I like the North Indian thali at Dosa Hut.

[taylor1975]

I had this deal in december at retox soi honey. Food plus bottle of becks for 199. Tasted great to me and a pretty big portion. Photo from their website.

 

[SirL]

I haven't written much on this thread in recent days, because my situation has changed. I doubt I will write frequently on this thread in future.

The main reason I haven't written much is that the lady I had a dim sum date with has turned into a great girlfriend. She's stayed at my condo in Pattaya and I've stayed at her condo in Bangkok, and we're having a great time. She's very very anti-P4P, she'd never take money for sex, so much so that I'm worried that if I write here about any restaurant I go to with her, she might find it on google, associating the real me she knows with SirL on this P4P pattaya-addicts website, which is why writing here about rests I go to with her is not something I'm going to be doing. It would be kind of difficult to explain why I keep on taking photos of things in restaurants, and she's no idiot. I expect I'll be in Bangkok one night a week midweek and she'll be in Pattaya at weekends, which does leave some midweek days for me to do my own thing, so I'm very happy with this part-time girlfriend arrangement. Her partying Pattaya is very different from monger Pattaya, and it's good for me to see a different side to this town.

In terms of me writing on here, I've also come to realise that there's no point me writing about restaurant visits that are middling 6/10 slight disappointments. For me to take ages assembling pics and so on about them actually does no-one much good. However, let's be honest, many Pattaya restaurants are not world class, or even great value bearing in mind their usually low prices, so for the reason they turned out to be just a bit disappointing and boring, I'm now not bothering writing about several of the places I might write about. I can think of three restaurants I've been to recently that fit into this category.  I think expats tend to think more highly of Pattaya restaurants than visitors who know the outside world better, and sometimes expats yearn for food like from home and so love restaurants that sort of produce 6/10 food from their home country.

As well as not writing about boring slight disappointment restaurants, I can see that when I write about a bad time in a restaurant, often someone pops up who likes the place, to suggest that there's something wrong with my approach that has generated the problem. I can't really be bothered with people suggesting my approach is wrong, so it's simpler not to write those negative posts. There's not much reward to me for time spent writing restaurant reviews on here.

All in all there seem to be plenty of reasons not to write the kind of stuff I've been writing on here, which is why I'm writing this to tidy up this open unfinished thread, and to wish all those reading this many tasty restaurant visits in the near future. If anyone else wants to write about restaurants on this thread, please go ahead.

[soi16]

2 hours ago, SirL said:

unfinished threa

You have not been threatened, like mr. Evil was sometime?

[SirL]

1 hour ago, soi16 said:

You have not been threatened, like mr. Evil was sometime?

No, not at all, LOL.  I've a feeling that if Bangkok GF learned I had anything to do with a monger website like this, it would be like signing a death sentence for at least our relationship!  Plus I didn't realise how long each day this stuff would take to write, while there's not much reward for me to write it.

I'd read quite a lot of other people's reviews of Pattaya restaurants before arriving on this trip, and I was expecting their overall standard to be higher - all I'd have to do was turn up to various well-reviewed restaurants and having good base material to write about would be easy.  The reality seems now to me to be that there are many more OK but a bit boring 6/10 restaurants than I'd expected, so I'd actually have to work my way through loads of boring restaurants in order to find good ones worth writing about, if I used more selective criteria.  The trouble is that the restaurants I'm confident would be good, will be ones I'll choose to visit with GF, which doesn't really leave much to write about.  The GF gets the best restaurant ideas.