Under 300 Baht ... And Mediocre (updated 2020)

[Taa_Saparot]

16 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

Bland, bland, bland.

In a nutshell.

Two visits was enough for me.

[Taa_Saparot]

16 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

 It seems to me that the food and service at the Chunky Monkey has gone down steadily since it opened.  In the beginning, the food was good and the staff friendly.  Not so last night.  The server literally threw down the menu on my table without a word of greeting or a smile, then came back 30 seconds later and asked, "What you want?"

Again, totally agree.

In fact, I would say that its been the norm in all of Robins establishments.

Some say he is a hard taskmaster but my experience is after the first few weeks of opening, his eye comes of the ball completely, and the staff are allowed to take over.

[Kreggerz]

Thanks for the warnings.

This monkey will be getting more chunky elsewhere.

[likeaking]

"The food is mediocre but at least they give you a lot of it.", no thanks.

[Evil Penevil]

23 hours ago, taylor1975 said:

despite it being on the menu, you are ordering a meal that gets cooked sporadically. With such a massive menu, the outcome is obvious, i would have thought.  

I don't know what you mean with "cooked sporadically."  It may be ordered sporadically, but that isn't necessarily tied directly to how it's prepared or cooked.  I doubt any restaurant makes meatloaf from scratch when customers order it.  Meatloaf is the sort of dish that can be prepared  and mostly cooked ahead of time, then finished in the oven just before serving.  I imagine that's what happens at CM.

CM is a busy restaurant with several hundred covers a day,  It's not unreasonable to think they might have three or four orders for it a day.  That would mean they would need to make one loaf a day.  Even if it isn't a much ordered item, why would that affect its preparation?

Quote

If you're a person concerned about seasoning, should you be going here lol? order chicken & chips or something. 

No, I shouldn't be going there and I won't anymore unless things change.  I doubt very much the chicken & chips would be any better seasoned than the other menu items.  I do think it is fair to give a restaurant several chances before writing it off, especially a popular one.

 

19 hours ago, CuppaTea said:

CM must be the Envy of heaps of places due to the simple fact that its always busy.

Pile the plate high and do it so cheap is obviously what many many people want.

Portion size and price tend to trump taste and quality in restaurants all over the world, not just Pattaya.  Some of the popularity of cheap restaurants  may be due to economic necessity, i.e., the diners can't afford better.  But for the most part,  the diners probably LIKE the sort of food the CM and its counterparts serve because they've eaten it all their lives and it's become the norm for them.

If  a diner's benchmark of culinary excellence is a transport café or neighborhood greasy spoon, then it's not hard to understand he would like the CM.

10 hours ago, Taa_Saparot said:

Again, totally agree.

In fact, I would say that its been the norm in all of Robins establishments.

Some say he is a hard taskmaster but my experience is after the first few weeks of opening, his eye comes of the ball completely, and the staff are allowed to take over.

The Thai cooks who make farang food need a lot of guidance.  Most have never eaten farang food and don't know how it should taste. The owner or another employee familiar with farang food  has to be on site for quality control.   

I know of several cases where farang owners who ran tight ships were forced  to stay away from their restaurants for a few weeks because of illness or a family emergency abroad.  When they returned, they'd lost a lot of business because the staff had slacked off so much with food preparation and service.

Evil

Edited January 27, 2019 by Evil Penevil

[Taa_Saparot]

15 minutes ago, Evil Penevil said:

The Thai cooks who made farang food need a lot of guidance.  Most have never eaten farang food and don't know how it should taste. The owner or another employee familiar with farang food  has to be on site for quality control.   

I know of several cases where farang owners who ran tight ships were forced  to stay away from their restaurants for a few weeks because of illness or a family emergency abroad.  When they returned, they'd lost a lot of business because the staff had slacked off so much with food preparation and service.

Its been noticeable from the Employees Wanted Notice outside the Restaurant, that he has been struggling to hire Cooks.

[taylor1975]

4 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

Portion size and price tend to trump taste and quality in restaurants all over the world, not just Pattaya.  Some of the popularity of cheap restaurants  may be due to economic necessity, i.e., the diners can't afford better.  But for the most part,  the diners probably LIKE the sort of food the CM and its counterparts serve because they've eaten it all their lives and it's become the norm for them.

If  a diner's benchmark of culinary excellence is a transport café or neighborhood greasy spoon, then it's not hard to understand he would like the CM.

Stick to reviewing food, not the people or their lack of interest in such menial tasks as eating. Guzzle down a few protein shakes and you'd really have something to talk about lol

[Taa_Saparot]

Word on the street says, that Chunky Monkey has been sold to Indians.

[fforest]

53 minutes ago, Taa_Saparot said:

Word on the street says, that Chunky Monkey has been sold to Indians.

Noooooooooooooooooooo

[Taa_Saparot]

On 12/02/2019 at 13:37, Taa_Saparot said:

Word on the street says, that Chunky Monkey has been sold to Indians.

If it was true, would they have not taken the 'For Sale' sign down ?

[fforest]

51 minutes ago, Taa_Saparot said:

If it was true, would they have not taken the 'For Sale' sign down ?

The prices will go up now.....

[Pheat]

1 hour ago, fforest said:

The prices will go up now.....

If the CM put their beer prices up by 5 Baht they will lose 90% of their customers .

[Taa_Saparot]

47 minutes ago, Pheat said:

If the CM put their beer prices up by 5 Baht they will lose 90% of their customers .

Really, I don't see much beer drinking going on at all.

[Pheat]

3 minutes ago, Taa_Saparot said:

Really, I don't see much beer drinking going on at all.

All the tables outside most punters are drinking beers every time I walk past which is almost every day.

 

[jimboh]

Had breakfast(249Baht) at Holland Tulip on Khao Talo, the bacon was overcooked and brittle, eggs poached perfectly, hash brown came on a slice of toast and also a basket of toast, with 2 slices, asked for whole wheat and got it. As it was a total of 3 slices of toast, I had to ask for another one of those plastic cartons of butter, as the one provided only covered one and a half slices of toast. Meal came with a small glass of that horrible orange juice and a cup of tea. Up to this point, I was not impressed with breakfast but thinking I will give it another try. Place is nice, stay good. Then I checked bin and noticed it was 259B, they charged me 10 B extra for the butter, bit of a rip off. At this point, I should have requested a 10 B refund for the unused jam portion.

Wont be back. 

[Evil Penevil]

This may not be new, but Jolly's no longer seems to offer a Sunday carvery  buffet.  The restaurant and the Piss Stop Bar have had a checkered past due the major, major legal problems of the husband-and-wife owners. It doesn't get more serious than being sentenced to death. The food had gotten atrocious in the wake of all the hassles and the restaurant was closed for months.  Apparently it's being operated by the family of the wife and old staff.  The menu and specials haven't changed, but the carvery is gone.  I just hope the food has gotten better, but I'm not brave enough to try it again.

[Taa_Saparot]

7 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

This may not be new, but Jolly's no longer seems to offer a Sunday carvery  buffet.  The restaurant and the Piss Stop Bar have had a checkered past due the major, major legal problems of the husband-and-wife owners. It doesn't get more serious than being sentenced to death. The food had gotten atrocious in the wake of all the hassles and the restaurant was closed for months.  Apparently it's being operated by the family of the wife and old staff.  The menu and specials haven't changed, but the carvery is gone.  I just hope the food has gotten better, but I'm not brave enough to try it again.

 

Been totally dead, every time I pass nowadays.

[Evil Penevil]

 

Portofino is a new Italian restaurant and pizzeria that occupies what had once been half of Jameson's Irish Pub.  It started serving customers on March 1. It has an open kitchen and the interior has been nicely done up.

The pic below comes from Jameson's  FB.  I was at Portofino on March 4 and there were 12 guests scattered across the restaurant.  It was by no means full, but busier than I had expected.  I ordered a pizza and salad for take away and while I waited, several other people picked up pizzas.

I ordered the prosciutto crudo pizza (Parma ham, mushrooms. mozzarella)  and a Greek salad for  take away.  The pizza was 295 baht and the salad 195 baht. 

 

The pizza had good quality toppings, although the sauce was a bit sweet and lacked seasoning.  Pizza wasn't baked enough for me.  The crust was too soft and chewy. Since there was a decent char on the upper edge of the pizza but almost none on the bottom of the crust, the oven probably wasn't hot enough.

There an old joke, sometimes attributed to Mel Brooks, to the effect that "Pizza is like sex; even when it's bad, it's still pretty good." I've never agreed with that sentiment.  Anyone who believes it has been lucky enough in life to avoid both bad pizza and bad sex.  My personal simile regarding pizza and sex would be "I'm happy as long as I occasionally get a good piece."  It's also easier to find good sex in Pattaya than good pizza.

The pizza I had wasn't bad, just mediocre and certainly not worth 295 baht. The big letdown came from the Greek salad. I'm not going to get into sexual word plays on Greek and salad, but there was nothing Greek about my salad.  It was an abbreviated garden salad, heavy on strips of sweet pepper, with three cubes of feta cheese and a couple of black olives.  No oregano or lemon juice, very few pieces of tomato or cucumber.   

Bottom line:  I won't be back to Portofino. There are many, many better places in Pattaya.

 In case anyone wants to visit for some strange reason, here's a map of the location:

and a photo of the food menu:

Evil

Edited March 7, 2019 by Evil Penevil

[onehunglo]

On 30 September 2018 at 14:15, Evil Penevil said:

Eatigo discount reflected this

i had the same breakfast but with no discount , felt the same you felt , very ordinary

[onehunglo]

On 12 February 2019 at 20:37, Taa_Saparot said:

Word on the street says, that Chunky Monkey has been sold to Indians.

happy hour 55baht chang and a free suit

[semi-retired member]

Ate several times last month, at the Chunky Monkey, it was the usual inexpensive but acceptable food, and a few of the prices were up from B99 to B129.  Often busy, which is important, if they are to survive.

Better than Cheap Charlie's anyway, where the service was sometimes ragged, the boss (whoever they are) should tell the ladyboy waitress that scowling & ignoring customers doesn't earn tips, also some menu-items not yet available, perhaps it will settle-down once they've been running for another month or two ?  Or perhaps not.

Seaside Restaurant on Soi Chaiyapoon continues to be reliable, good-value & good food, with a smile and a welcome to all their regulars.

Edited April 3, 2019 by semi-retired member

[Evil Penevil]

The Hungry Hippo is the most recent of the "big three" budget restaurants to open on a short stretch of Soi Buakhao, the other two being the Chunky Monkey and Cheap Charlie's. It's also the latest project of an experienced restaurateur who had started and flipped the Chunky Monkey.

In fact, he almost replicated the Chunky Monkey (but in smaller premises) a couple of hundred meters down the street from the original.  

 The Hungry Hippo uses the same bargain-priced  menu and the food tastes the same as it did at the CM. If you liked the CM under Robin's ownership, you won't encounter any surprises at the HH. The opposite is also true.  If you disliked the old CM, the HH won't change your opinion. One significant difference: the  surly service  has improved from the waning days before the Chunky Monkey changed ownership.  The waitresses at the Hungry Hippo were friendly and attentive.

Like its simian predecessor, the Hippo is clean and well-lit; the AC keeps the interior cool but not arctic cold. The background music is played at a blessedly low volume. Those are all important factors for me and can't be taken for granted in Pattaya.  It's a comfortable place to have a meal.  Unfortunately, the meal I had wasn't very good.

I tried the Friday daily special for 129 baht:  two eggs, ham and a choice or potatoes, British-style chips or bubble and squeak, which is mashed, boiled or roasted potatoes fried with cabbage and other vegetables.  It's basically a tasty way of using leftovers. I chose the bubble and squeak.

The special also came with a portion of raw salad that was mostly shredded cabbage and carrots topped with a slice of tomato and three slices of cucumber.

The salad and fried eggs were OK, but the ham and bubble and squeak plunged the meal into the mediocre category.  The slices of standard wet-cured ham were commendably large and thick. However, they were served not lukewarm or at room temperature, but straight-out-of-the-fridge stone cold.  How much effort could it have taken to have given the ham slices a quick turn on the griddle? The bubble and squeak was in name only; it seemed to consist of chopped leftover fried potatoes or even chopped chips mixed with side vegetables but no cabbage. It lacked the proper flavor and consistency. Much of the flavor in traditional bubble and squeak comes from the fat used for frying, usually meat drippings. bacon fat or duck or goose fat if you want to get fancy. The HH's version had seen none of them.

I have realistic expectations about the type of farang food you'll get for 129 baht and am fully aware I won't be scaling any culinary heights at that price.  However. cheap dishes should at least be acceptable in terms of taste. This wasn't.  I took an order of chilli con carne and rice (109 baht) home with me. 

It wasn't Tex-Mex chilli con carne by any stretch.  Remember, despite the name in Spanish, chilli con carne is NOT a Mexican dish. The HH's version lacked any of the spices associated with chilli con carne (cumin, oregano, garlic powder, etc.) and seemed to be a mixture of minced beef and chopped onion with a few kidney beans thrown in. It was mouth-blistering spicy due to an extra heavy dose of cayenne pepper; otherwise, it was flavorless.  I couldn't eat it.  I had to wonder if anyone in Pattaya could enjoy that concoction. Any dish that's inedible isn't worth the money, it's a waste no matter how low the price.

I don't eat a Western breakfast very often these days, but friends who do tell me the 99-baht English breakfat special is OK.  They say it's comparable to the no-longer-offered Baht Buster breakfast at Retox on Soi Lengkee.  Don't shoot the messenger!  I'm only conveying the opinion of others.  I never had breakfast at either place.

There are several other cheap breakfast options on the menu as well ...

and plenty of specials ...

Drink prices, especially bottled beer, are low at HH.  Small bottles of beer go for 50 and 55 baht, while large bottles (620 ml) of Singha, Chang and Leo cost 79 baht.  That's very competitive even for the Soi Buakhao area.

Bottom line:  The Hungry Hippo is a cheap and cheerful place to have a beer and people watch when sitting outdoors. But in terms of food, the only description can be cheap and mediocre or worse.

The location, physical setup and prices for booze give the Hungry Hippo a lot of potential. The massive menu needs to be trimmed and the cooks trained in how to properly prepare a narrower range of farang favorites. Everyone loves a bargain, myself included, but the food has to hold a reasonable standard.

I've included a few excerpts from the Hungry Hippo's 23-page (!) menu.

Evil

[Petesie]

Excellent thread just read, starters to entrees. 

Great quips, cold chips and all.

 

[Petesie]

These days I find in Patts that consistency is the one thing that's missing from the menu. 

This is a particular trait amongst the well trafficked Buakhow eateries.

The Hideaway bar & guesthouse in Soi 15 is one that has escaped mainly due to the hands on approach by Big Andy the owner. This is one place the teerak has no issues with Thai food at; a wee smile is instantly on her face if I mention going there.

When she's grumpy I often take her there for a happy meal. 

[Petesie]

I used to regularly go to 18 coins, then Jocky's, then the Coins before they were moved on.

Good honest fare, good value and great service...these days that seems to be lacking in many places.

For those who opt for the Central mall I would recommend Black Canyon.

Excellent coffee, frappes etc. but the food is good and...consistent. Another fave of the teerak.