Friday, April 27, 2007

Daily Report: Cafe New Orleans Restaurant Review

The best steak in Pattaya.


Cafe New Orleans on Soi
Pattayaland 2 is definitely
a great restaurant.
Cafe New Orleans is Pattaya's official cajun/creole restaurant, located on the corner where Soi Pattayaland 3 intersects with Soi Pattayaland 2. It's a lovely little restaurant that I would put somewhere in the lower end of the high-end restaurants: The prices aren't expensive (but not cheap by any means), the staff is competent (but not astoundingly so), the decor is very nice (but not over-the-top fancy), and the food is original, of very high quality, and prepared well.

It was just Stan and I for dinner tonight. I have eaten at Cafe New Orleans before, and can tell you that the crab cakes are the best you can get in Pattaya... if not all of Thailand.


The jambalaya, which is a cajun
African recipe from Louisiana.
Tonight, since I was in a cajun restaurant, and planning on writing a review, I decided to try the jambalaya. For those of you who don't know, jambalaya is at least 2 meats, usually one being a chorizo sausage; celery, onion, and green peppers; a tomato base sauce; served on a bed of seasoned rice. I had the chicken, pork, and chorizo jambalaya for 295 baht, which was served in its own skillet. I liked it just fine, though being a bit of an experiment (I've only had the dish once prior), I couldn't really tell you jambalaya afficionados out there whether it was a great jambalaya or not.


The steak at Cafe New Orleans
wins the coveted "Best Steak
In Pattaya" award from Stan.
Stan had the steak, ordered with the "extra thick" option for 750 baht. Stan — after doing the same thing at The Balcony just 2 weeks ago — declared the steak to be the best steak in Pattaya... beating out both The Balcony and The Longhorn Steakhouse. So, that's that, as far as Stan is concerned: If you want steak in Pattaya, go to Cafe New Orleans.

So all in all, a very good meal at Cafe New Orleans, with a nice price range: I had the jambalaya and a vodka and got out for less than 500 baht; Stan had the steak and 2 glasses of wine for 1,200 baht. Enjoyable and definitely recommended.

(After dinner, it was off with Stan to TQ2 to meet up with Alf, Franky Of The Comments Section, Patrick formerly of Angelwitch, Wood, and my TQ2 girlfriends Ahm and Kung.)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Whatever happened to the former owner of the cafe, Murray Hertz? I heard he had a falling out with his co-partner, and Murray left the country, perhaps back to Manila or Las Vegas where he and his daughters continue to publish that Las Vegas monthly magazine.

Jil Wrinkle said...

Stan and I were having the same conversation.

Burger Bob used to be a manager at Planet Rock back in the day, and the owner of Planet Rock is the same as Cafe New Orleans. The guy is a fellow named Steve Burke, a retired lawyer from California.

Murray used to be his business partner but apparently there was some serious falling out between the two, and now Steve owns the business on his own.