Somsak Restaurant is another one of Pattaya's very old and well-established Thai restaurants. It is currently — according to Mr. Somsak — at its fourth location in 27 years, having moved to the current location on Soi 1 (north side of the street) only a couple of years ago.
Sometimes, eating at an old restaurant is a good thing... because you get a sense of bygone eras and taste recipes that have been prepared the same way for decades. Other times it is not so good: With Somsak Restaurant, you get the feeling that the last time anybody put some effort into maintaining this restaurant was 10 or 15 years ago. The menus are tattered, the paint is faded, and the entire restaurant just seems worn out.
The food, however, is very good, and Mr. Somsak is an enjoyable host... albeit he seemed a bit overworked and distracted on this particular evening. (What I described above about the restaurant being "tired" does not mean that it doesn't have a good amount of customers.)
The principal reason we came to Somsak, however, was for one very special item: Fried ice cream. Apparently, Mr. Somsak takes a scoop of ice cream, dips it into some thick cake batter, and then throws it into a deep fryer for a few seconds. The ice cream doesn't melt, but the dough cooks through and through. It was a novel dessert, most certainly, and it really tasted very good.Overall though, the restaurant is really not high up on my list of places worth visiting. Before they moved to their current location (a move that Stan was unaware of beforehand), they had been located across the street on top of a rather magical looking building, serving food admidst tropical greenery and a freely-roaming tucan. Knowing what has gone before, the new space (without the bird) just doesn't compare — fried ice cream or not.
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