Cabbages & Condoms Restaurant Review

Pattaya's prettiest restaurant.











(Thank you to Cabbages & Condoms
for the use of their photos: Visiting
the restaurant at night, most of the
landscape and garden photos I got too
dark, and I wanted you all to see how
spectacular this place really is.)




I think it is safe to say that everybody has heard about Cabbages & Condoms: The restaurant founded by former Minister of Health, Mechai Viravaidya, as a way to raise funds for his personally-funded birth control programs and AIDS education and awareness efforts in Thailand. With several C&C restaurants spread around Thailand, and the dedication and success that Khun Mechai has had in lowering birth rates and AIDS cases in Thailand, condoms have been lovingly nicknamed "Mechai" in the Thai language.

Cabbages & Condoms restaurant is located in the Birds & Bees Resort hotel, located on Soi 4 of Pratumnak Road. (Travel on Thappraya Road between Pattaya and Jomtien, and at the top of the hill, across from Mata Hari restaurant, turn onto Pratumnak road, go past 3 or 4 roads on your left until you see Soi 4 (and the Cabbages & Condoms sign) and turn left. Go all the way down to the bottom of the hill, and it will be the nice driveway entrance on your right.)

It really is very easy to write this restaurant review and not say a thing about the food. I could start with the resort instead: The lush tropical jungle, the manicured gardens, the whimsical and tongue-in-cheek anti-government signs posted around the grounds ("Don't steal, the government doesn't like competition"), the ponds and streams and fountains and pools, the private villas, oceanside bungalows, and wonderfuly decorated rooms (ranging from $75 to $180 per night for rooms, and up to $360 per night for suites)... it's simply fantastic.

The restaurant, which is reached by a long walk through the jungle grounds, is a monstrous, sprawling teakwood structure perched on — and continuing down — the hill overlooking the resort's private beach. It has 5 levels of covered and uncovered decking which in size makes this one of Pattaya's largest restaurants. However, with the decks built around the trees (so that it seems that not a single tree was cut down in the restaurant's construction), the scattershot arrangement of the decks, and the placement of plants, fountains, ponds, and stairs, it is possible for hundreds of people to be eating in the restaurant, and yet give everyone a sense of being in a much smaller place. Even the bathrooms, occupying the lowest level of the restaurant, are adorable with pretty bamboo work, and open windows looking out onto the ocean, and fish swimming in a tank. Not a single opportunity to impress, not a single detail has been missed in this restaurant. It is simply beautiful.

The food? It is fine. Quite good even. The menu is primarily mainstream Thai dishes, although there are most of the standby Western favorites for the less adventurous. The best part is that it's quite inexpensive: Most of the Thai entreés are in the 200 baht ($6) range, with the larger and more top-shelf dishes (filet mignon, grilled seabass) in the 300-400 baht ($9-12) range. Soups, appetizers, sandwiches, and other light fare are in the 75-150 baht ($2-4) range. I had crab cakes, broccoli soup, and a chicken breast which were all great. Stan had chicken satay as an appetizer, and steak as per usual, which he said were great. Jeff and Epril both had fish and chips, which they also said was great. We had 2 bottles of wine for 1,500 baht ($40) each plus a round of cocktails. Jeff and I each had dessert: Jeff had a sundae, and I had mango and hot sticky rice covered in sweetened condensed milk. (If you have never had that traditional Thai dessert before, I cannot recommend it highly enough.)

The total bill for the 4 of us was about 2,100 baht ($60) for the food, and 3,500 baht ($100) for the drinks. We left a 400 baht ($12) tip, as the service was good: Not as polished as you find in some of Pattaya's fancier restaurants, but the staff were attentive, had a fair grasp of English, and didn't make any mistakes. (That seems like a cheap tip to people who haven't been to Thailand before, but tipping isn't customary in Thailand, so leaving any tip at all is generous, and a 10% tip is more than acceptable to Thai restaurant staff.)

It's really quite simple to sum up Cabbages & Condoms restaurant: If you have people visiting from out of town, if you want a quiet romantic dinner, or if you have a large party, then you should go to Cabbages & Condoms. It should be at the very top of every person's list for restaurants... for places... that every person should visit while in Pattaya.