Hans Restaurant Review

Hans is located on Third Road south
of Excite, and North of Buffalo Bar.

A light bite of turkey wrapped around
a gherkin with melon balls.

Seafood appetizer on avocado.

Lobster bisque.

Salmon under hollandaise, on avocado.

Carrot salad with raisins and peppers.

Roast duck with Grand Marnier sauce.

Beef goulash.

Coq au vin.

Grouper with almonds.

Sirloin steak.

Creme bruleé.Tonight, Stan and his "maid" (he's all but dropped the pretense now... she is his new girlfriend) Lee, Jeff and his lady friend Lee, and me and Epril went to fairly new restaurant on Third Road, called Hans. It's about 200 feet north of the Buffalo Bar... almost in the same parking lot, but not quite. It is upscale dining with a combination of safe-choice recipes, and a few bits of nouveau cuisine here and there.

It's a very pretty restaurant really, and that is saying a lot, considering that the place is decorated in what should naturally be a garish bright red and white, with grey accents. But somehow, instead of looking like a highschool cheerleader exploded all over the walls, it is a very fetching dining room.

We had a round of cocktails for starters, with vodka mixers coming in at 170 baht, and Jeff ordered 2 bottles of an Australian Chiraz at about 1,100 baht each. Maid Lee had a margarita for 210 baht. Wine by the glass is 190 baht... but Hans' wine list is extensive, and you can go all the way from a low of 800 baht per bottle up to 5,000 baht per bottle, depending on your palate and budget.

We started off with an amuse bouche of turkey breast wrapped around a gherkin sitting on top of a bit of mayonnaise, and 2 melon balls. The dish could have done with something other than mayonnaise. There was also freshly-baked bread with a wonderful spread made from butter with garlic and paprika mixed in.

For appetizers, Stan had an avocado and seafood dish for 295 baht, which he enjoyed; Jeff had a lobster bisque for 195 baht, which he said was fine; and I had a Norwegian salmon over avocado covered with a hollandaise sauce for 175 baht, which I didn't like. The dish sounded interesting, but the mushy avocado with the mushy salmon and the mushy hollandaise sauce was a bad texture, and the fish flavor didn't mix with the hollandaise as well as I thought it would.

Next, we had salads. Jeff had a Ceasar salad, and I had a neat little carrot salad with raisins soaked in a vinaigrette for 90 baht, which really was quite nice.

For entreés: Maid Lee had the duck breast in a Grand Marnier sauce for 375 baht, which she enjoyed; I tried a bite of is and found it to be excellent. Stan had the 200 gram sirloin steak for 545 baht, which he said was perfectly acceptable. Jeff's Lee had pork medallions for 295 baht, which were fine. Jeff had the grouper (315 baht), also good. Epril had the coq au vin for 365 baht, which she said was good. I tried one of the chef's specialties , a beef goulash for 395 baht, which I thought was quite nice, although it seemed a hearty dish more suited to an Aspen ski lodge than a fine dining atmosphere.

For dessert, there was strawberry ice cream, a very nice creme bruleé, and chocolate mousse, all of which were fine, but not the best examples you could find of each in Pattaya.

We had a couple of complaints about this restaurant. First, the service was very slow. That's not my complaint, but is Jeff's: We arrived at 7:15 and left at 10:30. I suppose that 3 hours and 15 minutes for cocktails, appetizers, salads, entreés and desserts was a little long. While I'm a patient diner, others are not... and the girls were definitely fidgety.

My personal critique is that the prices were a little bit high. I'm not too price sensitive when it comes to dining, and while I have no idea what the cost of the imported ingredients that went into food we ate may have been, my nearly-400 baht plate of goulash seemed high, and Epril's 365-baht chicken dish seemed a little expensive as well. Dinner for the 6 of us with 2 bottles of wine came out to about 8000 baht. (The three couples received separate checks this evening, and I only saw 2 of the 3 checks, so I'm estimating the cost to within about 500 baht.)

Hans is a good restaurant, but I feel that the nouveau cuisine dishes I tried (such as the salmon appetizer) weren't that tasty. But: Dishes like that are indeed experimental, with chefs trying for months and years to find incredibly tasty but strange combinations of ingredients to amaze the palate. Sometimes (in some people's opinions) they fail, and that's not a terribly bad thing, as indeed effort does count in dishes like that. However, going to the top shelf restaurants in Pattaya, like Casa Pascal, you find their nouveau cuisine is a lot more exotic and tasty.

Hans' service is not as good as other restaurants in its class. Symphony Brassiere has great staff, and the speed with which the dishes came out of the kitchen there (when that restaurant had more diners in it) was quicker. It could be that Hans was pacing itself and keeping a dignified and leisurely pace to our dining experience... but it was slow. Also, having to do a "stage whisper" across the dining room to get a waiter's attention is something that doesn't happen in the better restaurants: In those places, the moment a patron has "wandering eyes", a waiter immediately comes running.

Hans' prices are higher than some similar restaurants. Flamboyant in Jomtien is still the best fine dining value... probably in all of Thailand. Yes, I'm sure Flamboyant is cutting corners, or skimping on ingredients, or something to keep prices down... but the important part is that you can't tell. In Casa Pascal, you may pay through the nose for your food, but you're eating truffles in champagne sauce.

Hans is a fine dining restaurant in this very small city that is filled with a dozen-or-so other fine dining restaurants of an equivalent level, plus 5 or 6 more 6-star world-class restaurants, and 2 or 3 dozen not-as-good-but-still-great classy little joints (Café New Orleans springs immediately to mind) that can at times stand toe-to-toe with their fancier superiors.

It is simply becoming a difficult market to stand out in. I can recommend Hans restaurant to the dining adventurers such as myself. For people who like to try lots of different restaurants: Put Hans on your list. However, for those of you who don't dine out very often, or are faithful to a single venue, or aren't in Pattaya for a long period of time, Hans probably shouldn't be your first choice.

Nordic Garden Restaurant Review

Nordic Garden Restaurant is about
halfway down Soi 4 of Pratumnak
Road on the left.

Plenty of parking, and very quiet.

Epril, Stan, Geoff, and Honey Mae.

The garden setting is quite nice.

The buffet is small but tasty.This particular restaurant was a total stab in the dark. As a matter of fact, none of us even knew the name of the place before we got there. You see, as we were driving down the road to go eat at Cabbages & Condoms two weeks ago, Stan noticed a nice little restaurant on the left. A few days later, as Stan was talking to a friend of his about Cabbages & Condoms, that friend remarked on "another nice little place down that same road on the left." That cinched it for us: We had to give it a try.

What we discovered was the Nordic Garden Restaurant, a lovely little courtyard open-air restaurant with pools, waterfalls, trees, plants, live music, and a Friday-night, all-you-can-eat steak plus food buffet for 300 baht. It is basically the same principle as Captain's Quarter, but smaller, less expensive, and much better. (For those of you who want the best buffet in town without the all-you-can-eat steak, turn to White Night.) On nights other than Friday, they serve a regular menu, but I can't really speak to that.

For dinner, it was Jeff and Lee, Geoff and Honey Mae, Stan, Epril, and me. We sat in a nice little sala next to the pool, and then made our way over to the buffet.

The steak was simply great... nice and tender. There was a sweet bar-be-que sauce, or a pepper sauce to go with the freshly-grilled steak — beef, pork, or chicken. The buffet was a tad small, offering only 3 main courses, 2 soups, potatoes, rice, salad, fruit, bread, and 1 dessert. However: The main courses were excellent. There was a pork loin in one of the nicest gravies I've had in a while; there was chicken breast wrapped around asparagus, carrots, and potatoes in a light orange sauce, which was my personal favorite; and there were vegetables in a sweet and sour sauce. The entrees on the buffet were so good that I only had 2 small pieces of steak before spending the rest of my time eating off of the buffet. (Epril, on the other hand, a true carnivore, stuck close to the grill.)

There really isn't more to the restaurant or the meal than that; but what else do you need? For 300 baht, you can gorge yourself on steak which at other restaurants would cost you 2 or 3 times as much, if not more. If you're not a fan of steak, you have a very nice buffet served in a very nice setting. It's nothing overly special, but then again when you think about it: It is.

Dao Cafe Restaurant and GoGo Review

Paradise In The Suburbs.



There are a few instances in life where the guys in the suburbs of Pattaya have it better than those fellows who choose to spend their time solely between Sukhumvit and Beach Road. The Dao Cafe is one of those instances.

For those of you in the know, the Dao Cafe is the suburban French version of Pattaya's German-flavored Jade House in Jomtien Nivate... and quite a bit nicer. For those of you not in the know, Dao Cafe is...
(1) a restaurant
(2) a bar
(3) a pool
(4) a guest house / hotel
(5) a massage and spa facility
(6) a short-time gogo bar

To sum it all up, (1) the pizza at this place is among the best served in Pattaya... and about 100 baht less per pie than it's nearest competitor, (2) the bar serves beers for 50-60 baht and mixed drinks for 65-80 baht, (3) the pool is free to use if you are a customer and is one of the nicest pools you could hope to find in such a small space, (4) the guest house rooms are very very nice, (5) the spa offers a full range of services, and (6) the short-time gogo bar is filled with pretty girls who have a short-time bar fine price that is comparible to or less than Soi 6 prices.

Before you ask: I didn't make it to the GoGo bar... I just stuck my head in, looked around, and then came back home to read the review other people had posted. (Here is a restaurant review somebody else wrote. Here is another.)

First off, you have to find the place. You can either go up Soi Khao Noi (if you don't know where that is, give up now) until you get to Chatkaew Village, and turn left, and then drive up the hill until you see the place on your left, or you can drive up Soi Nerm Pleubwan, and just before you get to the gas station on your right, you drive down the soi there, back through the empty plaza, out the far side, and you see the place on your right. If you want better, you'll have to call the place (038-427-041) for directions.

The place is set up beautifully. The cafe and the gogo bar are together, but discretely separate: You have to walk back through an almost-hidden passageway to reach the bar; conversely you can walk around the outside of the restaurant, around the block to the dead-end street, and go in through the bar's own entrance.


As for the food, the pizza is fantastic... really fantastic. I had the Hawaiian pizza for 160 baht and it was piled high with toppings, and was perfect. (Pizzas range in price from 140 to 180 baht, and are about 16-18 inches in size.) Epril had a steak and fries for 200 baht which was unfortunately not very good... stick to the pizza. Sodas were 40 baht each.

Really though, the Dao bar is the perfect thing for the Pattaya suburbanite: A nice relaxing atmosphere sitting next to... or in... a wonderful pool, sipping drinks at half the price of the bars in the city, having a fantastic lunch, and then at one's leisure, moseying around the back to join the girls in the GoGo bar for some fun. What more do you need?

Pattaya People Gives Bob's BBQ Good Marks

Pattaya People newspaper gave Bob's BBQ (link) a very nice review recently. (Bob is one of my best friends, so I'm always pimping his restaurant here on my blog.)

Remember: Bob's BBQ has now moved to Soi LK Metro, off Soi Diana.

Daily Report: Meeting Up With Old Friends

Epril and I are back to beating on the snooze button a little bit; not as much as before, but still we are climbing out of bed 30 minutes later than we would like to.

I had some glitches with the internet this morning, so work kind of got hung up a little bit... but in the end I still got in a fair first half of work.


To get to Jerry's Restaurant, drive
along Soi Nerm Pleubwan until you
see this housing development. Then
drive all the way back to the pool.


The chicken and mushroom stew in
a heavy cream and pepper sauce for
125 baht was excellent.For lunch, Epril and I went out and visited my old friend Jerry, who is a Belgian chef who is living out on Soi Nerm Pleubwan. He opened a restaurant in, of all places, the cabana of a housing estate's pool area. Apparently it was the right decision, as the lunchtime crowd consisted of about 20 francophones playing cards, drinking beer, and eating food.

Jerry's food is as good as I remember it. I had a croque monsieur for 80 baht, and Epril had chicken and mushroom stew for 125 baht. Jerry's specialty is spaghetti carbonara for 125 baht. He taught me the recipe about 3 years ago, and it is one of the only dishes I can prepare.

In the afternoon, it was back to work, and I got in a bit of a blah afternoon. In the evening, it was "The Weakest Link", "Tribe" (a Discovery Channel program about an English adventurer who goes and lives with the world's most remote peoples for a month at a time), and then two episoides of Doctor Who.

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.

Shenanigans Restaurant Review, Villa Market Too

Tonight, Epril and I, Geoff and Honey Mae, and Jeff... but without Stan who was unfortunately home sick... went out to Shenanigans for dinner.


The cabaret show at Malibu is half
ladies, and half ladyboys.First though, it was a stop at Malibu... an open air bar/cabaret located on the corner of Second Road and Soi Post Office. This place benefits hugely from location, and the open-air see-what's-inside advertising they have: From the street, you can look right in and see girls and ladyboys putting on a bit of campy cabaret. With that simple hook, Malibu reels in tons of tourists.

The cabaret show is mostly crap, and the drinks are a bit expensive... but the cheesy nature of the place makes it fun to sit down with a group for a little while and have at least one drink, but not more.


The Avenue shopping mall in Pattaya
is brand new, and very pretty.


Shenanigans Irish Pub located on
the second floor of The Avenue.After that it was off to Shenanigans, located in The Avenue — the beautiful open-air shopping mall located across the street from Soi Post Office on Second Road. The restaurant is located on the second floor at the very front of the mall, overlooking Second Road. Shenanigans moved to these new airy quarters recently from it's cramped, cavern-like location below the Marriott.

The new space is really quite nice, with tons of wood finish, a tiled floor, and very high quality furnishings. Although any connection to Ireland and the atmosphere of an Irish pub is completely gone, it is a pretty place. There is also outdoor seating, located out in front of the restaurant.


The interior of Shenanigans is very
nice but not particularly Irish.Truth be told, I really didn't even look at the menu, except to get an idea of the prices: It seemed that the majority of dishes were in the 300-350 baht range... a bit pricey, but for an upscale non-fancy place like this, it's about average.

Instead, I (and Geoff, Epril, and Honey Mae) went for the Friday-night special: All you can eat bar-be-que ribs for 295 baht... which is really a pretty good deal. (Jeff, a fan of the restaurant, also mentioned a Saturday afternoon 140-baht huge-sandwich and soup deal that is a must-try.)

The ribs were great... about the same as the Great American Rib Company out on Thepprasit Road. I still prefer Bob's BBQ ribs, because his sauce isn't as sweet as Shenanigans', and his meat is a little less fatty... but that's just my personal preference (and just a little bit of plugging for my best friend). I also had a pint of Kilkenny for 220 baht. Jeff had the Irish steak sandwich for 345 baht, and potato soup for 130 baht.

The total bill for 5 people came to 2700 baht, which is about average for Pattaya upscale tourist-focused locations like this. I really wouldn't recommend Shenanigans over a more homey place like the Pig & Whistle on Soi 7, or The Queen Vic on Soi 6... but it's a nice enough place to take out-of-towners for dinner before starting a night out in Pattaya.

After Shenanigans, Jeff went home while we remaining four went for our first wander through Villa Market, also located in The Avenue. Because of the prices and location, I can't imagine anybody making this the place to go for their regular shopping chores; however, with the monstrous selection of rare foreign delicacies (pumpkins) and imported comfort foods (Ben & Jerry's ice cream) located under one roof, it will be your first choice when going to look for that hard-to-find item.

Whatever they don't have at Villa Market, ask a salesperson, and they will write down what you want along with your phone number, call around to their suppliers and importers, see if they can get it, and then call you back and let you know: Spaghetti-O's, of course, are the item I'm using to test this system.


The beer selection at Villa Market is
fantastic, as is the rest of the store.Villa Market definitely has the best selection of beer in Pattaya by a very substantial margin, and their wine selection seems quite good. Jeff had mentioned being impressed with their spirits section, but I didn't see anything special there. (I would still recommend the fancy liquor store on Pattaya Central Road near Foodland for that.)

Anyway, I spent 3,000 baht on beer and spirits (primarily on a new bottle of Drambuie... 1,600 baht, and 6 bottles of Trappist ale.... 900 baht), as well as some chocolate for Epril, and Le-Vache-Qui-Rit cheese. Then, it was home just before midnight.

The Boathouse Restaurant Review

The Worst Steak in Pattaya.





Tonight Epril and I went out with the entire crew: Mike and Riza, Geoff and Honey Mae, Jeff and his girlfriend Lee, and Stan. We headed down to Jomtien Beach to dine at The Boathouse and be entertained by their Elvis impersonator.

The Boathouse is a nice place actually, located right across the road from the beach, with a large front deck for outdoor dining and a fairly cosy interior that has a rustic, wharf-side fishing village feel to it.

The food in general is nothing too bad: Standard "family style" recipes predominate, with a menu whose content seems to hail straight from the day when farang-food restaurants in Pattaya were something special, and not the norm... and restaurant owners made their dishes from home the best they could with what they could find at the local market.

The chicken satay appetizer I had was fine, and the shrimp cocktails were bountiful. Stan had a seafood platter appetizer which looked delicious. For entrees, Mike had chicken cordon bleu which he enjoyed, Geoff had roast duck which he said was excellent, Riza had fish which she gave the thumbs up to, and Epril and Honey Mae both had roast chicken which they had no complaints about.

However, Stan, Jeff, Lee, and I all had steak... 3 different styles of steak among 4 people... and they were all absolutely awful: Dry, tasteless, tough, and gray. All of us — even demure little Lee — voiced our strong opinions that it was the worst steak we had ever been served.

Anyway, at 9:00, The Boathouse's resident Elvis impersonator came on and did his thing. I will say that I personally believe that how enjoyable Elvis' show is is a direction function of the crowd size and makeup rather than any particular skill on Elvis' part, but Epril and I danced to some of the slow music (Fools Rush In), as did the rest of the restaurant, and some of the older couples got up and did a nice 2-step for the more upbeat tunes (Jailhouse Rock). Elvis (or the crowd) did a really good job of making sure everyone had a good time.

So in the end, I suppose I could recommend the Boathouse... but only for a Friday night, to see Elvis, only with a large group of people... and for God's sake, avoid the steak.