Well I finally made time to visit the place - me and my misses. We arrived about 7pm tonight and were led up 4 flights of stairs to a trendy roof terrace bar area. It looked quite cool but we were here to eat so elected to return back down to the ground floor where there were proper dinner tables and chairs (as opposed to a lounge type layout with coffee tables on the rooftop).
I was impressed with the general atmosphere and noted there were about 10 other customers, all Thai. Some Farangs came in later in two batches and both sets of parties were led upstairs. Is there something about Farangs being led upstairs and Thai's staying downstairs?
Anyways, the menus looked inviting but I struggled cos' I forgot my reading glasses. I ordered Parma Ham with Melon for starters and a T-Bone steak with mushroom sauce for main course. My good lady ordered mushroom soup to be followed by Spaghetti Bolognese.
There was a nice surprise at the start and end of the meal. The first surprise was two free Bruchettas which were OK - nothing special but free so who's complaining?
We were going to order wine by the glass but that option for some reason, although on the menu, was unavailable. I ordered a bottle of Italian Case Rose Bardorlino on the promise if we couldn't finish it we'd take it home. At 1100 a bottle it was good value. Borderlino no bad tay!
The starters came in good time and I thoroughly enjoyed the yellow melon with lovely tasty ham covered in freshly ground pepper. I asked my misses how her soup was. She said "it's not the best I've tasted but I give it 9 out of 10"..... So far so good.
The time between the end of starters and the main course was a perfect 5 minutes. I hate when one plate disappears only to be immediately presented with the next.
I should have mentioned the T-Bone was 950 baht. A bit pricey me thinks. I was asked how I wanted it, "Medium or Well done". "Medium" I replied. Between courses I asked my lady to ask them what came with the steak and was told fried potatoes and boiled vegetable. Fine I thought.
The steak arrived with a piece of broccoli and two pieces of carrot, plus a small cup of mushroom sauce. Eh... wheres ma tatties I asked. "Would you like boiled, fried, french fries or baked" the waitresses asked me. I was a bit put out. Why was I being asked now my steak was already presented. "Is your french fries made with real potatoes?" I asked. "No" was the answer. I ordered the fried potatoes and to be fair they arrived at the table within a minute, so a mini crisis was avoided (
)
My lady's bolognese was "OK, slightly better than average". My T-Bone was stringy, very difficult to hack through with my serated knife and verged on rare rather than medium. I gave up struggling with it after eating about half of it. The other half of the steak I left was like raw stringy meat hanging off a bone. I occasionally managed to cut off bits after struggling with the steak knife in a saw-like maddening fashion. I was starting to look like Jack the Ripper. It was actually quite tasty in parts, but most of it was raw meat and fat. The mushroom sauce was delicious. I elected to take the remainder of the steak home for the dog. I'd give the steak 3 or 4 out of 10. The vegetables were over boiled (soft not crispy).
We still had room for a sweet and mine was delicious, whatever it was - ice cream and coffee cake. My other halfs eyes were too big for her belly and although she ordered with exitement and thought it delicious, she couldn't eat it, so I scoffed some of it as well (not as good as mine).
OK - we had our doggy bag and the half full bottle of vino was re corked - it was time for the bill. Pleasant surprise number 2. It came to 3,100 thb. I thought it would be more, but there was no VAT added and no service charge.
Despite the crap steak the ambiance of the place made us feel good and we think we would visit again, but not before trying out the Marriott or the Sofitel.
A footnote - I gave the steak 3 or 4 out of 10 but when I got home my Golden Lab loved it and said it was easily an 8 so there you go!
Salute
