OVER RATED RESTARAUNTS

[soi unwise 6]

Worst for me is Gregs Kitchen.My mate " discovered " this place while working for GKN in Rayong.We met up with him while on a tour of pussy and he insisted we join him,something I was wary about as my opinion is when in Rome and all that.The food was bollocks,service was bollocks,price was bollocks,all in all it was a load of bollocks !!

 

I love the little food carts such as the one on soi 8 by the hair salon,just outside the P and W side entrance.Also had a good curry from Little India in the soi next to Diana,opposite Papagayo.The chicken samosa starters are sublime and the garlic naan bread the best I,ve ever shoved down my fat neck.

 

Kiss is just convenient if your staying near there,gives you time to get back to your hotel in time to send a wet parcel into the Andaman.

[ltbjsmith 1]

Bob's BBQ- Corner 3rd and Central. Supposedly great burgers. Here's my experience:

 

Stop in one afternoon in February for a burger. I'm the only diner in the place. The owner (Bob?) and some farang are sitting there, scheming up a new idea to try to make more money. And talking loudly about it.

 

Side note: Is it only me or does it seem like there are a lot of farangs always trying to get others to go in on some scheme in Pattaya?

 

The wait staff consists of two Thai women, one behind the counter, the other in front taking care of a small child.

 

I order a San Miquel, mushroom cheeseburger and fries. Ok so far.

 

Five minutes pass before she brings out the beer, not overly cold. Ok, I'm starting to feel the vibes but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

At least ten, closer to 15 minutes expire and finally she brings out the burger, but no fries. I ask where they are. "Sorry, I go get them". I try the burger. Dry as the desert and no flavor. Just some meat that was obviously frozen and zero spice. Oh boy, well I'll wait for the fries. They never come. Finally after another 10 minutes. By now the burger is cold, which I started eating with the premonition of waiting.

 

No second beer, screw that. Just something in my gut.

 

Ok, let me get out of here. Now comes the part that really torques me. I go to the counter, "Check bin, khap". She starts writing, and punching on the calculator and again, and talking to the women with the kid, and again, and.... No joke, I waited 3 minutes before I finally held up 200 baht and said, "Is this enough?" She looks at me, nods and takes the money and I leave.

 

I'm about to get in my car around the corner when some farang, (The owner from inside I presume), is yelling at me, "Hey you, you're trying to run out on your bill!". "Excuse me?" He gets this threatening tone on me about running out. So I tell him she said it was enough but whatever, lets go in and see. I get in there and she finally has the bill figured out. About 70 baht more. I flip a 100 at them and say, keep it. It's worth never going in there again.

 

The sad part is the guy sat there the entire time and never got up or corrected the service or helped figure the bill. He just waited to the end to accuse me.

 

Great food, great service.

 

This place has promoted great food all through these forums. Maybe, maybe not. Could it be related to having the food in a bar? I think it is true because when I'm drunk off my as-, I can't tell the difference.

 

Try the Big Mango in Nana. Those guys know how to do it.

Edited June 23, 2007 by ltbjsmith

[joekicker 53]

The owner (Bob?) and some farang are sitting there, scheming up a new idea to try to make more money. And talking loudly about it.

 

Ah yes, the Pattaya Millionaires' Club, the offshoot of the Patpong Millionaires' Club. They meet quite often, don't they?

[jackcorbett 2]

Gregg's Kitchen, good service but average food that is way overpriced. I paid 285 for fish & chip that was tasty but the other restaurant's in the area had the same for 195.

 

Denny. I will agree with you that Greg has his prices a little high. But what irks me is when people come in here and suggest that his portions are not ample. Man, when I eat there, I know I'm going to be so full that I'll have very little room left over for beer.

 

Also....on my birthday, I chose Greg's to celebrate it with my gf and one of my best friends here. I chose it for two reasons. 1. I like Greg and 2. I find certain dishes of his to be superb. So superb in fact that every so often I've get a craving for a particular dish and then it's just a matter of time before I make a pilgrimage down to 2nd road from Little Germany up here in Naklua. Last time at Greg's I had the Hungarian Goulash. Anyone who can't get filled up by the Goulash has got to be as large as an elephant. But as good as it was when I had finished I asked myself, "Now why didn't I get one of his meat pie dishes?" Get one of those and you get an entire plate full of food. You get a choice between around 10 different kinds of potatoes for one thing, some of which is awfully good. Then when the food arrives you will find the vegetables are done to perfection and the pie itself is succulent.

 

My mouth is watering now after finishing this post. For the Meat Pie dinners.

 

On second thought, I just have to edit my post as I feel that Greg's Cafe has been unjustly criticized here (not by you but by some others) and consider myself to know one helluva lot about the place.

 

For one thing, as you well know, I lived just several doors down from Greg's Cafe for 11 months while staying at Skytop. Those large outdoor menus just in front of Greg's? I shot all those pictures for Greg with my Nikon D-1 X pictures. Greg wasn't satisfied with having those pictures shot with just any camera. The Nikon D-1 X was Nikon's top of the line fully professional camera costing several times more than Nikon's second best SLR and when it comes to top of the line cameras you do get what you pay for. Here's how we did it. Greg would have several dishes specially prepared that I had not shot before and I'd rush over from Skytop. He'd usually use a dark blue table cloth put beneath the dish because he felt it contrasted nicely with his white dishes. I'd shoot two pictures of the dish and then one of his staff would take the dish away and replace it with the next one. I'd have to work fast because Greg did not want the dishes to get cold. Sometimes Greg would rush over to Skytop to tell me a customer had ordered a dish I had not shot before. It took a couple of weeks for me to shoot all of his dishes. But towards the end of this period of time, he'd be left with dishes none of his customers had ordered (while I was around) so a couple of my friends and I would be invited over to his cafe so that there would be plenty of mouths available to eat these dishes as customers had not ordered them. Throughout this two week period Greg was a total perfectionist.

 

Yep, I have a lot to say about Greg's cafe. I know that Greg considers himself to be an Englishman, who had been a top London chef for example. But he's more like a Prussian autocrat as he's in a state of perpetual motion fretting about every little thing that he's dissatisfied with. "Too many of his waitresses are just outside my front entrance" he tells me and "there's not enough of them inside the restaurant's itself to give good service to my customers." He's an absolute perfectionist and this shows even when you look at his rest rooms. When members of his staff slip up in even the slightest way, it exasperates Greg to no end.

 

I even redid one of Greg's advertisements for him for one of the local entertainment booklets. The whole thing that is, from its wording, taking the pictures, and the graphical arts work on the computer, and once again, working with Greg is working with a perfectionist.

 

Nope, sorry guys. I'm just not going to buy into some of the comments about Greg's serving mediocre food, providing bad service, or offering small portions. Not every dish at any restaurant is going to be top shelf, and on any given day you might get the wrong waitress at the wrong time. But I can assure you that Greg is on the top of his game and that he seeks to provide the best and has the qualifications and work ethic to do this.

Edited June 24, 2007 by jackcorbett

[jackcorbett 2]

Denny---call me as soon as you get back here. Meat pie's on me. Beer's on you.

Edited June 24, 2007 by jackcorbett

[kolobos 0]

Denny. I will agree with you that Greg has his prices a little high. But what irks me is when people come in here and suggest that his portions are not ample. Man, when I eat there, I know I'm going to be so full that I'll have very little room left over for beer.

 

Also....on my birthday, I chose Greg's to celebrate it with my gf and one of my best friends here. I chose it for two reasons. 1. I like Greg and 2. I find certain dishes of his to be superb. So superb in fact that every so often I've get a craving for a particular dish and then it's just a matter of time before I make a pilgrimage down to 2nd road from Little Germany up here in Naklua. Last time at Greg's I had the Hungarian Goulash. Anyone who can't get filled up by the Goulash has got to be as large as an elephant. But as good as it was when I had finished I asked myself, "Now why didn't I get one of his meat pie dishes?" Get one of those and you get an entire plate full of food. You get a choice between around 10 different kinds of potatoes for one thing, some of which is awfully good. Then when the food arrives you will find the vegetables are done to perfection and the pie itself is succulent.

 

My mouth is watering now after finishing this post. For the Meat Pie dinners.

 

On second thought, I just have to edit my post as I feel that Greg's Cafe has been unjustly criticized here (not by you but by some others) and consider myself to know one helluva lot about the place.

 

For one thing, as you well know, I lived just several doors down from Greg's Cafe for 11 months while staying at Skytop. Those large outdoor menus just in front of Greg's? I shot all those pictures for Greg with my Nikon D-1 X pictures. Greg wasn't satisfied with having those pictures shot with just any camera. The Nikon D-1 X was Nikon's top of the line fully professional camera costing several times more than Nikon's second best SLR and when it comes to top of the line cameras you do get what you pay for. Here's how we did it. Greg would have several dishes specially prepared that I had not shot before and I'd rush over from Skytop. He'd usually use a dark blue table cloth put beneath the dish because he felt it contrasted nicely with his white dishes. I'd shoot two pictures of the dish and then one of his staff would take the dish away and replace it with the next one. I'd have to work fast because Greg did not want the dishes to get cold. Sometimes Greg would rush over to Skytop to tell me a customer had ordered a dish I had not shot before. It took a couple of weeks for me to shoot all of his dishes. But towards the end of this period of time, he'd be left with dishes none of his customers had ordered (while I was around) so a couple of my friends and I would be invited over to his cafe so that there would be plenty of mouths available to eat these dishes as customers had not ordered them. Throughout this two week period Greg was a total perfectionist.

 

Yep, I have a lot to say about Greg's cafe. I know that Greg considers himself to be an Englishman, who had been a top London chef for example. But he's more like a Prussian autocrat as he's in a state of perpetual motion fretting about every little thing that he's dissatisfied with. "Too many of his waitresses are just outside my front entrance" he tells me and "there's not enough of them inside the restaurant's itself to give good service to my customers." He's an absolute perfectionist and this shows even when you look at his rest rooms. When members of his staff slip up in even the slightest way, it exasperates Greg to no end.

 

I even redid one of Greg's advertisements for him for one of the local entertainment booklets. The whole thing that is, from its wording, taking the pictures, and the graphical arts work on the computer, and once again, working with Greg is working with a perfectionist.

 

Nope, sorry guys. I'm just not going to buy into some of the comments about Greg's serving mediocre food, providing bad service, or offering small portions. Not every dish at any restaurant is going to be top shelf, and on any given day you might get the wrong waitress at the wrong time. But I can assure you that Greg is on the top of his game and that he seeks to provide the best and has the qualifications and work ethic to do this.

 

 

All very well and good...Though I was under the impression that Greg had actually sold his restaurant?

[jackcorbett 2]

He did. Greg sold the Sunset Cafe which is about one block South of Greg's cafe. But he held onto Greg's Cafe. What happened is he bought Sunset Cafe for his wife to manage while he was taking care of Greg's Cafe. But what happened is people who would have gone to Sunset Cafe would go to Greg's instead so there was a lot of extra work contending with two restaurants. Someday down the road hordes of people might be flooding this entire area but so far this has not materialized. So the two restaurants wound up competing with one another.

[jambo 0]

We visited Nang Nual in Jomtien this week having read several positive recommendations in the past.

 

Ordered the grilled seafood platter at 1200 baht (or was it 1400?) for two and it turned out to be a great disappointment. With the exception of the grilled whole fish and the large prawns the rest was average to say the very least.

 

The mussels were very gritty and virtually tasteless. No grit in the crabs and rock lobster but again, no taste!

 

We usually eat seafood in the restaurant towards the very far end of Jomtien beach road (whose name I can never remember) and their seafood platter is IMHO far superior.

 

Shame.

[Bigbadsi 0]

Ava Babas (ali babas) central rd.

 

All I can say is make sure you can run fast while holding yoiur backside

[BigDUSA 71]

We usually eat seafood in the restaurant towards the very far end of Jomtien beach road (whose name I can never remember) and their seafood platter is IMHO far superior.

 

I've eaten at this restaurant and highly recommend it. Good food at a reasonable price.

[Chauncy_Pembrooke 0]

We visited Nang Nual in Jomtien this week having read several positive recommendations in the past.

 

Ordered the grilled seafood platter at 1200 baht (or was it 1400?) for two and it turned out to be a great disappointment. With the exception of the grilled whole fish and the large prawns the rest was average to say the very least.

 

The mussels were very gritty and virtually tasteless. No grit in the crabs and rock lobster but again, no taste!

 

We usually eat seafood in the restaurant towards the very far end of Jomtien beach road (whose name I can never remember) and their seafood platter is IMHO far superior.

 

Shame.

 

 

How much of the distasteful meal did you leave on the plate? Also write down the name of the restaurant in Jomtien next time so you can fill in the gap here. Thank you.

[ballbag 2]

the new orleans is a total shithole

[uglytuna 0]

The indian accross the road from the main entrance to Nova Lodge and up the stairs...Absolutely fucking disgusting, stale, re heated, tasteless, burnt, blackened stodge. Served by a surly ( what looked Pino) waitress who refused to switch off the western disco boom boom music untill we threatened to walk out and then continued serving by basically throwing the dishes and plates on the table!

 

Do not go in there!!

 

My wife and I much prefer the indian on Beach road nearer Soi 10. They need to improve their wine list but don't hold your breath cos I have been telling them that since they opened around 6 years ago!!.

 

 

Hey lesson learned dont eat at indian places

[Guest Fatboyfat]

Hey lesson learned dont eat at indian places

 

Wrong

 

The lesson learnt would be not to eat at Ali Baba's. A message that has been spread for over 15 years now; I have still to see a favourable report.

[uglytuna 0]

I have to agreed the sea foodplaces on walking street our bad and overpriced

 

Agree!! Especially Seafood House on right past lobster house, they have a wine rack on right as u go in.

 

[DawsonUK 0]

My two faourites are both on third road right next to each other, Mamaroi and Hartien, as always you can go on a bad night, but in general they both provide good quality and fair prices. Combine it with an hour or two at the Karaoke next door!

[overseasplease 3]

El Toro...the steak had nothing going for it. Good bread though :)

 

Nothing wrong with the service either, just wouldn't go back.