Christmas Dinner 2023

[Evil Penevil 7,628]

Regular posters on Pattaya Talk will by now almost certainly have made their arrangements for Christmas dinner, but I'm starting this thread just in case someone hasn't or possibly their plans have fallen through at the last minute. What follows is a collection of restaurant Christmas dinner ads from Facebook, Web sites and other Pattaya boards.

I'm not in Pattaya now, but I think it's interesting to see the wide range of options available for Christmas dinner.  I've concentrated on traditional Christmas dinners in this thread, but not all of them are turkey with trimmings.  If you've never tried a Swedish Christmas buffet for instance, you might want to give it try once in your life. Several European countries have the main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, so you have a chance for something new on Dec 24 and the turkey dinner of the English-speaking countries on Dec 25. It's certainly OK to splurge at Christmas!

If you are a turkey fanatic (I am!), you could try the French dinde aux marrons (turkey stuffed with chestnuts) along with (potato) gratin dauphinois, haricot verts almondine (green beans with almonds), a cheese table and a bûche de Noël (Yule log) for dessert. A traditional French Christmas dinner is real culinary experience.

And if you don't want traditional Christmas dinner in any form, Pattaya has a huge variety of other options: Thai, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Tex Mex, Japanese, steak, pizza, burgers, whatever. From fine dining in world class to the cheapest street food, Pattaya has it all.

I'll begin with some of my favorites when I lived in Pattaya.

The Christmas buffet at the Starz Diner at the Hard Rock Hotel topped my list.  In terms of quality and variety of food, entertainment and intangible Christmas spirit, I found it the best.  It's not cheap but is good value for money..

 I can no longer do justice to huge buffets, but Thai girls, and especially Thai children, will absolutely love it.  Starz is also big enough it will have room even if you leave booking very late.

I don't know if they just didn't list everything on the menu below or if they have cut back on the size of the buffet, but when I ate there in 2019, the buffet included raw oysters, sushi and sashimi as well as various  Thai, Japanese and Chinese dishes. 

I had a Thai girl with me and I still can't figure how such a small person- max 40 kilos- could pack in so much food.  She didn't touch the farang stuff except for the desserts, but had multiple plates of the seafood, sushi and Asian dishes.  On top of that she must have consumed 10,000 calories in desserts.  We were there two hours and she was chewing something 90% of the time, sweet stuff the last 60 minutes.  Christmas pudding, pie, cake, cookies, candies, Yule log, she had it all!!!  Never seen anything like that in my life, even at a casino buffet in Las Vegas.

If you're looking for an all-you-can-eat Christmas buffet with U.S.-style food, then Coop's spread at the Chik-N-Coop Bar is the best value for money in town.  It's 600 baht for all the turkey, sides and trimmings you can pack in.  Coop's Christmas buffet is sold out every year, so get your ticket soon.

Another great choice for those of you who prefer a U.S.-style Christmas dinner is TiggleBitties Tavern at a reasonable 895 baht.  This is another place that is always sold out.

This is just the beginning, so hold on!

[Evil Penevil 7,628]

Somewhat surprisingly, the Robin Hood Tavern at The Avenue has the year's most expensive Christmas dinner at 3,999 baht.  The second sitting is already sold out, but places remain for the first sitting.

I'm sure it's a very good dinner, but it would have to be heaven on a plate for me to pay 3,999 baht for a carvery dinner. That's more than double the buffet at the Hard Rock and about 1,500 baht more than the massive buffets at hotels like the Royal Cliff, Dusit Thani, Hilton, InterContinental, etc. It's a bold pricing decision by the Robin Hood, but appears to be succeeding.  The Robin Hood must have a very devoted customer base!

Two perennial Christmas dinner favorites, Nicky's and The Sportsman, are sold out.

     

I'll include their ads so you can see what you missed.

,,,

 

[Evil Penevil 7,628]

A bunch of restaurants in no particular order.

Fraser's in Jomtien and the Hideaway on Soi 15 not far from Soi Buakhao.

The Nest on Soi Diana near LK Metro

The Beefeater on Soi Diana has three sittings Dec. 24th and 25th:  5.00 p.m., 7.00 p.m. and 9.00 p.m.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Evil Penevil

[sailingbill 1,015]

Thanks Evil, Thanksgiving dinner is always a big deal in our large family in Annapolis with people coming from around the States ,me from Thailand on Wednesday to prepare food., My task- sausage stuffing and fried hard crabs for the night before crowd.  Here it is more Christmas .All the choices look damn good and i bet fine quality and thanks for posting the menus. There was a bar in Bangkok that had a free Christmas Dinner, American owned with wonderful spirit. Sadly i cant remember the name.   Indeed Merry Christmas to all on Pattaya Talk. Including my good friend Howard the Jew who is fine with that, probably even has a Christmas tree.

[VPI78 11,474]

1 hour ago, sailingbill said:

Thanks Evil, Thanksgiving dinner is always a big deal in our large family in Annapolis with people coming from around the States ,me from Thailand on Wednesday to prepare food., My task- sausage stuffing and fried hard crabs for the night before crowd.  Here it is more Christmas .All the choices look damn good and i bet fine quality and thanks for posting the menus. There was a bar in Bangkok that had a free Christmas Dinner, American owned with wonderful spirit. Sadly i cant remember the name.   Indeed Merry Christmas to all on Pattaya Talk. Including my good friend Howard the Jew who is fine with that, probably even has a Christmas tree.

George at Texxan Lone Star in the old Washington Square would host free Xmas dinners. He also did free Saturday lunches for years.

Dem were da days.

Just a WAG but I think Xmas dinner is more important for Europeans than Americans and that for most Americans ... Thanksgiving dinners are a larger deal than Xmas, but yeah, here in the land of som tam, Thanksgiving isn't much of a thing. 

[Evil Penevil 7,628]

Some upscale options:

The InterContinental Pattaya Resort.  The sunset view from its Infiniti restaurant is spectacular.

If you're looking for a high-class Christmas dinner but don't want turkey and trimmings, this could be an option.

And here are the details for the Christmas Day buffet and party.  It looks to be an excellent choice for a very merry Christmas Day.

 

The Hilton Pattaya:

 

 

Dusit Thani:

[dheado 12]

On 12/20/2023 at 6:11 PM, VPI78 said:

George at Texxan Lone Star in the old Washington Square would host free Xmas dinners. He also did free Saturday lunches for years.

Dem were da days.

Just a WAG but I think Xmas dinner is more important for Europeans than Americans and that for most Americans ... Thanksgiving dinners are a larger deal than Xmas, but yeah, here in the land of som tam, Thanksgiving isn't much of a thing. 

I had a least 10 Exmas dinners there