A couple of restaurant suggestions

Editor;

Being a retired American living ten months each year in Pattaya, I am always on the lookout for new restaurants opening with good food at reasonable prices. Through the Pattaya Mail, I have found several places that I regularly patronize.

Many years back, I was involved in opening a Hotel-Restaurant in San Francisco in which I still have an interest to this day. I remember how difficult it was to get the decor, the staff and the food to all perform magic together. So having been there myself, it is fascinating to watch a new operator try to overcome the many problems common to the food operation in Thailand.

Italian and Thai restaurants are two of my favorite and I always appreciate a friend who tips me off on a good find. So I am writing this note to suggest a couple of recent discoveries that may be of interest to your readers.

About three weeks ago, two young Italians opened a new restaurant in a hidden location off Pattaya Tai Road behind the Day and Night Department Store. They named it "Portofino." Attempting a light peach decor with blue trim, they achieved more of an orange effect but with the stark white columns on the shophouse exterior it provides good visual identification. The Pattaya Mail Ad caused me to drive by, but the shy smile of the young waitress and the small attractive bar was what drew me inside.

As with any new restaurant, they are struggling to get their feet on the ground and I can understand shortcomings in kitchen timing and staff training. A Thai woman chef in a tiny one room kitchen attempts to master pizza in the gas oven, pasta prepared in a single flat pan and scaloppini cooked to order on the same small cook top. Table delivery can be erratic. The wine list offers a reasonable Italian red wine at B395 that turned out to be much better than anticipated. On my first visit, the pasta was rather bland and the scaloppini too dry but on a subsequent visit, things had improved. The pasta now had more sauce and flavor and the lemon scaloppini, although served with a light mustard sauce, was tender and flavorful. The garlic bread is a must, soft and crunchy, prepared perfectly and absolutely delicious. The staff stumbles slightly but their smiles and constant effort to please results in the forgiving of any oversights. The prices are reasonable, the owner "Paolo" was gracious and my guests vowed to come back.

On Pattaya North Road across from the Bus Station, the Pranpor Restaurant has reasonable and deliciously prepared Thai food in an open setting. A friend and I brought along a bottle of wine (no corkage charge) and sampled their menu. The glossy menu has entrees in Thai and English with accompanying pictures. We were amazed at the selection of fresh fish and even soft shell crab at "below normal" prices. My Chicken with Cashew Nuts was served in crisp potato birdnest lined with tiny vegetables and spices and was remarkably tasteful. Their mixed seafood fried rice was moist with a distinctive flavor and was far better than any I can recall. Fried and steamed fish and platters of clams and shrimp were being circulated around us. There were many locals enjoying the comfortable outdoor dining and a few Farangs. The Margaritas were excellent but overpriced at B120. It is definitely worth a visit.

Gary Hacker,
Pattaya

Wheelchair ramps handy for motorcyclists

Dear Sir,

Allow me use your esteemed organ to express my thanks to the City Fathers of Pattaya for so kindly providing easy access to the pedestrian pavements alongside Third Road. It will now be much easier for motorcyclists to mount the pavement and drive along at crazy speeds thus providing extra thrills for the poor, foolish and misguided souls who actually wish to walk. In fact, very few pedestrians use Third Road. I wonder if motorcycle access ramps are also going to be constructed on Second, Beach, South and Central Roads?

All joking aside (and Pattaya’s administration is a joke), I was told that the ramps have been provided for the use of wheelchair-bound people. Very laudable I’m sure, but I have encountered more kind baht bus drivers than I have seen wheelchairs on Third Road. I can think of several more urgent projects for Pattaya than these ramps. If the other main roads in Pattaya are provided with access ramps I hope the work will be accomplished with more speed and less mess than the Third Road project.

On a positive side, I wish to congratulate the Telephone Organisation of Thailand on the really amazing improvements they have made to the chore of paying domestic bills at their office on Central Road. A couple of years ago you published a letter from me about the painfully inefficient and slow system of paying bills at TOT. The new procedures have enabled me to pay my last two bills with remarkable speed. April’s bill took one minute and last month’s took 45 seconds from entering the office to leaving it, receipts in hand! Well done TOT, and please don’t let your high standards slip.

Yours in not-quite-complete despair,
Oliver Minto

Remembering Dolf

Editor;

I was deeply saddened to learn of Dolf Riks’ death.

I recall sitting in your office (2nd floor) three years ago, telling you how much I enjoyed reading the stories by Dolf Riks. They were wonderful treasures of spice islands, spicy food and the spice of life as he knew it. You suggested I visit his restaurant and tell him directly; "he would enjoy it..." So I did! It was one of the best things I have ever done for myself. We made an instant friendship and he even mentioned our meeting in one of his stories. I will treasure the visit and generosity of spirit that he shared with me and mourn the loss of future conversations with Dolf Riks. It is strange that I could feel so comfortable with this man while he was alive but now I feel in awe of someone special that briefly touched my life. Thank you, Peter, for the suggestion.

Sincerely,
Catherine

Is it always bad?

Dear Editor:

I have not always read the Pattaya Mail newspaper; however, in the last few months I have become a weekly reader. I have noticed that most of the letters to the editor are negative or responding to negative letters.

I have lived in Pattaya for the last 13 years and have enjoyed most of this time. I am an American with a Thai wife and a 4 year old daughter. To say I have not had some problems would not be true, but to write to a local newspaper and talk of trivial things that happen to them and claim, I repeat claim, that they won’t come back to Thailand or recommend that people should stay away is a bit ridiculous. I believe that wherever one may live in the world they will encounter some problems. Why the negativity?

I hope to remain in Thailand for an even more extended period of time and would recommend Thailand for anyone looking for an exotic vacation or extended stay. There are many things to do and places to go. If you find one place uncomfortable there are many others to try and enjoy.

Just a statement to all the nay sayers, I’ll bet you’re not even happy in your own living room, why take it out on the people living and enjoying themselves in paradise? Especially the friendliest people in the world, the Thai people.

Sincerely,
Randall "Dr. Doom" Blacet

Who was the Aggressor?

Dear Sir,

On the 28th of May, Mailbag included a vitriolic attack on the American navy and America in general under the heading, "Unpleasant Incident with American Soldier".

My first reaction on reading the first few paragraphs was, "it sounds as though he had stopped too close to the taxi, blocking the exit". When the writer described how he "started blowing my horn to express my outrage" the picture became clearer: classic ‘phallic symbol, king of the road’ syndrome. In many countries, blowing the horn of a motor vehicle without just cause is itself a traffic violation.

The writer went on to describe how he "chased the big arrogant ‘middle-finger’ black soldier" (he probably means sailor), then "grabbed him by his collar with both my fists so that the buttons of his shirt fell on the street". Surely, if the driver had to chase the sailor before grabbing hold of him and stripping the buttons off his shirt, then it was the driver who started the attack. He was extremely lucky that it was the American Military Police who broke up the attack; had it been the Pattaya police he would most probably have been arrested for causing an affray.

In the text of his letter, the driver used the following terms to describe the unfortunate sailor and his comrades: "disdainful and aggressive arrogance", "the arrogant middle-finger black soldier", "the black soldier", "the arrogant fighting machine", "this soldier", "this semi-automatic killing machine", "a black mastodon", "these American fighting machines", "these primitives", and "these aggressors". This is hardly the language of a rational being. To then go on and link the incident with the American bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia seems positively psychotic.

Clearly, the American soldier showed bad manners in scrambling over the car bonnet (although we are not told what prompted that), but the reaction of the driver is totally disproportionate to the offence and might be more readily understood if the sailor had sexually violated the driver’s wife or daughter rather than merely scratch his car.

I hope that Pattaya Mail readers will remember that many of these so-called "arrogant fighting machines" regularly give up part of their shore leave to perform charitable works in Pattaya and that we have the American Navy to thank for the pier that now graces the southern end of Pattaya Bay. From the phrasing of his letter, I suspect that the arrogant and aggressive driver is not a native English speaker (sadly, he lacked the courage to sign his name to his letter) and if that is the case I take comfort in knowing that he is not a fellow countryman of mine!

Yours faithfully,
Dave Freeman

Afraid to invest

Sir,

It was our intention to invest appr. 750000.-DEM (150 Mio. Baht) in an existing industrial plant in Chonburi, to further its capacity for exportation to Germany and Denmark.

However, the plundering of a certain Mr. Wolfgang Ullrich by so-called ‘influential people’ (military and police mostly) has shown us that Thailand is not a secure place to invest.

This short notice is only to show the Dept. of Interior that investors are easily scared off by the openly shown criminal acts of the reigning ‘influential people’ in Thailand. A clique that should be done away with if Thailand wants to have good chances (in every way) in the future.

Sincerely yours,
J. W. Shauson
Sec. of the Director of Food-King GmbH

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Created by Andy Gombaz, assisted by Chinnaporn Sangwanlek.