Dining Out: Paradise Café and Grill - gourmet and gourmand!
Not quite the Ziegfeld Follies: Most beer boozers are fairly bland affairs with the attraction of each mainly limited to the price of the consumable liquids and the numbers and comeliness of the attendant working girls. However, the Tropical beer boozer (Soi 2) seems to have found a strong niche in what is a very competitive area. The musical mix is not to everybody’s taste, being mainly techno and loud, but the atmosphere is generally friendly and buzzing. It’s worth hanging around for a while as a couple of times each night the girls form up and put on a kind of techno line dance show. The co-ordination of the girls in dancing to a tune like ‘Lonely, Lonely, Lonely’ impressed me, but then again, I do have two left feet. Opening the doors to Paradise: The Paradise lounge lizard libation room (Soi 8, next door to The Alamo beer boozer) recently dispensed with its glass-enclosed frontage and has been opened up and now looks more like an up-market swill factory. The comfortable lounge seats remain in place, there is a band every night and plenty of attractive hostesses to keep you parked in your seat. Happy hour runs from opening until 9:00 p.m. with Vodka and Gin at 70 baht, Singha 40 baht, Heineken and Carlsberg at 55 baht while soft drinks and coffee are just 30 baht. Mix and match: Recently a gay German man, accompanied by two Thai boys, found himself inside the Spicy Girls Too ogling den (down in gender-confused Pattayaland Soi 1). At the same time, there was a German couple also sipping an ale or two. The German lady - so far from her home in Schtraitlacenkuss - decided she’d get up and join with the lithe Thai girls for a bit of chrome pole hugging. One of the Thai boys accompanying the gay German slipped the frenetic fraulein a 20 baht tip. As the gay German left the bar he was heard to remark, “I see such a beautiful girl dancing, I wonder why I am gay?” Like father, like son: As most Fun Town regulars would be aware, both the long-running Sportsman’s Inn (in Soi 6 since 1986) and the Sportsman’s Bar and Grill (Soi 13) have recently been renovated and refurbished, with the latter installing a large pool table. In the nosh stakes, they have introduced a fairly extensive 99 baht menu for those who are looking for a light but filling meal rather than a feast. Blueprint for the future: With Interior Minister, Purely Puritanical working hard at turning the clock back 100 or so years, perhaps we should look at what the future of night-time entertainment could soon be like. Imagine this column in, say, six months from now: ‘The new Taliban ogling den (located in a cave behind Jomtien) is attracting a regular clientele, mainly consisting of disgruntled Iranian mullahs, ex-Afghani warlords and the sons of Saudi oil sheiks. Dancers are clad from head to toe in flowing robes whose antecedents are usually located in the bedding section of department stores. Each night features a different shade of black. Punters have been known to go wild at the fleeting glimpse of an ankle or a wrist, so much so, that armed guards are needed to maintain law and order. Drinks are reasonably priced with water and soda at 50 baht, but stronger liquids such as Fanta and Sprite are 80 baht. The den is open from 7:00 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. and bar fines set at 10 camels or 30 chickens.’ My e-mail address is: [email protected]
Updated every Friday. Updated by Chinnaporn Sangwanlek, assisted by
Boonsiri Suansuk. |
Hans,
a Swiss trained chef, came to Pattaya via the Dusit hotels chain, where he
held many Hotel Manager positions. However, the art of the kitchen was
always his forte, and together with wife Daeng, they opened this
restaurant. Hans is a “Han(d)s on” restaurateur, who describes his
menu offerings as being in three directions - Traditional home style,
Fusion, and Traditional Thai. Other than the Thai food, which Hans lets
his Thai chefs prepare, you will find Hans busily making sure the diners
are happy, while at the same time closely supervising the kitchen.
A
word about the wine list, which is comprehensive, without being extensive.
It covers Chilean, Californian, Australian, French, Spanish and Italian
wines, with the majority of bottles priced between B. 690-1090. We began
with the Agustino’s Chilean Chardonnay, moving on to the Cabernet
Sauvignon from the same vineyard later in the evening.