Indian By Nature

Indian By Nature is one of many Indian restaurants in Pattaya. I absolutely love Indian food and really can’t remember any I didn’t like. This would not change for this trip. I’d drove buy the place plenty of times before, but never really thought I that I just had to make it out there to try their menu. As usual a friend suggested we eat there, so of course I was down to get another review in the books.

Ok, so although Thappraya rd looks absolutely terrible, Indian By Nature really has a great look to it. Both outside and in. The inside has high ceilings and plenty enough room inside. Most of the Indian restaurants in Pattaya are quite small. I have to say though that it was almost too fancy for my tastes. I don’t really need all the fluff, just good tasting food at reasonable prices.

Nice looking inside and you can see my friend’s massive jug of pineapple juice

Menu for some regular meals. I believe our thali was close to 600baht. Maybe the owners of Indian By Nature would be kind enough as to leave the prices in our comments below.

Ok, so on to the food. I ordered one of the large plates that comes with a little bit of everything (thali), non vegetarian. My friend had the same. Early after our order we were given some sort of appetizer thingy…it was pretty bad. Just plain with not much going on in the taste department. Oh, and it was on top of a tomato.

Appetizer

I had some sort of Indian beer. I can’t remember the name, but it was ok. I didn’t take a pic of our receipt, but I think the beer was something like 130baht or so. My friend paid close to the same for a small glass of pineapple juice.

Ok, so the main dish, the thali was good tasting. However, it wasn’t as large as I was accustomed to in other restaurants. I didn’t really need much more as I was full after the meal, but if you’re going to be paying more than you usually do then you expect a little more. If not more at least be different from the rest. Their food was not. Don’t get me wrong, the food was good, but I think with Indian By Nature you’re paying more for the name and inside environment.

While we were eating there was a large group of people consisting of Indians and Thais. It seemed sort of like an after or before business meeting meal. So that’s the kind of atmosphere there is in here. A nice place to take someone if you want to show them a nice night out, but not really the place to go if you just feel like some good Indian food.

I have to say though that the service was good. There was only the other table and us though, so sure they could handle that. It was also good in regards to not having any blank stares of misunderstanding that you get fairly often in Pattaya. Also, the owner came over to see how everything was and seemed to be a pleasant lady.

Indian By Nature isn’t bad by any means, especially out of all the Pattaya restaurants. Try them, they might be the perfect fit for you. There just wasn’t anything that I saw in the food that would garner some of the rave reviews it gets from travel guides and posh Bangkok food critics. There are plenty of Indian restaurants that serve just as good of food and at a lower price. I doubt I’ll be going back to Indian By Nature.

Hilton Buffet Pattaya

I was invited to a seafood buffet lunch by a friend and decided to give it a try.

I showed up at Central Festival and then was on to the Edge restaurant. The Hilton Pattaya has a few different restaurants.

The inside of the Hilton was really nice and we arrived pretty early and ended up with nice seats in big comfortable couches.

It was easy getting around and finding the food I wanted. No pushy old ladies or rude Chinese/Koreans. Mainly about 60/40 Westerners and Thais.

I’ll cut to the chase and show some pictures. I think I had 4 or 5 plates sampling a little bit of everything. Nothing was terrible and pretty much everything was good. There was a pretty decent variety as well. The bread w/pesto was amazing. I could have eaten only that and been happy. (The pesto was labeled as “hummus” )

I finally had to try to dessert only in the spirit of the review. By then I was about to pop. Nothing just really jumped out at me, but it was all good.

As you can see the price is listed as 254.88, but after the 10% service charge and 7% VAT it ends up being just about exactly 300 baht. We all paid in cash.

You’ll notice that the 1 beer I bought was 186.91 baht which is ridiculous. With the buffet comes water that I know of…not sure if soft drinks are included.

My Thoughts on the Hilton Buffet Pattaya

300 baht really isn’t a bad buffet price when you consider the venue, the quality of food, and the variety of food available.

*I don’t know how different their night time seafood buffet is from their lunch*

I’d definitely recommend the Hilton Buffet Pattaya to somebody who’s looking for a big seafood meal during lunchtime.

Pectopah

*edit – The real name of the restaurant is “Caucasian Captive”. Not sure many know it by that name though unless they frequent it often. Thanks to kengmak for pointing that out. I just realized after he mentioned it that it’s clearly written at the top of the check – long night maybe?

I’d told a friend of mine that I’d been ordering in Russian for a couple of days and that I was loving it. He told me that he’d take me to Pectopah (He just said his Russian restaurant) and that it was good and he went there often and so forth.

To get there if you are on 2nd road and you will take a left directly after Soi 6. There’s a sushi place, but go past it for 50 meters or so and you’ll see the Pectopah Russian restaurant on your left.

Not really sure if the actual name is Pectopah. It’s written in Russian script, so I can’t be sure what it is exactly. Also, directly next door is a Georgian restaurant which has a similar menu and you can actually order from either menu if you want (same management). We ended up ordering from the Russian menu though.

We chose to eat outside to get some air and have a few beers to relax. The inside is really nice though and would make a great setting for a date.

We each had a chicken shish kebab and I also ordered a couple of other things. Here’s the chicken shish kebab. It didn’t take long at all to come out and was delicious.

Here are some dumplings stuffed with potatoes along with some sour cream. Great little snack that does wonders when chased with cold beer.

This is manti. A dumpling type fold-up stuffed with meat and served with sour cream. Really rich and the 5 of them were tough to finish. Delicious though.

Here’s the final bill. As you can see the majority was spent on beer. This was really good food and at a decent price.

If you like Russian food, or just want to try it out for your first time then definitely stop by Pectopah and let me know what you think.

Highlander Pattaya

Woke up early one morning (not a regular occurrence for me) and decided to try out the Highlander restaurant for their breakfast. I was referred to the Highlander Pattaya by a gentleman on my facebook profile. I’d written a review about another restaurant and he mentioned that I should try the Highlander’s breakfast…so here we are.

Ok, so it’s located off of 2nd road on Soi Skaew Beach, or Soi 9. It’s easy to find. As soon as you turn into the soi it’s a few meters up on the right with a big sign above.

I’ve only had their breakfast, so I can’t comment on their lunch or dinner menu. I just realized how bad this pic is of a menu description…

So…there’s different options for your breakfast needs, but I ended up going for the “Highlander special breakfast”. It’s a bit pricey (220baht), but I wasn’t even able to finish it…it’s big. I’m a big eater and rarely leave food on the plate, but I just couldn’t quite handle all of it.

As you can see in the picture below it included toast, fried bread, fried tomato, mushrooms, bacon, baked beans, black pudding, 2 eggs, hashbrown, sausage, tea or coffee (or beer), and orange juice. Ok, the beer’s not included, but it went nicely with the food.

Here’s what was left…just couldn’t make myself finish.

I’ve been recommending this to people so far. Even though there’s cheaper breakfast in town, this has been the biggest and best tasting that I’ve tried so far. Please recommend any that you prefer in the comments below. If I have time I will try to visit and write up a review of that restaurant as well.

So, in closing…go to the Highlander if you’re in need for a truly large breakfast that tastes great.

Gregs Kitchen

As with most places I try out Gregs Kitchen was recommended by a friend who was hungry and thought it would make a good restaurant for this site.

Gregs Kitchen is located on 2nd road, right before soi 6/1 on the right hand side of the road. It’s pretty easy to spot because of its sign.

The menu in Gregs Kitchen could seem a bit pricey to some, but I think because most Western food’s a bit more expensive anyways plus that fact that the portion sizes are very generous, the prices in Greg’s aren’t bad at all.

We shared this garlic bread w/cheese and bacon together. This thing with a beer could be a meal in itself…delicious.

Pork chop and chips with veggies. I just barely finished this plate. Big servings and everything on it was good.

My friend’s sheperd’s pie and mashed potatoes w/veggies. He let me have a taste and it was great too. He couldn’t finish and had to take some away.

Gregs Kitchen should be a regular haunt for expats in the area I would think. It has a good location, friendly staff, wonderful food, a wide variety of dishes, and decent prices. Not sure what else you’d want in a restaurant.

Gregs Kitchen gets our stamp of approval hands down.

The Charoen restaurant in located around soi 16 in Naklua. If you get on Naklua road from the dolphin round-a-bout drive a few hundred meters until you get around soi 16 and the Charoen restaurant will be on your right. There’s no sign, but there are a few open air restaurants in that area. The kind that have plastic chairs and tables and probably big bottles of Leo on the table. Charoen is the first one of maybe 2 or 3. I went with a friend who recommended it for some newcomers to Thailand. 2 of my friend were on their first trip to Thailand and I wanted them to have some good Thai food other than pad Thai.

If you can manage to find Charoen then you will be in for a treat. Super cheap and every thing they cooked up was delicious.

This is what the restaurant looks like from the road.

Simple look at the menu to give you a bit of an idea about the prices.

Here’s a bit of a look at the spread. We ended up ordering 7 dishes for us to split (and for me to take pics of for this site). We ordered fried fish, panang curry, soft-shell crab in curry sauce, fried pork, pad si euw, beef in oyster sauce, and the green vegetable stuff in oyster sauce. I think it’s a bit of a Chinese water plant dish or something like that. With that we each had rice and a couple of beers.

I believe the price ended up being under 1000baht which was great because we were all stuffed, had some beer, and my friends got a bit of culture out of it.

Going forward I will be taking pictures of the final check as well so the exact prices are known. I still have a few reviews already done though that won’t have the check pics.

I highly recommend checking out Charoen if you’re in the area and want some cheap Thai food. If you can find it that is…

Vientiane Restaurant

A friend of mine had been bugging me to try Vientiane’s fried banana dessert, so finally we made an outing of it and came together with his wife for the entire meal and hopefully the dessert if we could manage.

It’s located on Pattaya Tai. If you turn West onto Pattaya Tai from 3rd road it’s not too far down and on your left. I want to say it’s Soi 20, but I can’t be sure. The Vientiane restaurant sits alone in a large parking lot and probably will have a few big tourists buses carrying many Asian tourists.

The food in the Vientiane Restaurant consists of traditional Thai, Lao/Isaan, Vietnamese, and European food. Absolutely everything I tried (my own orders as well as my friends) tasted good to great. Their menu is divided up between these different types of foods and makes it really easy to find what you’re interested in.

There are a few different places to sit. There’s the main area which an open-air setting with a lot of room. There are places to eat upstairs and there’s also some inside rooms too. We sat in the main open-air area.

View of the Vientiane restaurant from our table

I always love some good oysters. I have to say though that this may have been the weakest part of our meal. They had a small fishy taste to them. Not really enough to make them taste bad, but enough to make me worry about how fresh they were.

Fried spring rolls from the Vietnamese menu. These are delicious. I’ve actually ordered these from their delivery service with Door 2 Door because I’d remembered how great they are. The honey/peanut dip really hits the spot.

Here you can see my friend’s wife testing out the fried spring rolls and their tasty sauce. Also in the picture is some chicken fried rice and panang curry, both of which tasted perfect.

Fried shrimp in curry sauce w/coconut milk. Very tasty, but they leave the shell and legs on which is a SEA thing. I’d rather have them off, but you can eat it whole because it’s pretty crunchy.

Baked mussels w/cheese and Isaan duck w/lemon flavoring. The mussels are addictive. My favorite of the meal. The duck isn’t bad, but it takes some work to get the meat off the bone. Not because it’s tough, but because the bones are curved and tricky to work around.

Thai style fish…delicious

Fried banana w/ice cream and either honey or syrup. Really good and REALLY rich.

Once we finally finished and received the bill it came out to around 2500baht. I thought that was a decent price for the amount of food we ordered plus the amount of beer we drank.

All the food in the Vientiane restaurant was good, the service was good, and it’s not too far out of the way.

I can easily recommend the Vientiane restaurant for a great night out with some company.

A friend of mine had me meet him at Cafe Le Mar a few days ago to have some good pizza down by the beach. He likes to go down there and check out the Russian babes every now and then. Sounded like a good plan to meet.

Took me about 15-20 minutes to make it from Pattaya Klang. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to spot it, but a nice big sign made it obvious, so no problems on that end.

As soon as I arrived I noticed how big the place was and we decided to eat at the little pizza bar area to be a bit more outside. Cafe Le Mar really only does pizza, a few appetizers, and a little bit of pasta. I’ve always believed that restaurants should have a simple menu and be able to cook everything on that menu perfectly. I believe Cafe Le Mar is doing exactly that. Of course I didn’t try everything on the menu, but what we did have was great.

Cafe Le Mar

Peek at the pizza part of the menu

Here’s some bruschetta I ordered for an appetizer. Bread was soft and warm, tomatoes and mozzarella were both fresh and had the perfect mix of pepper and olive oil. I could snack on this every day.

Here was the pizza that I ordered. Not sure exactly what was on it, but I believe mushrooms, ham, artichoke, and cheese. It was delicious. Plus it took me about an hour to finally finish it.

Me and my friend just chilled out and took in the beach with a little pizza watching while enjoying a few beers. I noticed that Cafe Le Mar even offer free beach chairs and you can order your meal from the beach. That sounds like a slice of heaven right there…pizza, beer, and Russian chicks on the beach.

Here’s our final bill. Not bad for 2 guys hanging out next to the beach for a few hours drinking beer and filling ourselves up with great food. I really enjoyed

Cafe Le Mar

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I only gave them a 4/5 because it’s so far away from me. It could easily get a 5/5 because of the decent prices, the atmosphere, and most importantly the great food. If you’re in Jomtien and feeling hungry you can’t go wrong with Cafe Le Mar.

I’ve had Subs n Suds sandwiches plenty of time over the years of visiting Pattaya. It’s hard to beat a nice greasy, sloppy sandwich with a beer. The only downside I can see is their prices. For example I paid 250baht for one of the sandwiches I’ll review below. With that I got a pickle and some Ruffles potato chips I believe. Wonderful sandwich, but pricey. I’d like to point out though that I was lazy and only ordered the sandwiches from a delivery service. Not sure how much they tack on to the actual sandwich price (not delivery price). I guess I can also realize the price though because western food is a bit expensive after the import tax anyways.

I’m going to stick with the rating of 3/5 though simply because 2 other people I’ve actually brought to the Subs n Suds shop weren’t too impressed by their Philly cheese steak sandwiches. I figure a good sandwich shop should be able to make a solid Philly cheese steak. Overall though I’ve enjoyed more sandwiches from there than I didn’t, so I don’t mind recommending Subs n Suds at all.

Subs n Suds

Here are the last 3 sandwiches I tried from them. All 3 were fantastic.

From left to right: Patty melt hamburger, sloppy joe sub, and ham egg cheese croissant

Patty melt hamburger – 215baht
Hard to beat meat + cheese + grilled together on a hot plate. It’s a great simple sandwich

Sloppy joe sub – 250baht
A $7.50 sloppy joe is beyond me, but it is extremely good tasting.

Ham egg cheese croissant – 195baht
One of my favorite things to eat in the entire town of Pattaya. This thing is beyond delicious. I could live off of these if it wouldn’t kill me. If you visit Subs n Suds at least pick one up with whatever sandwich you go there for…just to try it.

In closing, Subs n Suds is a great place to go if you’re craving a really good sandwich and don’t mind a bit of a price tag.

Kohinoor is one of my favorite Indian restaurants in Pattaya. Me and a friend noticed it’s buffet price one day driving along 2nd road and knew we had to go in one day to try it. I don’t know about the food ordered straight off of the menu, but their buffet is great for the price because usually Indian food ends up being pricey after ordering so much. I know I always end up ordering more than I need because I can never remember what I liked last time…kinda like Chinese food for me too.

The variety of food in Kohinoor’s buffet isn’t a whole lot, but it’s all great tasting and since you can go back as much as possible you’re definitely going to get your money’s worth. I wish I was more educated on Indian food so that I could describe each dish to you, but I’m not, so I can’t. I’ve tried maybe 6 different Indian restaurants in Pattaya and I believe this one is worth a try for the cheap buffet price. If you know you’re going to stuff yourself and you don’t feel like spending 800baht to do it then try Kohinoor’s buffet.

About the location. If you turn left on Pattaya Tai where it meets Beach road coming from the Walking Street curve then you will see Kohinoor on your right hand side maybe 30-50 meters or so after you take a left. Vice versa if you’re on 2nd road heading north then it will be on your left maybe 30-50 meters before 2nd road intersects with Pattaya Tai.

Here’s what the front of the restaurant looks like.

Only 8 different dishes in the pic. They ended up bringing out a 9th as well as a spread of fresh veggies.

One of my 3 plates. I was absolutely stuffed. Would also like to mention that their nan bread was good as well. I had 2 Englishmen along to verify.

So if you’re keen to try one of the many Indian restaurants in Pattaya then Kohinoor would be a great choice if you’re on a budget.