Unbiased and Sometimes Random Info on Thailand

In Bangkok, Thailand there exists an eternal symbol of the football demigod that is David Beckham and it’s located inside a Buddhist temple named Wat Pariwas.  The statue is located on the main altar and is encapsulate with gold leaves.

Residents who worship at the temple claim this statue which was created in the year 2000 is an attempt to show the modernization of the Buddhist religion and to get younger people more interested in religion.  There’s been reports of footballer David Beckham statues and worship around the world but we’re pretty sure this is the only David Beckham statue on the altar of a Buddhist temple (or wat).

David Beckham, the Profit! (purposely misspelled!).

Name: Eat Me
Website: EatMeRestaurant.com
Cuisine: Modern International, Regional
Location: Soi Pipat 2, Off of Soi Convent, Bangkok
Contact: +66 22380931
Hours: 3pm-1am
My Rating: 9.5/10

My Thoughts:

Let me preface this review with the fact that I love this restaurant so much I’ve eaten there twice in the past 10 days.

Other than the not-very-obvious sidestreet location, Eat Me is perhaps Bangkok’s best kept secret in its field.  The ambiance is set before you even get on to the property and as you walk through the courtyard towards the steps to the dining area there’s almost a sense of mystique about it.  The dining room is on the second and third floors, with both outside and indoor tables available.  The approach to the stairwell is minimalistic yet adorned with candles and other contemporary reminders you’re walking towards something quite extraordinary.

Once seated you will find the waiting staff very attentive and wonderfully fluent in English.

The clientele seems to draw mainly from expats and tourists but this restaurant is by no means a ‘tourist trap’.  In fact, I overheard one couple mentioning an article where Eat Me is vying for top rankings amongst the most exquisite restaurants in Bangkok.

The food is a great mix.  My favorite main course is the beef tenderloin with peppercorn sauce and a side of dijon mustard.  My wife tried the Alaskan King Crab and while it tasted fantastic, you could tell it had spent some time in the freezers with importation to Thailand, but she’d order it again.

Let me tell you about dessert!  I’ve been around the world, to some of the finest restaurants on practically every continent and I’m by no means a ‘chocolate freak’ but their chocolate fudge cake is the absolute best dessert I’ve ever had the pleasure of gracing my palate.  I liked it so much I ordered an entire cake the next day just to have at home.  They prepared it, along with the chocolate topping-sauce and concise instructions for making it perfect every time.

If you’re looking for fine dining and aren’t fiending for local Thai Food per se, Eat Me is an absolute must-experience.  Expect to spend about 3,000THB or $100 without wine, or 4-7,000THB with wine (depending if you order the pricey-but-worth-every-satang tenderloin too!).   Eat Me is easily one of Bangkok’s best kept fine dining experiences and if you haven’t been there you’re definitely missing out.  I know I’ll be going back this week again!

You’d expect an airport lounge to be pretty nice in places like Hong Kong, Tokyo or London.  But Phnom Penh, Cambodia? Yep. You heard it right.  This very small international airport is a frequent destination for Thailand expat visa runs sans weekend getaways but the destination in general is usually given very little priority.  For instance, the Thai Airways flights I’ve flown usually are assigned older, smaller aircraft.  While that may not be so unexpected, I also often find myself being herded through those ‘bus terminals’ at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport to add insult to injury.

Upon returning to the Phnom Penh International Airport (PNH) there’s always a mass of people out front apparently waiting for arrivals.  Checkin, immigration is swift, security checkpoint too then right in front of you is the lounge.  So you’re in this country that Thai Airways apparently gives very little merit and the lounge is your next step.  You’re expecting it to look like an inner city public school inside.  I open the door and….

Who’d have guessed?  The lounge at the Phnom Penh International Airport is not only very contemporary and new, but the desserts are above and beyond any I’ve ever had from a typical ‘Thai Airways’ type of lounge.  I attribute this partially due to the culinary influence of their former French colonists’s penchant for producing some of the finest desserts around.  This lounge is rarely full and even has some couches lining the back wall where you can make yourself as comfortable as you wish.

Above average lound, CHECK!  Now on to some actual useful information regarding the immigration/visa process for entering Cambodia via the airport;

1) Once of the plane you walk down the stairs right to the immigration desk.

Things to have prepared for the immigration desk:

a)  $20 USD cash. (They accept other types of currency but they hose you bigtime on the exchange rate so just have $20 ready for them)

b)  Completed visa application form. (print it out at home and do it, or just do it on the plane, the flight attendants will pass them out).

c)  2 headshot photos (2cm x 6cm) (if you don’t have it, no problem, they charge you $5 for forgetting)

d)  Your passport with 1 blank full page (their sticker-visa takes an entire page)

Just give this stuff (except the $20, you do that when you get your passport back) to the 1st person at the desk and they will pass it down a line of about 10 immigration officers, then call you name and flash your passport, give them the $20 and you’re on your way.

Departing you will only need $25 at which you pay at the bottom of the escalators before going up to immigration and the terminal.

Welcome to Phnom Penh, Cambodia!

Sure this is a travel blog and we should be ensuring you all is peachy-keen in Thailand but it just is not the case at the moment. Is any place in Thailand, less Bangkok, great to visit right now? It sure is. But I wouldn’t plan on taking in the whole Bangkok experience.

Follow the latest political developments from a foreigner’s perspective on Twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/jazzinchiangmai or @jazzinchiangmai

I found the video below that gives a pretty broad overview of the process of renewing your visa to stay in Thailand via a popular land border known as Mae Sai on the Thai side and Tachelik on the Myanmar or Burmese side.  As the host notes it’s pretty straight-forward.  You go through to the Thai Customs desk, then walk over to the Myanmar immigration desk, pay either your 14 day visa, or day-visa fees and can either walk around the small city under the watchful eyes of the dictatorship’s minions or walk right back over to the Thai customs counter and get another Thai visa or visa renewal.

For up to the date information on Thai visa rules, experiences and information you’ll want to bookmark www.ThaiVisa.com.

I was feeling a little bit bored this week and decided, heck, why not go for a ride around beautiful Chiang Mai?   After driving around to multiple motorcycle rental places I was a bit frustrated.  All of the ‘choppers’ as they refer to them here in Thailand were the expected Japanese knock-off of foreign cruising bikes, which wasn’t an issue.  The engine size however was an issue.  They were almost all 250cc!  That’s barely enough power to carry the extra weight a large cruising bike carries let alone chug my big body up a mountainside with ease!

Out of my frustration came a memory of a Harley rental service I read about.  I quickly pulled up their website, Harley Tours Thailand and contacted the owner who promptly arranged to show me the stable of hogs available to me.  Now we’re talking!  I’ll take one of those 1400cc+ Harley Davidson Fat Boys!  This was my first time driving an actual Harley and the feeling you get when you hear those pipes howling and the sheer torque beneath you is inexplicable.  If riding a true Hog isn’t on your list of Things To Do Before I Die, add it, now!

While I am just renting the bike for a few days Harley Tours Thailand, as the name suggests, specialize in off the beaten path tours to places most tourists only see on the National Geographic channel.  Look them up, tell them what you’re after and they’ll make something up for you that is sure to be a permanent memory.

Name: Drinking Tea Eating Rice
Cuisine: Japanese, All types specializing in teppanyaki
Location: Conrad Hotel, Wireless Road, Bangkok
Contact: +66-2-690-999
My Rating: 8.75/10

My Thoughts:

As soon as you walk into this very chic and sophisticated, dimly lit Japanese pearl in the CBD of Bangkok, Thailand you know that excellence will follow.  While there are numerous traditional tables, the restaurant possesses private party rooms with the traditional Japanese seating style.  Most notably there is a centrally located, dual-sided teppenyaki or Japanese barbecue-grill as the center point of attention.  Here two master chefs prepare your food much in the fashion of the less serious Benihana chain, but without all of the silly flair and comedic moments.  These guys are good at what they do, they do it with grace, silence and the end result is perfection.  They’ll even present to you the meat before the begin their culinary quest to cook you your custom tailored order to your specification.

The wait staff and manager are very attentive to your needs and while I don’t like the multiple employees staring at me while I eat, it wasn’t overboard like some places.  My water was always filled and all of the spices and intricacies we specified (no oil, no butter.. steamed vegetables, extra zucchini and eggplant) are always on target.  They remember you and the next time you come by for a splendid Japanese meal in the style an international traveler is accustomed, they will often need no further clarification as to your special needs.

On this instance a member of the Thai Royal Family was present eating in one of the private rooms, and there  was security all over the place but somehow it didn’t effect the atmosphere one bit.

The clientele here consists mainly of affluent Thais with a good amount of higher-end business travelers.

The menu at Drinking Tea Eating Rice at the Conrad in Bangkok, Thailand runs the gamut.  In the mood for some Japanese wagyu?  They have it.  Only the best ingredients are used and it shows in the rich tasting end result.

Overall an absolutely splendid spot in the Japanese food scene of Bangkok and one I highly recommend visiting.  I’ve discovered my sparkling nook of premium Japanese cuisine and they can count me as a new, regular patron.

Reservations are rarely necessary.  Their hours are 11:30am – 11:30pm.  If arriving by taxi just tell him ‘Con-rad Witthayu’.

Recently I discovered the adventure of Zorbing.  WTF is Zorbing you ask?  Well Zorb is the official term by the Kiwis who started this whole thing and since inception zorbing has become known also, less officially, as sphering and globe-riding.

The zorb balls consist of 2 spheres, an inner and outer, connected by hundreds of strings effectively suspending the inner ball with a giant cushion in all directions.

There are different types of zorb ball runs which can be done on water, down a flat slope or down a zig-zagged track.  The xorb balls themselves come in a variety such as water-tubes specifically for walking on water (I’m pretty sure that Jesus guy invented this), the traditional zorb ball where one or two riders are strapped to the inside spheroid walls and essentially tumble over each other down the course.  This is only done on the straight downhill courses as it’s much more physical.  Then there’s the orbs that are sealed and splashed with some water so you maintain your bearings as you roll down the hill.  This kind of zorbing can be done using a zig-zag shaped track.

Wanna go for an extreme adventure in Thailand?  Head up to Chiang Mai and check out the X-Centre!  You can’t miss this place, every tuk-tuk or taxi cab driver in the city will either have a sticker or know exactly where you want to go.  They have the head-over-heels kind and a straight track.

I don’t want to get deep into the censorship debate that shadows over Thailand nor do I wish to delve into anything negative about anything in this blog (other than the news section of course which is RSS fed direct from The Bangkok Post).  But today I witnessed a form of censorship firsthand and it just irked me enough to write this article.

To read the long and nasty article on censorship and how it relates to Thailand click here for the entire WikiPedia article.

Today on Thai Visa they emailed an alert to everyone that a gag order would be applied for by deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s children who are still in Thailand.

“IMPORTANT UPDATE FOR THAIVISA MEMBERS

The Supreme Court may issue a media gag order banning all Thai media to speculate on the judicial decision ahead of the Thaksin verdict session, scheduled for February 26.

If the gag order is approved, we may not be able to discuss or update you on current news via our forum, website or newsletter.

NOW: Be sure to follow Thaivisa on Facebook or Twitter to keep you instantly updated:

IT’s EASY:

Join us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/farang
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/georgebkk”

To me, this sounded like normal Thai politics and their ways of censoring things without ‘censoring’ things but calling it ‘other things’.  Did you follow that?  What struck me was that this gag order is apparently something quite serious as in 7 years I’ve never gotten a notification like this from Thai Visa.  They said that they may not be able to report on any speculation leading up to the court’s ruling on the seizure of Thaksin’s assets but that they will circumvent the Establishment by posting the news anyhow on Twitter and Facebook.

I’m trying to wrap my head around why it’s OK for the apparent owners of this foreign-hosted website, ThaiVisa.com, to post censored information on social networks, just not their forum.  Perhaps they don’t want to risk their asset, being www.thaivisa.com from being blacklisted by the MICT.  If that’s the case, then why slap them in the face and report the ‘forbidden information’ on another platform?  It would seem to me that directly posting ‘forbidden information’ on their site or indirectly via another platform (with their names all over it) would have the same repercussions.

What do you think?  Discuss;

Name: Peperoni (Narai Hotel Silom)
Cuisine: Italian-contemporary
Location: Narai Hotel, Silom, Bangkok
Contact: +662 237 0100
My Rating: 9/10

My Thoughts:

This is hands down one of the best values on Italian restaurants in central Bangkok.  The food is absolutely awesome and you can see it being prepared in the totally open kitchen area.  This restaurant is located on the ground floor of the Narai Hotel (tell a taxi drive, Na-Lai, Si-lome) and the ambiance is contemporary and cheery.  The staff is attentive and while sometimes the food takes a couple minutes longer than I’d like, the range of flavors available easily make up for it.

They make many types of pizzas with their own touch (for instance, the pepperoni pizza has some red peppers sprinkled on top).  They have perhaps the meanest seared Ahi-tuna salad with balsamic dressing (pepper crusted) I’ve ever had.  This is not only uber-healthy it also doesnt break the bank for a great lunchtime, under 300bht for the salad.

Peperoni has pure gastronomic bliss, cover to cover in its menu.  It has things I’ve never even heard of before and when I went out on a limb and gave these ‘different’ dishes a try I was consistently amazed.  From their triangle, tasty deep fried bread, to the rustic pizzas, meat(liver) ravioli, baked tortellini Alfredo topped off with some chestnuts (waternuts,walnuts?) down to the tiramasu and espresso.   Magnificent!  One of my favorite places to eat in Bangkok, bar none.

The clientele is predominantly farang tourists, but I’ve seen a good deal of local Thais there as well.  Trust me, this place is all that and then some.

*oh, and I don’t know why they spell Peperoni like that, it must be the proper Italian spelling, shrug.