Sunday 4 July 2010

We Had Another Lazy Day,

we had promised ourselves a romantic meal out in the evening, but during the day Diana and I watched more than a few episodes of One Foot In The Grave, along with the Christmas special One Foot in the Algarve, but the surprise for me was that in 1993 I was in Victoria station watching Peter Cook being filmed along with his Billingham bag, I thought no more about it except I have the same bag, but here I am in Thailand in 2010 and there he was in this episode of One Foot in the scene at the station, strange, a few weeks ago we had seen on the local Pattaya channel that the Marriott was starting its seafood evenings on Saturdays, a few years ago they were hugely popular 1,200 baht per person but that included a large lobster each, so for a romantic evening out we decided on that, so glad rags on and off we went, Diana was wearing one of her matching necklace, earring and bracelet sets and looking as lovely as ever,
through the main foyer at Marriott's, past the bar,
garden and pool,
then a short walk into the garden in the distance,
the salad bar, we noticed on the way in that it was 649 ++ baht a head,
so we were shown to our table, the decor there is so nice, a huge feeling of space with high vaulted ceilings, along with a piano player, who was it has to be said very good,
beside the salad bar is the main course area and the cooking station,
first the salad bar, I have to say it, we were both completely underwhelmed, a very poor selection indeed if you compare it to say Cherry's,
we then went to the Mongolian food section,
next to the Thai selection,
Diana had a few tit-bits from that,
Mango shake and a starter for Diana,
but before the main course a dessert lured her away, the rational was that she might be too full to eat one after the main course!
who ate all the pie? well it was not us!
then the main course, one stick of chicken, a slice of pork, two (I had expected a few more) mussells, two shrimp and two rock lobsters, none of the big lobsters and I have to say it a very poor selection of main courses indeed, I may seem to be nit picking here, but lets face it the Marrott is an International 5 star restaurant and hotel, we were I must admit by now feeling a little let down, as I guess the other five dinners were,
Diana with her main course,
'Cheers!', from both of us,
Diana then had a second dessert, some cantaloupe,
I then had a couple more chicken sticks with some vegetables,
as I only had two mussells with the main course I ordered a plate of them,
Diana was still feeling a bit peckish so she ordered a few more nibbles,
then joy of joys, the desserts,
we decided to let our food go down before trying them, they were delicious,
then on to our way home past the aircraft at the shopping mall, but back to the Marrott for a moment, we arrived expecting to pay 1,200 ++ a head for a slap up meal including a lobster in fact maybe more as prices must have gone up over the years since we had been to one of their most popular evenings, as it turned out all of that had been stopped, the salad bar and main courses were quite frankly a cheap meal trying to masquerade as a 5 star meal, our bill? two meals, one water, one vodka soda, two house wines, 2,880 baht, I never normally complain about the price of food, but as Diana said for at least a year we will not be back!
so feet up and a couple of Midsomer Murders, Bad Tidings, it is set in the Midsomer village of Midsomer Mallow & starts late one night as the local residents committee are holding a themed evening, in this case a Spanish night, after that we watched The Fisher King, long-suppressed family secrets, stolen ancient artifacts, and a thirty year old death at a Celtic burial site result in a series of murders in present day Midsomer, again I did not have a clue as to who was killing who, but one thing I will say is that I am surprised with the amount of murders in Midsomer there is any population left! then off to bed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stan,

Have to say my experiences with 5 star dinning (hotels) in Patty has been poor also.... Royal cliff/Brunos about the best I have experienced.

Daryle

PattayaStan said...

Dear Daryle, you are so right, but another one that comes to mind to add to the 4/5 star list Cafe des Amis

http://www.pattayabistro.com/

we have had some nice meals there, best regards, Stan and Diana.