Looking Glass Magazine Best of the Year Awards for Pattaya

2006 Awards for Pattaya include best motorbike, Best Restaurant, Best furniture store, Best supermarket, and Best shopping center

By Jack Corbett

Keep in mind these best of the best superlatives were expressed back in 2006--five years ago. Much has changed since then. Cafe Mirage no longer exists, Carre Four has been taken over by Big, the Yamaha Nouvo Elegance has replaced the Yamaha Nouvo MX as Yamaha's small motorbike flagship and now there's the Honda PCX, a far better bike than the Nouvo MX or Honda Airblade which it has replaced. Anne doesn't give out too many massages anymore and the Malai Bar is now just a shadow of what it once was now that Edie is no longer its owner. I no longer go to Star Dice as for one thing it's way over in Pattaya and I've found even better spots to go to here in Naklua. Greg's Kitchen is still a terrific restaurant having the best meat pies in Pattaya for one thing. As for Naul Beach over on Koh Larn Island, it's still got the best snorkeling but right now my favorite beach is Samae.

As for low priced Thai restaurants, No Name on Naklua Soi 16 still leads the pack. I can get three Thai dishes for 120 baht, enough for my girlfriend and me and the food is still terrific.

I. Best motor bike is the Yamaha Nouvo Motor Bike

For Pattaya driving the Yamaha Nouvo is a magic carpet ride. The bike has stunning lines, weighs just 230 pounds, displaces 115 cc's, and develops just 9 horsepower while costing only $1300 U.S. brand spanking new. But a man who's weight runs no more more than 200 pounds or so who has a slender Thai girlfriend, the Nouvo is all that's needed to get around in Pattaya traffic better than anything else that's out there. These things will top out at better than 100 kilometers per hour, which is more than enough for even the fastest moving traffic in Pattaya and even enough to take you and your favorite girl out beyond the city for short excursions off the superhighways. There is no clutch and the shifting is all automatic. There's no chain--just a long life drive belt. The Nouvo behaves like a glorified golf cart. You just twist the throttle and it goes. Want to creep long at five miles an hour? No problem. And because it's fully automatic, the power transitions through the gears are both seamless and painless. Acceleration seems faster than manual transmission motorbikes in the 125 cc. class.

The Nouvo has an extra wide seat that is much more comfortable than the smaller and narrower seats of lesser bikes. There's a storage compartment beneath the seat that's large enough for a helmet and other things. It has a disc brake up front. The machine is quiet and smooth due to an excellent muffler and an engine that is counterbalanced. Typical Pattaya driving will leave you filling its tank up every five to seven days and that'll cost you one hundred baht or less. Since it's so much lighter than true motorcycles it's more agile and if you get hemmed in by other bikes once you have parked it you can always extricate your Nouvo by lifting it around the parking lot which is something you couldn't begin to accomplish with a much larger machine.

Face it, driving any bike in Pattaya is a dangerous proposition. The main reason the Nouvo's the best is that its automatic transmission makes driving so easy that you can focus on avoiding potential accidents instead of shifting. And unless you are a pretty hefty guy, thinking a bigger machine is going to do the job better for you is just wishful thinking.

2. Madame Nook's Best Pattaya Restaurant

Now that's a real tough one. There are very inexpensive restaurants that will often serve even better food than what one often finds at much pricier places. But most of them lack the ambience that other more glamorous restaurants provide in spades. Or their service might be far less than top notch. Then there are those relatively expensive restaurants which provide great Western and Thai food in a beautiful setting. Trouble is one cannot afford to eat in them day in and day out, especially if the Thai girlfriend is brought along.

After giving the matter serious thought Madame Nook gave her number one rating for best all around restaurant to Star Dice I on Beach Road which is just North of Central Pattaya Road. Madame Nook finds the setting and ambience at Star Dice I to be very beautiful with its nice view of the Gulf of Thailand. She's found the service to be first class and its Thai food to be top shelf. All of which comes at a modest price. Ironically Madame Nook doesn't get to eat here that often because she lives just a bit too far out on the North end of town.

3. All around Best furniture Store is Index

Which is located on the East side of Sukamvit Road just North of Central Pattaya Road. One needs to go no further than Index to completely outfit an entire condo or house. The styling of its furniture lines is refreshingly modern yet classy. You can get a whole kitchen here, lighting for the entire place, washing machines, towels, coffee machines, and dishware. If you want to completely furnish your new condo or house without ever leaving the first store you come to, Index should be that store.

4. High end Best furniture Store Is Decorum

Which is located next to the Friendship Store on South Pattaya Road. All the furniture here is Teak. They will even make a custom made desk here to your specifications. There are also very high quality lights and other things to buy here that will really set your place off as being one step above your neighbor's. But all of this doesn't come cheap. You will pay substantially more than you will at Index, but the overall quality of what they sell here puts Decorum into a class of its own.

5. Best Supermarket is Carre Four.

One has the widest range of selection here at some of the best prices in town. It's a great place to get excellent cuts of meat. Its shopping aisles are wide and the overall appearance of the place is second to none.

6. Best Shopping Center is Carre Four

One can buy entire kitchens and bathrooms at Homepro, which is one of its two largest tores, along with a wide assortment of tools, towels, curtains, mattresses, patio furniture, etc. while its supermarket gets our highest rating. On the ground level there's a great place to rent videos along with an excellent food mall where you can buy cheap and very good Thai food. Theres a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Subway along with other Western style fast food places. But it does not boast a movie theater such as you will find at Big C or the Royal Garden Plaza. Its major weakness was the lack of an English bookstore although there is one that caters to Thais but recently the people who run Bookazine at Big C have just introduced a smaller version of their excellent Big C book store on Carre Four's first floor.

7. Best Beer Bar is the Malai Bar

Which we gave our number one rating as the Pattaya Bar of the month.Bottled beer comes at a fair price which runs from 40 baht for Chang to 60 baht for Heineken with Singha and Tiger going at 50 baht a bottle. Unlike most Pattaya beer bars, its owner hits the beer bar target market squarely on the head. There's a four man Thai band here playing sixties, seventies and eighties music that ranges from the Rolling Stones to Country Western. Face it, most beer bar customers are older guys who want to listen to the music they grew up with--which is definitely not the noise the young kids of today want to hear. But for the most part these kids cannot begin to afford a plane ticket to Pattaya. Because Malai Bar focuses upon the customer instead of serving up the music its bar girls might want to hear or teenagers in the U.S. and Britain, sells beer at lower prices than many, and gives great service it is our far and away choice as the number one beer bar. There's far too many bars in Pattaya that either cater to their own bar girls or a young immature crowd that's thankfully missing in this neck of the woods. Their owners need to go to the Malai Bar to study from its Thai female owner the lessons of Marketing 101. Only thing is it's a bit out of the way for many since it's in Naklua rather than in Central Pattaya

8. Most impressive single attraction is Nongnooch Tropical Gardens

Its huge, and its breath taking, and its elephant shows are unlike anything you are ever likely to see in the States. Nongnooch can easily be considered world class.

9. Best place for live music hands down has gotta be the Blues Factory

Just off of Walking Street. The music starts at 9:30 p.m. Mary, the female vocalist is a look a like and sound alike Tina Turner. Except I think she's even better. And she's incredibly gracious as well. But the rest of the staring cast is outstanding as well, especially Snowman who's absolutely brilliant on the guitar and who hails from Chicago (that's from my home state, Illinois). Later into the evening, around 11:30 another band comes in, but this time it's Heavy Metal, not the Blues.

10. Best high end restaurant Is Greg's Kitchen

Which is just South of the Bangkok Bank on the East side of Pattaya 2nd Road. Greg used to be a London chef, but his Thai course offerings are excellent and in larger portions than is commonly found elsewhere. I particularly like his meat pies and his Hungarian Goulash. Greg's attention to detail is second to none and his Western food is so delicious that its taste continues to linger on days after one has left his place. Yes, Greg's an Englishman, and although in general the English have a reputation for serving up some rather bland food, Greg's an outstanding exception to the rule. Moreover, his Western food runs the gamut of the best of the best from a variety of European countries.

11. Best place to live.

Well that's a no-brainer. Of course it's where I live. Over here at Wongamat Beach

Wongamat Beach is a couple of miles North of Central Pattaya in Naklua. There's more trees and flowers here and the pace is much slower. The condo's just 200 meters from the Gulf of Thailand. Restaurants are for the most part less expensive and there's lots of great German restaurants that serve both Thai and German food at modest prices. The boisterousness of the Central Pattaya bar scene is decidedly lacking. In a sense one gets the feeling of living in Ko Samui or Phuket where everything's not in one's face and there's a touch of glamour in the air. One can easily remain here and not venture out into the hyperactivity of Central Pattaya while enjoying the ambience of its ocean setting. The great thing about the area is that it offers the best of both worlds, since Central Pattaya's just a thirty minute walk away.

12. Best place to buy videos

Is on the third floor of the Royal Garden Starting on the Beach Road or Western side of this department store, take the escalator and turn left once you are on the third floor. Here you will find the largest selection of videos (for audio cd's) I have yet found for sale in Pattaya. Plaza.

13. Best place to take a scenic drive is the area around Buddha Hill

Actually there are three high elevated points here. The first is close to the main pier just South and West of where Walking Street ends. The last is the one where you will see the large gold painted statue of Buddha. There are a number of gorgeous hotels and resorts in this area. The best part of the drive are the terrific views of the ocean and city and the almost complete absence of traffic. For that matter this is a great place to take a long walk or to do one's jogging. There's a wide assortment of trees along with a Kaleidoscope of flowers to be found as you twist up and down the hills and around the curves. And compared to most of Pattaya the place is relatively uncluttered. It will remind you a bit of Singapore where the streets and sidewalks are kept scrupulously clean.

14. Best swimming hole is Naul Beach

At Koh Larn Island. Naul Beach is on the South end of the island. Unlike Koh Larn's other beaches Naul faces Pattaya. Here you will find some of the best snorkeling on the entire island as jet ski and motorboat traffic is minimal and there's a lot of coral that provides a haven for a variety of fish. Expect to find just a handful of Westerners here at any given point of time and that's on a good day. Other times you might find you have the entire beach to yourself. Although You can get beer and soft drinks and some snacks there really isn't a real restaurant on the beach. It's a great place to have your own private party for yourself and your friends, and I'm sure the few people who are there to serve you refreshments will be happy to see you. One great way to visit this off the beaten path beach is to rent a motorbike as soon as you get off the ferry. (most of the beach scenes in this video are of Naul Beach) You can then take your own sweet time touring the entire island along with being able to come and go when you choose. The ferry to Koh Larn leaves the main pier at 10:00 and 12:00 sharp so please come early to avoid missing the boat. Cost is just 20 baht per person one way.

15. Best way to stay in touch with the U.S. is Skype

Which you can download onto your computer from skype.com. It'll take you just five minutes and it is free. Voice communication to your U.S. friends who are also using Skype is just about perfect. Moreover if you get one of those little video cams you will experience full screen full motion video that's simply the best that's out there. You can use your credit card to buy Skype Out minutes which enables you to call regular telephones all over the world. To call telephones in the U.S. it will cost you just 2 cents a minute. Normally the quality of your voice transmissions both on the receiving and sending end will surpass your expectations. All you need is a microphone and possibly a set of headphones for your computer and the patience to wade through that five minute download. There's nothing like it to keep on top of what's going on at home whether it's calling your bank or credit card company, your business associates or simply to gossip with your friends. And I'm sure it's very useful wherever you might be calling to whether it's to the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, etc. I'm just not familiar with how much the skype out rate is to other countries.

16. Best Western restaurants in Pattaya

Have gotta be the German Restaurants.

Most of them serve Thai good for one thing so that cute little girlfriend of yours will still be able to eat her Thai food. For the most part the German restaurants serve tastier food than their English counterparts and you will usually end up paying a great deal less for what you are getting.

17. Best buffet restaurant in Pattaya is Anton's

Without a moment's hesitation Madame Nook gave her top rating to Anton's. Anton's is a German restaurant in Naklua on the East side of Naklua Road across the street from Soi 18. There is a wide assortment of tasty dishes, including salads and soup for a mere 165 baht. To give you a sense of this kind of value, you could go to the Queen Victoria on Soi Six and pay 320 baht for the Sunday buffet and wind up having a choice from far fewer selections. But if you're English and your preferences wind up in this direction this might be your cup of tea. And moving up the food chain, there's a buffet at the Long Beach Hotel where the food is excellent and there's a number of selections to choose from but this will set you back around 500 baht. Montien is reputed to have a great buffet but Madame Nook has never been there, and I'm sure it's priced similarly to the Long Beach. Hey---I could start up a restaurant offering buffets for 1000 baht a person but who cares? There's a point at which one has to ask himself, "Is this a reasonable price for what I am getting?" And at Anton's one gets an awful lot of great food at around four bucks a person.

18. Best place to get a massage Is Anne's Massage and Nitnoi Bar.

Here you can get a foot massage for 200 baht or an unbeatable Thai Massage for just 150 baht. The beauty surrounding Anne's massage and bar at the Park Beach Condo is unsurpassed. That is the Park Beach architecture and tropical setting and some of the ladies you will be meeting through Anne. Want to rent a BMW or a motorbike? Anne's got you covered. Or a taxi to the airport?

19. Best low priced Restaurant

Once again, Madame Nook didn't hesitate giving her top rating to the No Name Restaurant here at Wongamat Beach.

Which is so appropriate. Here an American breakfast costs just 60 baht and you can get a Thai omelet for fifty. Ice water's free, and to give just one more example of how reasonably priced a restaurant can be, dinner for two consisting of two entrees costs just 130 baht. That's just $3.25. And the Thai food is second to none. No Name is a favorite of the Thais along with a few discerning Westerners who live in the area.

20. Best Coffee House is Cafe Mirage

The coffee is fresh being made on the premises from top quality coffee beans. The American breakfast is 100 baht and everything's done the way it should be. The bread here is outstanding being brought in from Bangkok, and then baked in a special machine here at Cafe Mirage. But aside from some sandwiches, rolls and croissants, the menu is limited but outstanding as far as it goes. But you have to come to Wongamat Beach to get it.

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