ChiFlyer

I have only read the title so far, so I will weigh in a little from that perspective. As a young man I used to do my own car work. As I became a little more professionally successful and also all the electronic monitoring stuff was added to cars, I just did not have the time for it. Here in Thailand, we have a newish car (maybe 3 years old) that is still under some degree of warranty, so we let the manufacturer's outlet (Mazda) do the maintenance work. No complaints. Given what Labor costs are in Thailand, it makes sense to me. I guess I have left behind my old gear head roots. I remember spending time at the old drag strip routes in the Southwestern Chicago Suburbs. These were not sanctioned. We would also race alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway adjacent to some dicey housing projects. I was not somebody with a high end car, but I enjoyed being part of the action. Some of the more memorable vehicles were ramped up versions of 442s, 409s, GTOs, and Vets. Lol - one night a guy decided to run his Goat on nitro. Did not end well.

Not a problem my man. I have learned more about restaurant options in Bang Lamung from you than I have from anyone else, though you do have competition. 😀 Funny, I have never seen him with a stunner or any decent looking woman for that matter, despite that he lives in the same building. I have overheard him talking on the phone by the pool describing how he is nailing super pussy. Like I said, I pity this guy. He seems to be one miserable SOB.

I took a long look at Fin-Air last October when I had to travel to the states. They had an attractive price and a decent schedule, but at that time I noticed that they were cancelling flights left and right at the last minute. I ended up buying a one-way Business Class ticket back to Thailand from JAL. I had used the last of my One World award points to get to the US. I paid about 4500 USD for the return ticket, but I was glad I did. My old bod (73) needs Business Class a this point. This did work out well, as I suffered an attack of Bursitis a few days before departure. First time I went through this. It really effin hurts. The JAL trans-Pacific flight from ORD was great. Really comfortable. The leg down to BKK from NRT not so much. The Business Class seat matched better a premium economy seat description. Still JAL did make the run as described despite the ORD-NRT leg being 75% empty. I will remember that.

The person you mention, as we both know, bitches and moans about everything. He also seems to "exaggerate".

Gnocchi with Roasted Summer Vegetables On a lighter side of the news as compared to the Roe v Wade discussion. The GF really likes this dish, which surprised me. https://www.simplyscratch.com/sheet-pan-gnocchi-with-summer-vegetables I pretty much followed the recipe, but I mixed each part of the pasta and veg in a separate bowl with the EVOO and salt and pepper before adding to the baking sheet. I line the baking sheet with aluminum foil instead of parchment paper. I buy freshly packaged Gnocchi from Lazada using the DeCeeco label. I like the taste. Because Western ovens are smaller in Thailand than they are in the US, I use smaller baking sheets and split the ingredients across the two sheets. I recommend placing the Gnocchi and tomatoes on the same sheet as the flavors blend well together. I like this recipe in that it only takes one hour to make and has minimal cleanup time, so that the GF does not start to hate me. https://www.simplyscratch.com/sheet-pan-gnocchi-with-summer-vegetables A few pics: Coming out of the oven P

These were two separate incidents. The cat attack was the more serious of the two. It caused a 3 day outage. The Boom down the street was also a multi-day outage. In both cases the GF and I bailed to her condo down by soi 9 on Jomtien Second Road. Oh wow, I just remembered. The great Aiyaree exodus occurred during the water tank outage. This was less than a year ago. Some contractor who was working on the water tank project on the roof, disconnected the wrong line causing the entire tank to release it's contents down the main downward routes of the building, which are adjacent to the electric rooms on each floor. Took out the electricity including the elevators. The GF and I had to walk down the stairs (through draining water) from the 16th floor with suitcases. My legs were sore for 3 days. The Aiyaree is a decent short term refuge from any VT2A problems. https://www.facebook.com/newaiyareeplaceresort/ It is just down the street from VT2A. There must have been 20 of us over there. We were calling ourselves the VT2A refugees. Not a bad deal at the Aiyaree at the time (covid was good for hotel prices). I think we paid 500 a night and that included breakfast. Their internet is for sh*t though. It works slowly some of the time. In defense of VT2A, the building was constructed over 20 years ago. About 4 years ago a new management committee took over from the previous one who had done a horse sh*t job of keeping after things including keeping appropriate funding in place. The multiple significant outages over the last few years are in part due to the catch-up work that has been ongoing. As well, the Boom outage was due primarily to the infrastructure in Bang Lamung in general. The cat outage. Hey sh*t happens. In general, I like VT2A.

I do not recall the exact size of the retention pond, but it is fair sized. It is big enough to irrigate 40 rais a couple of times during the dry season. I am telling the GF that we should consider changing the prime crop to cannabis.

The link may show that this restaurant is temporarily closed. https://www.royalcliff.com/shop/huang-chao/ I had been told that Huang Chao has excellent American-Chinese food, which I have found hard to find in Bang Lamung (the greater Pattaya area). I received an e-mail from the Royal Cliff stating that Huang Chao is now open on Friday nights, but only on the last Friday of the month. 🤨 The GF and I decided to give it a try. This will be very much of a mixed review. In defense of the restaurant, many ex-pats like it. They have been closed for a long time and they are most likely working through some quirks in their reopening phase (once a month is a reopening? 🤨) Service is much too slow. If you have a friend that you have not seen in two years this would be a good chance to catch up. Since the TGF and I catch up on a daily basis, not good. The prices for wine are more expensive that Cafe des Amis. They have a bottle on the menu that costs 300,000. That is not a typeo. I did not order that. I did order a Pinot Noir from France that cost 3400. It was excellent for that price range, but I have ordered similar wines from both Cafe des Amis and Gian's that cost 2000. The quality of the food was variable to say the least. However, it was reasonably priced. On a recommendation from someone in my condo, I tried the "Hot and Sour Soup". It was quite good and cost 250. Sorry about the pic, but I ate half of it before I remembered to take a pic. This is partially due to how long it took it to arrive. Also, it was a little bland, but good. The GF likes scallops, so we ordered the sauteed scallops in an XO sauce for her. It was not very good. Cost for a small plate 350. I ordered Schezwan Beef. It was decent, but the peat factor was well below what I was expecting and I hate baby bok choi. Cost 400. All in all - sorry to say - I am in no hurry to return.

They plant primarily rice. Her brother is the hands on farmer. He brings in a damn fine crop of rice. He has been doing it for 30 years. I am not a big rice eater (too many carbs for this old fart), but I do look forward to getting some of the harvest.

The GF already owned 40 rai of farmland in the immediate area when I met her. (In case anyone does not know, a rai equals about 1/3 rd of an acre). One thing we did that some others may want to consider is we put in a retention pond. It fills up during rainy season and then can be used to irrigate the farm land during the dry season. There are trucks cheaply for hire who will come in and pump the water over the planted area. In effect, this gives the farmer two crops a year instead of one. The retention pond cost 40,000. The GF and I split the cost. I paid 30,000. 😏I am going to have to work on her English a little more as to what split means. Seriously, I have no regrets for this. I think I offered her family and hence herself a better way of life without taking on an ongoing cost. She put in some mango trees etc. in order to help shade the retention pond. These also offer fruit to be sold. I am continually amazed by the efficiency of how things are done by the Thai people.

Nice pics. A bit much to take in all at one time. I have done the car trip into the Khon Kean area from Pattaya a couple of times. That is a 9 hour trip. We skirt Korat and then Chaiyaphum and the then head North on 201. Our main destination is the GF's family's house about mid-way between Khon Kaen and Chum Phae. I enjoy making the trip a couple of times a year, but one month is about my limit for a stay. We have built a small house in the area. My intention for that is that the GF will be covered after I am no longer around. The security guard in the pic is her 5 year old nephew. He works for free showers and TV game access. The lesser visited temples up North are great.

Yes, I have been here for most of the last 6 years. I think what you are talking about is the event where -> a cat got into the main electric room and somehow managed to short himself out across two different feeds. So long Mr. Whiskers and the damage took 3 days to repair as I recall. The GF and I were lucky in that she owned a small condo over in the Jomtien Beach Condo complex (near soi 9 on Jomtien 2nd Road). We just stayed there for a few days until things got back to normal at VT2A.

Sorry, but I can not report on what language they were speaking. She tossed their butts before I became involved. One does not want to get on the wrong side of this woman. One of the guys over at PA who met her when she was operating a couple of hair salons commented "their is no grass growing under her feet".

Just a note, as a few have expressed an interest in stopping by the restaurant. VT2A will have some rolling water outages on Thursday and Friday of this week. This is due to a planned water tank upgrade that makes sense IMO. The estimated schedule for these outages has the restaurant without water from 9 AM to Noon on Thursday. The ladies plan to come in early and draw down a few large containers of water. Still service may be affected on that day.

It hit really hard over here in Jomtien as well. It woke me up about 1 AM and I am glad it did. The wind was so strong that it was driving the rain into the condo under the balcony window/doors. I had an excellently sized pool of water heading to my computer equipment area. I said "SHIT". The TGF was up out of bed within seconds armed with mop and bucket. We have been in this particular condo for two years now and this is only the second time that water was driven in by the wind and the previous time it was relatively minor. This time it was all three balcony doors and they did not have their seals all go bad at once. I live in VT2A (the building is 20 years old or so now) and the original doors were all single pane. Guys who have replaced the original doors with double or triple panes do not have these problems. Also being close to the Jomtiem Complex Blue Light Bars, the noise from the very late night birthday parties can be terrible on the South side of the building. At least it was pre-covid. I am expecting the noise level to begin to ramp up once again as tourism resumes. Multiple pane doors eliminate these problems. I am a long term renter, so I am not going to pay for this particular upgrade as it is expensive. I had a very rough estimate of 250,000 THB for a 3 unit condo (130 sqm with three balconies). I am also not highly motivated to push this because we are on the North side of the building, which shields us from the impending birthday party noise.

I am sorry. I did not express myself very well. Before it threw an error if one tried to download it. Now it can be downloaded. I misspoke when I said directly viewed.

When I first started going to Pattaya (around 2000, I was previously a Latin Camp guy), I accidentally walked into Nang Nual with a couple of newly found friends from Super Girl. An incredible time was had by all and I really liked the seafood as well. For a variety of reasons (not worth getting into) I did not return very often to Pattaya after that. I spent some time in Bangkok, but more in Brazil, Columbia, the DR, Saint Martin, Western Europe, El Salvador, and the PI. In 2016 I retired and decided to do a 3 week celebration vacation in the Jomtien area. I remembered Nang Nual and went there and was quite disappointed with both the quality of the food and also the previous ambience was long gone. I walked over to Super Girl and also not so good. Still I enjoyed my stay in Jomtien enough that I started considering it as my retirement destination. I have been here for 5+ years now.

I just got an email from the Royal Cliff. It said that their Chinese Restaurant (Huang Chao) is now open on the last Friday of the month. https://www.royalcliff.com/shop/huang-chao/ I am guessing that Covid impacted their business to the point where they closed temporarily. hmmm - this Friday is the last Friday of June. I would guess this is their grand reopening. I would make a reservation, should one have the inclination to try the place. I have not made up my mind just yet.

Thanks - I am now able to directly display the pdf file here at 24x7. I have no idea why.

hmmm - New guy with a question here. I just noticed that the pdf file for the Chicken Parm recipe can not be opened. It throws an error saying that I do not have permission to share the file on 24x7. Can someone explain why I do not have permission to share a pdf file? Not bitchin about it, just trying to understand if the problem is me or something else. In the mean time one can find the Chicken Parm recipe at the following link: https://www.bigoven.com/recipe/atk-best-chicken-parmesan/1493322 ATK has stopped sharing their recipes unless one signs up for some kind of membership. They used to be pretty open about this, but after the break up of the shows founders they became painful to deal with in this manner. The good news is that if one does a Google search on "America's Test Kitchen + recipe name", one can usually find the full recipe that someone copied into a link.

I forgot to mention something about the cheese in the original post. The recipe calls for a cheese blend of Mozzarella and Fontina. I have never been able to find Fontina in the Pattaya area. I started using Gruyere as a substitute after doing some internet searches looking for substitutes for Fontina. Works well enough.

Interesting to say the least. I was unaware of the connection to the Royal Cliff. I tried their Grill Room once, but it was a little too fancy for me. I was recently told by a friend in the condo complex where I live that the Chinese restaurant within the Royal Cliff is very good food wise, relatively inexpensive, and not crowd pressured.

For a starter, I am breaking the rules for this forum. I am not the business owner, but I reach out to the ex-pat community on behalf of the business owners who are all Thai and occasionally benefit from my English translation services. I have no fiduciary interest in this business, nor do I work on their behalf beyond this simplistic capacity. I also do not have a work permit. 🙄 My GF is the owner of this place. It is a small restaurant and not that serious of an endeavor as compared to some larger restaurants. It has about 5 tables. They serve primarily Thai food, freshly ground coffee, and some Farang type breakfasts and snacks. The cook (not my GF) ran a similar place in Korat for over 10 years. Her Thai food recipes are good. I recommend her Cashew Chicken dish. OTOH I like my version of Chicken Panang better than hers. 🙂Please do not tell her I said that. 🤐 Anyway, the place is called "Three Angels" and is located in the VT2A condo complex in Jomtien. It is on the first floor. Make a left as you enter the building. This place definitely makes the "Under 300 Baht" list. The Thai food is pretty decent. Some fool bank rolled them to a higher end CAT internet service. They have had a few clowns order water just to camp on the internet service for hours. Their asses were tossed. They do have a good connection with the VT2A Security people, who are pretty decent IMO.

Great. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I was a fan of "Bite me Bistro", but became aware of it a little late in the game. Chatted with Peter a few times in the restaurant. Seemed like a decent guy. The GF's place is not as serious an endeavor as "Bite Me Bistro". It has about 5 tables. It is primarily Thai food, freshly ground coffee, and some Farang type breakfasts and snacks. The cook (not my GF) ran a similar place in Korat for over 10 years. Her Thai food recipes are good. I recommend her Cashew Chicken dish. OTOH I like my version of Chicken Panang better than hers. 🙂Please do not tell her I said that. 🤐 Anyway, the place is called "Three Angels" and is located in the VT2A condo complex in Jomtien. It is on the first floor. Make a left as you enter the building. This place definitely makes the "Under 300 Baht" list. The Thai food is pretty decent.

I disagree some. When the place was first opened (198x ?), it was the only restaurant of this caliber in the area. It did digress in it's later years. As they continued to add tables and serve tour groups, the kitchen and seating were stressed, leading to a downturn in quality IMO.