ChiFlyer

Interesting topic.

I am an American.

On my mother's side, I really do not know. My Grandparents were immigrants from Czechoslovakia, who arrived in the US in the early 1900s. My grandfather worked in the Chicago stockyards 6 days a week 12 hours a day. On Saturday night he got drunk.

He and my grandmother left Czechoslovakia due what my aunt told me was religious persecution. They were distant cousins who loved each other, so they immigrated to America. Word is that Grandpa was a handsome man with a roving eye (hmm might be a bloodline thing). My grandparents had 10 children, 5 of whom died before they were 21. The COD ranged across (The Spanish Flu, Rheumatic heart disease, and one uncle who was supposedly murdered at the lake front for competing with the Italians at the lake front during Prohibition).

My non-criminal ancestors tended to be skilled carpenters. They built the house that I grew up in.

On my father's side of the bloodline:

I have a large book called "The History of Texas". It was published over 100 years ago. I have given it to my daughter-in-law who is interested in these types of things. It shows that my family surname originated from Scots (called McDonald) who changed their name to (their British landlord's name with his permission) in order to exit the UK via South Hampton to North Carolina. Upon arriving in North Carolina in the 1790s, they immediately starting heading West and spent the next 200 years marrying Irish lasses. 

They were members of the Confederate Army. Due to the death of my father in the Korean War, I was partially raised by a Black Nanny in deep state Texas. My mother was in a deep state of depression given the death of her husband. I was 2 years old at that time. We went back to Texas, when I was about 6. My former Black Nanny asked to see me. I had no recollections of her. I heard my Grandfather say "I do not want an N-Word in my house".  My grandmother, a racist in her own right IMO, stood up against him and said "she helped that boy a lot".

My former Black Nannie was permitted to see me. After all that I had heard I was antagonistic toward her. She looked into my eyes and said "they got to you". Something about that comment caused me to look into her eyes and she said with a smile "you are still there".

I hope I am still there.

And no, I do not want anybody's previous life. I appreciate the sacrifices that they made which I have benefited from. It is good not to be an arrogant street punk from the South side of Chicago. I partially thank my Black Nannie for that.

On 6/29/2022 at 5:35 PM, forcebwithu said:

I find cotton briefs to be the most comfortable.

Sadly I haven't been able to source them in Thailand and after three years without a resupply mission to the US I've had to resort to polyester briefs.

Looks very similar to what I prefer to wear. While I was in the US last fall I brought back several packs of these that I had bought during a Target sale. They snuck a few pastel colors into the packs. I was about to toss them, but the GF said no that looks nice. OK.

Is that you in the pics? 🙂

I am retired now, but I racked up 4M award points with AA and One World while I was working. I was on the road 2 and sometimes as much as 4 times a week. I also had a considerable number of personal international trips to places such as Brazil, Thailand, the DR, other Caribbean spots, Colombia, and other Latin American locations. I deny any accusations that might be attributed to a person with this type of travel schedule. 😏 The personal trips caused me to use other airlines based on best price.

On my trip to the US (Chicago) last fall, I used up the last of the One World points. At one point, I must have gone 3 years without riding in Coach, primarily due to complimentary upgrades. I had several years when I hit the Executive Platinum requirement of 100,000 miles by July. Hey they used to call me Sir at the airport. No longer true.

I live in Thailand now. I still like to travel a little, but have refrained from doing so for the last two years due to you know what.

In the past, I did travel with Thai at times due to their having good prices to/from India while I was working there. That was 20 years ago. Oh, I do not know if this is still true, but at the time Indian Nationals were charged a much lower airfare price than non-Nationals for flights that originated in India. The trick to avoid this was never to originate your itinerary from India.

Anyway - during the time I was working in India I found Thai Air to be decent enough, even in Coach for the 3.5 hour flights from India to BKK. I use Thai Smiles these days for my shorter runs both, both domestic and nearby international.

I have opened an account with Eva due to what was their excellent schedule ORD-BKK and what were reasonable Business Class fares. I hear that all airfares are going to sh*t due to the pent up demand caused by you know what. At 73 I need to book Business for a very long flight. CX used to be my airline of choice for trans-Pacific routes to North America, but I want nothing to do with HKG these days.

Anyway, just interested in this topic.

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.

10 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

He sure does, especially about how little he pays for "stunners."     But he's a very unappetizing subject for a restaurant thread, so I apologize for mentioning him.

Evil

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.

18 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

I  recall reading a post five years ago by a hungry little fellow who lives in VT2A.  There had been a power outage and he had been trapped in an elevator for 90 minutes.  It was even worse when he was shopping at Central Festival Mall and the power failed.  He was trapped on the escalator for three hours.

Evil

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

6 hours ago, maipenrai said:

Well, I never heard that theory before but something went bang somewhere and caused a lot of damage around the corner on Thappraya Rd as well; the end result for VT2A was  that two of the three underground cables shorted to each other and were first replaced by temporary wires laid on the ground, and then by an aerial pole line. I didn't fare too badly, my condo was on the prevailing wind side so I could leave the doors open at night and get enough air through to sleep; I had a flashlight headband that I wore for reading, etc. and the water was still flowing for cool showers - it was still a big relief when they finally fixed it!

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.

7 hours ago, Smiler said:

I don't want to come across as picky or pedantic but what size was the retention pond you had built? Seems a huge amount of money (even if you did split the cost 😃). 

Mrs Smiler made a 20mx20m pool last year for less than 5k and that's not taking into account the soil she sold from the excavation. 300 baht a truck load as I seem to remember. 

The rains came early in our part of the jungle this year which led to an overwhelming abundance of mangoes. I've never seen so many in 14 years. Many people literally could not give them away let alone sell them. Guess the trick is to have them available when nobody else does and therefore the price is what people are prepared to pay. 

Durian is a prime example, today I saw it in the local market for 85baht. 4 months back was over 200...

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.

16 hours ago, CampariO said:

May I ask what is planted on the plot? We have currently rice and cassava. After harvest, the cassava field will be planted with sugar cane (no, I won't be making any rum, though the idea had crossed my mind).

.....

 

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.

15 minutes ago, CampariO said:

Have something similar in mind, but much cheaper. More a small knock-down house or something that can be extended in future. Something I can stay for a night or 2 without having to stay in some colorful rooms in even more colorful resorts. Should not cost more than the 7 rai farmland we purchased 30 km south of Chaiyaphum.

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.

11 hours ago, maipenrai said:

I've stayed in VT2A several times over my last few trips and may stay there again - I'll have to remember this place if I do; during my last stay they lost the underground power wires for a couple of days and had to replace them with aerial wires instead, I think March of 2020 - were you there at this time? 

 

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. 

1 hour ago, Evil Penevil said:

Did one of them have Hungarian as his native language?  It would make my day, week, month, year,  if you answer "yes."   

I wish your girlfriend 

with her restaurant!

Evil

 

 

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.

17 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

That was quite the storm last night. I was in bed when it passed through and didn't bother to get up and look at the rain as I could hear it well enough from the comfy of my bed. There was crack of lightening that sounded like it hit the water tower 50m from my house. My poor dog almost had cardiac arrest with that one. Photos of the flooding on PN.

https://www.facebook.com/Thepattayanews/posts/1188446648573009

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.

17 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

 

Interesting as I still see it as a link requiring a download to view.

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.

On 6/19/2022 at 10:02 PM, Jambo said:

I have always thought that we had been so very lucky to have been able to enjoy so many really excellent restaurants in and around Pattaya. Truly spoilt for choice.

One of the first I ever went regularly to was Nang Nual in Walking Street because I thought the seafood was excellent and it was. Being in WS it was expensive. Then years later we found a Thai seafood restaurant somewhere near Banglamung police station which did great seafood at half the price. 

There has always been something tasty to suit all budgets from the local noodle stall to the Sunday wine inclusive buffet at Mantra. They come and go but still plenty have survived.

 

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.  

21 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

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.  

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.

9 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

It's not a permission issue, just that the forum software can't display the contents of a pdf so BM's would have to download the pdf file to view. Best to upload as a jpg which the forum software can display.

I used this online converter (link) to convert the recipe to jpg.

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.

On 6/19/2022 at 1:30 AM, ChiFlyer said:

Chicken Parm

The America's Test Kitchen (ATK) recipe for this item is worth reading. It explains why many home cooked versions of this dish get messed up.

Chicken Parm.pdf 195.62 kB · 1 download

The use of fresh Basil in this recipe is critical.

I follow this recipe exactly, well almost. I cut the chicken breasts according to a method that ATK published a few years after they published this recipe. Cut the breast in half across the middle. The fat end can now be butterflied into two pieces. One can then pound each of the three pieces accordingly. Some of the three may require no pounding. For pounding (not that kind you dirty birds 🙂), I place two pieces of chicken on some plastic warp. Fold more of the same sheet of plastic wrap over (start with about a 12" piece of plastic wrap) and gently pound the chicken with a mallet to the desired thickness.  

I have received many compliments on this dish. It is filling, so I do not serve a pasta with it. For this reason, I make only half of the sauce. Instead of a pasta, I make what one might call toasted bruschetta. The recipe for that is something I came up with based on a few other items that I had read about. I will detail that recipe in front of the pic.

Pics

The Chicken Parm

The Toasted Bruschetta

This is actually pretty simple and quick, but I often get more compliments from this than I do the Chicken Parm. Take about a 12" baguette and cut it on the bias into 1.5" or so slices. The 1.5" size is an upper limit. I usually try and go a little smaller.

Cut a garlic clove in half and scrape it against the baguette pieces. Put a little olive oil on the slices (just a little) put some cheese on top leftover from the Parm, and broil it for about 2 minutes. It is done just when the cheese shows some initial browning spots.

Pull the baking sheet from the oven. Use the leftover sauce from the Parm to top the baguette pieces. Then top the baguette pieces with fresh Basil.

 

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.

19 hours ago, Evil Penevil said:

 

Bruno's was founded in 1996 by Bruno Forrer and Alois (aka Louis) Fassbind, both of whom had been managers for many years at the Royal Cliff Hotel.  They hired the executive chef at the Royal Cliff, Fredi Schaub, to run the kitchen and later made him a partner.  He took over as owner in 2003 when both Forrer and Fassbind had passed away.

.....

Evil

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.