Years ago I used to eat at three adjacent big restaurants along the Ping River in Chiang Mai town; the Brasserie (fantastic bluesy guitar by the legendary Took), the Riverside, and the Good View. For sentimental reasons, and because the food used to be good there, I decided to head over. I arrived early (6.40pm) but hordes of Chinese and well-heeled Thai hi-sos were already pouring into the Riverside and the Good View. Times are changing. Not a farang in sight. The Brasserie had vanished, and a plethora of posh-looking bars, clubs and restaurants now line the banks of the River Ping. Slightly disorientated, I found a 50 baht space in the Good Views carpark - in exchange for which I was given a voucher for 2 small bottles of water, i.e. 12 bahts worth. Great start. The Good View is a huge place. We were placed in one of the few remaining tables next to the kitchen. Think I could just about glimpse the river through dozens of tables and a throng of bodies. The only good view was of the organised chaos in the kitchen. I ordered pork chop Napoleon with Salmon in 3 sauces as an entree. For the 5 year old, chicken wings with salad. Never seen so many waiters and waitresses in a single restaurant. Being on the last row near the kitchen, each and every one of them checked our order slip under a corner of our tablecloth every single time they passed by. Most of the other tables didnt get so much as a glance. However that didnt stop them from bringing my main course and starter at the same time 15 minutes after wed arrived, and while serving me, telling us that the chicken wings were off. Bit my tongue, and lemon chicken was ordered for a famished child. The constant pointless attention to our order continued as yet another previously unseen waitress reached for the slip, so I grabbed it and put it out of everyones reach. Oh, the food. The (smoked) salmon, three rows of three tiny blobs of fish whose sauces had run into each other was ok. The pork had nothing particularly Napoleonic about it that I could distinguish. I suppose it might have been shown a bottle of brandy. The lemon chicken when it turned up was far too sweet and lemony, the sauce completely drowning out any taste the chicken might once have had. The hubbub was so loud we could barely hear the house band. Someone must have complained, because the music volume was turned up. So everyone talked much louder. Most of the Thais seemed to be concentrating on downing the contents of beer fountains and whisky bottles. After a few minutes in the place I felt like joining them. All in all a bad experience never to be repeated. 920 baht worse off, we couldnt escape quickly enough.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:28:03 +0000
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