Tomcat Eats OutThe best restaurant reviews. Mainly by Tomcat but we'll move any well written reviews here too.
As ever, sponsored by the very lovely Chris at Oh My Cod!
TC if you had given your honest view at the time I dont think it would be taken as being rude. Just honest. But you werent were you? Aquaman ever heard of a metaphor?
The restaurant bills itself as "international" because James, the friendly owner-manager, wasn't sure what else to call a menu that has Thai, Italian and North African. James cheerfully admits he has no kitchen training (though he loves to watch the Food Channel when he's in California), preferring the management/business side of food service. All the cooking is done by his Thai staff. Given the awkward location and his lack of restaurant experience, I wondered why he would choose to open a business so far from home. Answer: he loves Bkk.
SD and I dropped in specifically for the Moroccan dishes promised in his advertising. We started with the hummus and "eggplant caviar", or metebel. The former was fairly good while the latter was dry and totally uninteresting. The little rounds of pita bread were, however, very good...far better indeed than most pita I've had in Bkk. I moved on to a tabouleh salad with salmon that bore no resemblance to tabouleh I've ever had: no bulgar wheat, little parsley, some chopped cucumbers, a bit of very dry couscous, and chunks of smoked salmon. Bland in taste and texture. This is one innovation that definitely didn't work. SD tried the Italian seafood soup: a thick marinara sauce poured over steamed shellfish. Consistancy-wise neither a soup nor a stew, it was edible, but not very appealing.
The last dish, purportedly Moroccan, we shared. It was a chicken leg stewed in a yellow sauce with 3 olives and a quarter lemon. In my year of living in North Africa I had never come across a dish as flavorless as this. It turns out that James included these "Moroccan" items because they had been on the menu of the restaurant's previous owner and the Thai chef knew how to prepare them. He did, however, note that he had once driven past a famous Moroccan restaurant north of LA. I wish he had told us all this before we ordered.
By this time, I was on my 3rd (rather generous) glass of the house Italian merlot that was very smooth (B170). SD decided to try the mud pie for dessert. At last we had on the table something that at least one of us enjoyed: chocolate ice cream on an oreo crust, covered in a chocolate sauce with a side of whipped cream. SD thought it was magnificent.
Unfortunately, James has given up his day job to become a restauranteur. I wish him well, but fear the client base he hopes to impress will not beat a path to his door.
Checkbin: B1800 (with 3 glasses of wine).
Quote:
Originally Posted by COOKIE MONSTER
Then he went away and flamed the place
dunno about you CM but tc's review seems rather tame to me. i think you have a dose of drama-queenitis unfortunately...
this is a discussion forum where people are free to give opinions or reviews on virtually any topic they wish. last i looked there was no professional criteria for said reviews or opinion-making. you may not agree with tc's review but pursuing him under the pretension of his "credentials" to review is quite lame imho
and finally as for proper flaming reviews....
i think this one is far more fitting the criteria
The duke is a crap pub run by 2 guys who dont take care of their regulars. They dont even talk to them. One of the owners just sits at his laptop all the time and the other spends most of his time walking in and out of the front door cos he has nothing else to do. The beer is cheep because they are trying to compete with the 2 irish pubs in that area. There is no atmosphere in there and its like sitting in a barn. They have hired a new Thai 'manageress' (a butch looking lesbian type who i believe got fired from Oreillys) The service is poor and just lately they have cut back on staff drastically because the are apparently losing money hand over fist. The place is full of farangs looking for the cheapest pint and Thais trying to be hi so without having to pay the sort of prices you would normally pay in an English pub here. The manager/owner? that used to be the manager at the Robin Hood hasnt got a clue what he's doing and has the personality of a deaf mute! A classic case of opening a bar and thinking by offering cheap grog that it will be a success. They should head to the xchange/oreillys or any other pub on their night off and maybe pick up a few tips on how to run a pub!! I predict it wont be in business for much longer. Mind you if you like cricket then head down there. Its all their t.v's seem to play.
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Jesus Christ CM a critics job is not to help the chef or owner, its to review the place. Its that simple.
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And you still have to use profanities to express yourself? Hmm!
Its a worldly thing Cookie Monster-even my students watch Western DVD, then ask me "Laoshi, what does shit/fuck/cnut...etc mean?" If you were a teacher, you would experience this too!
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Its a worldly thing Cookie Monster-even my students watch Western DVD, then ask me "Laoshi, what does shit/fuck/cnut...etc mean?" If you were a teacher, you would experience this too!
Laoshi?
Oh, right.
Well, according to the other thread that CM started about this place....he works there!
SD tried the Italian seafood soup: a thick marinara sauce poured over steamed shellfish. Consistancy-wise neither a soup nor a stew
Okay, I was raised on Italian cuisine, cooked by Italians and my father owned a few restaurants in his lifetime, both here and in Italy, the last one til he dropped dead 3 years back. We also have friends and family with well known eateries here and in Italy, and I have been to Italy a few times myself, for months at a time,
I've even had Italian food in New York, San Francisco and Cuba...and I still can't figure out what that dish is supposed to be.
As far as food critcism goes, you open yourself up for that sort of thing when you open a restaurant. Word of mouth is th ebest advertising you can get if it is good...and can really hurt if it is bad. That is why you always try and put out good food and good service.
You want people walking out eager to tell their friends to try the place, not to give it a pass or stay away entirely. I read reviews, and do respect critics to a point, but I trust the experiences of people I know even more.
Some guy at a paper is supposed to be a epicurean genius, and so his opinion counts for more than another persons? Has the guy at the post worked under a Moroccan chef? Has he lived in Italy and worked in an Italian restaurant? Has he been to culinary school?
His credentials should come under more scrutiny than those of a person who enjoys dining out and likes to share his experiences...as should those of a person who opens an eatery and the people who cook in it.
TC seems to have lived, worked and eaten in the authentic realm of the cuisine in question, so that pretty much makes him able to speak intelligently about what he is reviewing. The fact that he paid money to eat their entitles him to his opinion, and the fact that he is posting in a relatively public and uncensored forum entitles him to express it. It's like a human right to complain about what you ate and how much it cost...
Maybe the fact that he didn't give his honest opinion to the owner is a bit off-putting, but some people are like that...he could have mentioned the good with the bad, but he chose not to.
I would have been honest...but I am famously blunt.
Maybe James should rethink his menu a bit...he doesn't want to end up like Babu Bhatt on Seinfeld. If a writer should write what he knows, and TC does seem to know his stuff in this area, then shouldn't a restaurant serve what they know?
Its a worldly thing Cookie Monster-even my students watch Western DVD, then ask me "Laoshi, what does shit/fuck/cnut...etc mean?" If you were a teacher, you would experience this too!
Eh? when did I get dragged into a restaurant review thread?...
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Re: Jamesense, Sukh soi 16
Man where to start? This is an epic thread! Let's see we have a now not so new restaurant with an American owner, a Thai chef and apparently a loose nut of a Brit running around. Loose nut doesn't like the review by TC so he starts a one man campaign to make a fool of himself, turns out he's a worker (or owner of the place) and likes to thrash other restaurants. Then if I read the threads right about 3 months into the restaurant being open the loose nut posts a pseudo ad for a Moroccan chef, seeing that they have been serving Moroccan food and it would be nice if they had someone who knew how to cook it! So my question is, is this place still in business and if so why? BTW if I get tired of the teaching gig, I think I will open a home style Guam restaurant just like Mom used to have.
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Re: Jamesense, Sukh soi 16
Yah, but just don't ask him to go to the dentist! If you do...he'll shoot spitballs at you. Thai students LUV having spitballs shot at their heads. They don't care about that whole "head thing"! Just ask him, he'll tell you.
Wonder if his restaurant career will be as successful as his teaching career.
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