The Atlanta Hotel is a special case. So, after writing my ode about that one, I felt serving up a huge extra portion about the equally special restaurant in the same post would be a bit too much. Especially since I appear to have eaten there quite a lot (and have taken enough photos to fill an extra post), so here is a taste of things to come.
But first, let me take you for breakfast at the AH! Restaurant.
I really wish you will go and visit. However, I believe you have to be a guest of the hotel in order to eat there. We managed to bend that rule once when my boyfriends mother and her friend were in town, and we asked the manageress at lunchtime, and permission was granted for dinner on the same day. I had stayed there a few times before, and I think some of the staff have photographic memory, so perhaps I had good karma points with them.
It looks form the photos like you can only get two dishes there. In fact… for me, there are. I always order the same! The picture below shows the Thai breakfast. Scrambled egg, a spicy salad and some shrimpsy stuff, served with Jasmine or Brown Rice. There is a choice of various items, but as a vegetarian with occasional lapses into fish and sea food, I tend to stick to these.
Or try the fat pancake. Literally, just look a the size if it.
Or, have all of it. It makes sense to travel with a companion just that you can share as many of these dishes as possible. This is the best start into the day I can imagine.
No wonder I manage to get fat even in Thailand.
The restaurant has a certain Station Buffet/Diner Layout, but the nice welcome and the food more than make up for the somewhat spartan interior.
Except for these romantic banquettes.
To the back of the restaurant is a shelf with books and a table with newspapers and magazines. I think I once sat there all morning reading – nobody rushed me out. I know. I have no life, ha.
I don’t think I ever had lunch there, because I am usually pretty stuffed from breakfast, and come noon, I would have finally risen from the breakfast table and gone out into town.
So, time for dinner. This looks quite romantic, but actually is just my friend and I having a teetotal holiday – mine lasted about seven days, hers the entire holiday. You can order wine there, and they have quite a good wine list of Thai wines (!) and international wines, too.
The menu is really huge! Its a very large bound file, with about fifty pages. If your dining companion proves to be a bore, you will enjoy a great read about the hotel’s history, traditional Thai dishes and how they’re cooked, and study the extensive wine list.
Noodles feature heavily. Or could it be my penchant for Pad Thai?
More noodles. They have one of the largest menu of vegetarian foods in Bangkok, but are not exclusively vegetarian.
Three dishes are almost too much for two people. That tofu dish on the right is just too much – a whole dish of tofu. I am pretty certain I ordered that and ate most of it.
It would be a little unfair to go on about this without offering an alternative if you decide not to stay there or bend the manageresses arm.
There are tons of great restaurants in central parts of Bangkok and you will find one easily. May Kaidee is a pretty solid vegetarian restaurant near Khao San Road, and any restaurant further out than than Asoke on the Sukhumvit Skytrain in a side street should be good, but of you are near the Royal Palace, try the Royal Thai Navy Club.
It is another time warp, a canteen-like dining room in the corner of a grand building, but the dishes seemed very authentic, and when we went for lunch, the tourist/local ratio was low.
I can’t get enough of tofu.
The sticky rice and mango was only surpassed by “that famous place outside the Hilton” in Hua Hin.
Bon Appetit!
Atlanta Hotel Restaurant and Coffeshop, Soi Sukhumvit 2 (Pha Suk), Bangkok
Royal Thai Navy Club, 77 Phra Borom Maha Ratchawang, Bangkok
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