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Riverside Terrace, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok
Bangkok is a city of the river that dissects it: the Chao Praya River, or River of Kings, is the main route for water traffic of all types imaginable, from ferries zipping commuters from bank to bank, to barges laden with cargo and the plentiful longtails a.k.a. water taxis. In many respects this river embodies the spirit of Bangkok, feeding it, shaping it, lending its ever-changing character to this diverse city. So, when it came time for my hungry French husband and me to decide which of the Mandarin Oriental’s seven eateries would gain our custom on our first night in Bangkok, it seemed only natural that we should give it to the Riverside Terrace restaurant, with its unbeatable view of life on the Chao Praya.
Some reviewers have complained of the river noise disturbing their Riverside Terrace experience, but the constant honking and swooshing didn’t bother us at all. We were seated so close to the river that had we been much closer, we would have been in it, which would have been a whole different dining experience. As it was, we were thrilled with our table and, wanting to soak up the sunset atmosphere, ordered a couple of cocktails to kick off the evening.
I know my drink included lemongrass and ginger ale as I could definitely taste both, but Heaven only knows what happened to the alcohol – vodka? gin? I presume it was one of the above because it arrived in a Martini glass, but who could tell which, there was so little of it? I almost asked for the list again, so I could check what I was drinking because this was one alcoholic drink with zero kick. The main reason I’d chosen it in the first place was to taste lemongrass, all in an attempt to immerse my tastebuds in proper Thai flavours, but seriously, people, what a cocktail FAIL. It might as well have been vaguely-fizzy lemongrass and ginger iced tea.
Where the cocktails were a disappointment, and had now been replaced by the far more reliable Tiger beer, the buffet more than made up for lost brownie points in its range and quality. It was almost impossible to know where to start; the bread alone must have come in at least a dozen varieties. There was a Tandoori oven, kebab station, a Japanese Teppanyaki chef and separate sushi and sashimi bar. A rotisserie was in full operation over open fire and barbecue meats were available for all those with a carnivorous fang or two. For those with the desire to dine light, there sat bowl after bowl of salad, from simple tossed greenery to those with a more Asiatic influence, noodle salads, seafood with chilli and beansprouts, something to tickle a great many palates.
Elsewhere, I discovered wisdom in the provision of cool gazpacho, ready to ladle with all the optional condiments lined up in adjacent bowls. Of utmost relevance to this keen pescetarian, the seafood selection was vast, with grilled King prawns so Jabba the Hut-fat that just one would take care of any starter requirement, succulent chunks of octopus, and juicy blue river lobster.
In all honesty, there was so much variety that the Riverside Terrace’s buffet could become an advertisement for Alka Seltzer. Mindful of this and the fact that we’d now spotted the dessert bar, Monsieur and I restrained ourselves as much as possible. This was an exercise in LESS now equals MORE later.
On an island set back from the savoury buffet, patrons could choose from a wide selection of desserts, bespoking them with toppings and sprinkles and sauces various, but knowing that the potential for further consumption was limited, we chose just the one sweet - making a bee-line for the flambé cart where a chef served us up some wickedly alcoholic (compared to the mock-tail of earlier) crêpes Suzette.
Apart from the mock-tail experience, the only blot on the Riverside Terrace’s copybook was the staff. Compared to everywhere else in the hotel, this bunch were far from happy bunnies. They looked hot, tired and a bit bored. It just seemed so out of sorts with all the other staff we’d met so far, who were ever-smiling and cheerful. I’d like to think that perhaps we just came on an ‘off’ night.
In summary:
- visit the Riverside Terrace for an atmospheric aperitif at sundown but don’t bother with the cocktails unless you’ve just come off a bender and need to dry out.
- The food provides plenty of options for individual tastes, but remember: eating less now means you can squeeze in some wicked sweetness later.
- After dinner, take one of the hotel’s pagoda boats across the river – the crossing is free to all Mandarin Oriental guests. On the other side you’ll find the MO Hotel’s annex, housing Sala Rim Naam, a traditional Thai restaurant, where displays of traditional Thai entertainment may be enjoyed as part of a buffet lunch or set Thai dinner.
- Sala Rim Naam is contained within a traditional Thai building with carved wooden pediments and steep roof. Adjacent to Sala Rim Naam is a river-front area with impressive Buddhist shrine, and if you walk further back into the annex, you’ll find peaceful sunken ponds filled with lily pads. The hotel Spa is located over here if you feel like a massage to aid digestion.
Where Epic finds she cannot bear her seatmate/s on Eva Air
When Monsieur booked our flights to Bangkok a couple of years ago, he chose Eva Air. “Eva who?” I asked, somewhat concerned that there existed an airline I hadn’t yet heard of. “They’re Taiwan’s national carrier,” he explained, as if it were common knowledge, which it probably was to everyone else in the world, but not me. Nonetheless it inspired a frisson of excitement that we’d soon be flying with an airline I’d had no clue existed until we booked this trip.
When the departure date finally arrived, we were understandably excited about spending the next couple of weeks in the Far East. Then, to make things even better, the Eva Air check-in clerk gave us an upgrade from sardine to premier sardine class. “You’ll be sitting by the bulkhead. Is that okay?” she asked, and I wondered why she asked us anything given that with the upgrade we’d be sitting in seats considered to be better and therefore more expensive than those we’d booked. “Of course it’s okay!” we replied with a grin. Little did we know.
On board, we were seated in the central two seats of a row of four, directly in front of a bulkhead. Indeed we had extra leg room, thanks to the upgrade. On a thirteen-hour flight, that counts for something. This trip was starting well.
To my left was a man with a baby. He was friendly and chatted with me about rugby until his wife, seated directly behind us, decided that we were chatting a bit TOO much and insisted on swapping with him. Directly after take-off, the problems started. A flight attendant appeared with a cot for the baby, which was strapped to the bulkhead, thereby blocking my access to the aisle and destroying any leg room gain that may have existed a mere moment before. Added to which, there was so much baby paraphernalia now encroaching on my space that getting into my armrest for in-flight entertainment controls was becoming an issue. I’d say ‘excuse me’ and she’d huff and puff with a grimace, as if I were inconveniencing HER! Meanwhile, baby wipes and muslins and teats and all sorts of baby items were making their way across to my seat and my foot space. I was not a happy bunny.
I do sympathise with parents who travel with babies. It can’t be easy, what with extra carry-on and push chairs and feedings and little ears popping on ascent and descent, not to mention crying. Some parents manage incredibly well although they tend to be the ones who stay quiet and calm with their babies. Their demeanour seems to rub off on their wee one. Unfortunately, the mother next to me was not one of those people. She was tense and moody and grumpy and a downright pain in the arse. For the first time in my life I regretted that we’d ever been offered an upgrade and wished myself back with the regular sardines.
Then, out of the blue, and somewhat temporarily, Grumpy Mum started treating me like a human being. I think it probably had something to do with the fact that the cabin was now echoing with the incessant howls of her offspring. He screamed so long and so loud that I was tempted to ask if he had been born with any numerical birthmarks, like 666. Bugger it, I hadn’t brought any ear plugs.
(the grumpiest baby to be found on Google images. Not sure to whom I should attribute this image, because loads of different sites have used it…)
Eventually, Grumpy Mum realised that a soiled nappy was the reason for the screaming. At the risk of stating the obvious, and I know I may not be a mother myself, but isn’t that one of the first things you check when a baby starts to cry? But wait, there’s more. Instead of taking the baby to the rest room to change him, she removed his stinky, pooey, messy nappy right there in the cabin and did so with such lack of care for her child that the screaming intensified. Three flight attendants tried to tell her to take the baby to the rest room, but Grumpy Mum wasn’t moving. No sir. She was changing the nappy right there and then. In hindsight and on behalf of my fellow passengers, I should have taken the nappy and rammed it up her nose. Inconsiderate doesn’t even begin to describe it. The cabin stank for hours. Literally. I remind you that this was a long-haul flight.
With the aroma of baby faeces wafting up my nose I wondered how airlines could decrease the likelihood of such scenarios happening. Perhaps they could issue guidelines for people travelling with small children (if they don’t already)? Perhaps they could create a cot that sits IN a seat so that aisle access is not blocked – something that could be dangerous in an emergency. Perhaps they could follow a protocol so that passengers are informed if they are going to be seated next to a baby and can change seat allocation if that’s going to be a problem for them. On a site called Flying With Kids experts suggest that some airline assistants will block out the seat next to the parent of a young child to allow them extra space – according to availability. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for us and as far as I was concerned the pilot couldn’t fly us to Bangkok fast enough. If my baby neighbour had been a new incarnation of the devil, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least. To be fair, though, I think his non-stop screaming were due to poor parenting. Had I had enough opportunity to relax and sleep on the flight, I may have found energy to feel sorry for the kid. But, no. I’m embarrassed to admit that infanticide was the only thing on my mind by the time the plane landed. I practically ran off the plane to escape the previous 13 hours of smelly, noisy confinement. So what can we do to help ourselves avoid the baby cot scenario in future? Here are some tips. Feel free to add to them in the comments below.
- Sometimes airlines upgrade you because it will help THEM out. It pays to be aware of this. In our case we must have looked polite enough to put up with a 13 hour flight next to a screaming baby. Never again.
- If you are travelling à deux, never, ever accept a pair of middle seats in the middle row. By taking an aisle and a middle seat together, you will only disrupt your companion if you need to get up.
- If you are offered bulkhead seats, ask if your neighbours will be requiring cots.
- Reserve your preferred seats online wherever possible to avoid losing out in the lottery of last-minute seat allocation.
- If the clerk at check-in asks you to change seats, ask to see a plan of the cabin so you know exactly where you will be.
- Note that when travelling on low-cost airlines, unless you pay extra for preferential boarding, you will sit wherever there is space. There are often no set seat allocations.
- Pack ear plugs in your carry-on. For those unexpectedly noisy moments, like the screaming child or the high-decibel snoring coming from 33D.
- Ditto rosemary essential oil. A dab of that under your nose will help mask any unpleasant cabin smells without adding to them.
- And for the instance where your seat-mate decides to use the reading light when you want to sleep, take an eye-mask. You can get them imbued with lavender nowadays – which will help you relax and further reduce any effects of strange smells in the cabin.
- Have I forgotten anything?
- Oh yeah. Beta Blockers. They work every time.
Vietnam – Tell me what YOU want to know.
When Monsieur and I travelled through Vietnam some time back, this fascinating country and its people had such a profound effect on me that I haven’t yet blogged about it. Every time I think of our journey, my mind fills with such a kaleidoscope of vistas and tastes and people and experiences that it overwhelms. But now, sixteen months later, I’m going to try to share our experiences.
To start with, here’s a synopsis of how we did it. We didn’t see everything that we wanted to see, because Vietnam is a big place with troublesome roads and slow trains and we only had two weeks within which to learn how to cross the roads and explore as much of the country as possible. The upshot of that is that there’s plenty to keep us busy when we go back one day. And we will go back one day. If I could wangle it, I’d go back right this minute.
GETTING THERE AND BACK:
Monsieur and I flew on Eva Air from London to Bangkok because direct flights from London to Vietnam are exorbitant and this way we’d both save money and see a little bit of Thailand. It’s significantly cheaper for UK residents to fly to Bangkok and then hop across to Vietnam on one of the region’s low cost airlines. In our case we flew Air Asia from Bangkok to Hanoi, and from Ho Chi Minh City back to Bangkok. Air Asia is cheap and efficient, but the baggage allowance is a meagre 15 kilos. Going out, this wasn’t a problem and my packed suitcase only weighed 10 kilos, which is somewhat of an achievement for this girl scout who likes to be prepared for all eventualities. Quite naturally, as we travelled about, Monsieur and I picked up more baggage weight in the form of clothes and gifts for family and friends, so that by the time we left Vietnam, our baggage excess was such that we had to pay a hefty $125 US dollars. The way we looked at it this was that once added to the cost of the flights themselves it just made the flights feel more regular in price as opposed to a real bargain. You have been warned.
Internally we flew Vietnam Airlines, which we found to be pretty good. We later found out that they have a terrible reputation but that wasn’t our experience at all. Had we had more time, we would have liked to try the train that travels up and down Vietnam, but unfortunately the journey times were too long to be practical for us.
So here’s what we got up to. It would be great if you pick out something that you’d like to hear about, leave it in the comments and I’ll write it up for you.
THE ITINERARY
Day 1 – Arrive in Bangkok. Stay at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Swim off the travel grime and enjoy lovely buffet at the hotel.
Day 2 – Breakfast by the river. Hire a driver to take us around Bangkok for 5 hours for the equivalent of a 15 minute cab ride in London. We manage to take in the Golden Buddha, the Grand Palace and a vibrant weekend market before returning to the hotel. Cocktails at the Sirocco Bar with fantastic views over Bangkok and dinner at the Blue Elephant.
Day 3 – Fly to Hanoi. Have fun with immigration officials and ATMs at Hanoi airport. Stay at the beautiful Sofitel Metropole Hotel. Learn to cross streets without being mown down by a tidal wave of mopeds. Walk to old town via Hoan Kiem Lake. Visit Ngoc Son temple. Circle the lake. Dinner at the Spices Garden restaurant at the hotel.
Day 4 – Take tour to Halong Bay. Long day. Epic ingests an entire dish of MSG. By herself. And suffers the consequences.
Day 5 – Walk around Hanoi. Visit Temple of Literature, Hanoi Hilton. Just about evaporate in the heat and humidity.
Day 6 – Fly to Danang. Pass China Beach on way to Hoi An. Stay at Ha An Hotel. Lunch at Banana Leaf. Do walking tour of Old Town – temples, Japanese Bridge, a ‘real’ Vietnamese home etc. Visit Yaly tailors. Dinner at Mango Rooms.
Day 7 – Fitting at Yaly then a lazy day at nearby Cua Dai Beach. Lunch at the beach. Dinner at Brothers Café.
Day 8 – Fly to Nha Trang. Stay at Six Senses resort. Laze around at the beach and in the pool. Dinner and DVDs in our room. We need to slow down for a couple of days, and so we do just that.
Day 9 – All meals taken at the hotel. The much-needed chilling-out period after so much travelling helps a lot so we spend another day at the beach.
Day 10 – Travel by road to Dalat. Looks close on map. Takes hours each way. Visit our driver’s family shrine, rest stop in village, see Dalat train station, Prenn Falls. See coffee/ tapioca/sugar cane plantations. Afternoon at Dalat Palace Golf Club. Interesting drive back to Nha Trang with our fascinating driver. Much of our conversation is taken up by what Vietnamese eat, which is just about everything.
Day 11 – Another day chilling out. Vietnamese coffee rocks. We watch Vietnamese musicians at dinner. We also have a sunburn relief massage with fresh aloe vera. I’d never had a massage before. What total decadence!
Day 12 – Fly to Ho Chi Minh City. Stay at Majestic Hotel on Dong Khoi. It rains buckets. Visit the post office, haggle with street vendors, give thanks for safe travels at Notre Dame Cathedral. Walk to Reunification Palace. Dinner at M Bar with great views over river. That river is a floating highway, even at night.
Day 13 – take tour out of HCMC. Visit Cu Chi Tunnels and My Tho on the Mekong Delta. Boat ride to Ben Tre for lunch. Coconut candy factory, snakes and longboats. Cao Dai Temple. Lacquerware factory visit. Dinner with Adam from Vietnam Travel Notes – we go to Bin Thanh Market together. REALLY good night!
Day 14 – last day in Vietnam. Shopping in town. Lunch at Lemongrass. Dong Khoi. Back to the airport. Long delay because of riots in Bangkok. Stay at The Peninsula Hotel.
Day 15 – Fly home with a head full of wonderful, colourful memories of Vietnam.
+16 months – Epic finally gets around to blogging about it.
The Blue Elephant, Bangkok – and the orchid travels…
Following on from our ‘date’ at Sirocco, high above the bustle of Bangkok, Monsieur and I descended the sixty-something floors with ears popping in the express elevator and jumped in a cab to The Blue Elephant. Our driver looked more like a cutting edge DJ than a taxi driver (perhaps he was both?) with long black hair and some interesting man-bling. He didn’t really understand us. We definitely can’t speak Thai. Somehow, with some sign language and the restaurant’s business card, we finally made it to the two-storeyed colonial villa housing this international Thai food phenomenon.
The building itself was beautiful but it was dwarfed by the neighbouring high-rises. Its quaint charm made it look fragile. Once through the doors, though, we were transported. Well, sort of. The furniture and interiors were Thai all the way but, given that everyone else in the ground-floor dining room was Western, we felt a bit cliché, having been drawn to an obvious tourist mecca.
Once seated, we enjoyed our welcome drinks (which are always non-alcoholic tropical juice from a carton) and ordered. The rice was spooned out of a partitioned basket, slung over the shoulder of our waitress; in one side of the basket was white rice and in the other, brown. That definitely felt authentic.
We had prawns wrapped in leaves and soft shelled crab (my favourite when dining in this part of the world), and Thai curry and wiped our hands on hot towels scented with lemongrass. Naturally, we made the mistake of ordering wine which is always a rip off in Asia. We savoured it, knowing we may not be ordering any more for a while, but in reality, the local beer tastes good and is far better value. I’ve also been told that when travelling, you should always drink some local beer because it should be made with local water and is a relatively safe way of acclimatising your digestive system to a foreign place.
We couldn’t fault the food or the service. The Blue Elephant really was a slick operation, but it’s not great to sit surrounded by other tourists. It makes you feel like, well, a TOURIST. Gone in a flash is any sense of the intrepid traveller, which we’re all aspiring to be.
Then, on the way out a waitress handed me a long orchid in a tube. I’d heard of this happening at the London Blue Elephant, but as I’ve never been, I’ve never seen the rumour confirmed. Well, I was chuffed to bits. So chuffed, in fact, that when we left for Hanoi the following day, the orchid went with me. It survived nearly all of our travels in Vietnam, providing us with some sense of continuity and homeliness each time we changed centre. Only in Ho Chi Minh City did it start to wither. So thank you, Blue Elephant, not just for the wonderful food, but for the travelling orchid that helped me feel at home wherever we went. Highly recommended for the orchid factor and food, but if you don’t feel like rubbing shoulders with Bob and Gladys from room 565 then the Blue Elephant is not for you.
Now back in London, I’ve been asked to a friend’s pre-wedding dinner at the end of November and it will be at none other than the London Blue Elephant. I can’t wait. The conversation in the office went a bit like this:
“How about the Blue Elephant?”
“Yeah, great. I’ve never been…”
“You WHAT? You’ve been to the Blue Elephant in Thailand but you haven’t been to the one in your own back yard?”
“You’re going to love it. The staff are amazing; they make you feel like royalty.”
I’m now counting the days.
I’m looking forward to the food, the wine, the attentive but not overbearing service and the orchid (naturellement), but I’m also looking forward to eating at a Blue Elephant where I won’t be a tourist! And once this date is achieved, it might just be time to visit the one in Brussels.
Bangkok se-date
If you ever find yourself in Bangkok, even if it’s just cooling your heels on a stopover like Monsieur and me, you should go on a Bangkok date. In our typically conservative style, there were no lady-boys or she-hes involved in our Big Night Out in Bangkok recently. Nor did we see the need to visit Patpong for a “Thai massage”, if that’s still what you call a rub down with all the very tickly extras. Did we miss out? Not a jot. As the details of our date will testify, Bangkok boasts far less talked-about, more sedate but thoroughly cosmopolitan options for visitors.
First, we dressed up. Off came the Fit Flops that would barely leave my feet for the next couple of weeks and on went the ballet pumps. We enlisted the advice of the team of concierges in the lobby to help us choose a fine place to dine Thai-style but first followed their directions to reach the nearby State Tower. Taking a deep breath we dodged our way across two busy roads messy with every sort of conceivable wheeled vehicle, including Thailand’s famous tuk tuks, stopped briefly to look at the State Tower’s shiny shrine, then left the muggy air behind as we entered the cool lobby which was disappointingly devoid of interest, apart from the presence of Razzbuffnik‘s favourite global coffee house: Starbuck’s. Is it possible to find a city that doesn’t have a Starbuck’s?
We crossed what felt like an acre of marble floor to the lift lobby entrance, where two women changed their shoes to comply with the dress code as their partners tapped their feet. Thank heavens I hadn’t worn my Fit Flops! Once our attire had been deemed passable by the doorman, we waited with an escort for a lift to arrive, and were then whizzed up some sixty something floors to the top of the second tallest building in the city.
The Dome at the State Tower is a landmark on the Bangkok skyline, largely because the tower is capped with a dome which lights up like a beacon at night. It’s also home to a cluster of chic eateries and bars. On the advice of my colleague, Irish Architect, here we were to drink some serious cocktails at a bar with one of the best views in town.
When we got out of the lift, a greeter efficiently guided us past a bar and dining room to a terrace where the Cool Crowd were already sipping on lusciously alcoholic concoctions. No dinky umbrellas in the drinks here! As we kicked off our shoes and tucked our legs up on the super deep sofas at the terrace edge, we checked out the patrons. There was a couple who’d frolicked shamelessly that afternoon in the hotel pool, now decked out in designer gear and obviously quite accustomed to this sort of scene. Then there were the young business people setting up their friends with potential lust interest, but most of the people were incredibly self-important looking, wearing their Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am? sunglasses in spite of the fact that the sun went down a few hours ago and tweedy flatcaps that may be trendy somewhere in the world right now but are laughably unsuitable for the heat of Thailand. It was all quite entertaining.
As Monsieur and I lounged and tried in vain to snap the twinkling lights of the city, we sipped on Martinis. Ah, divine decadence. My first was a chocolate version, but looked clear in the glass because it was made with creme de cacao, and was served with a chocolate-coated rim. Then I went all lemon with a lethal concoction of vodka and limoncello. I so seldom drink cocktails that this felt incredibly James Bond, but there was also a financial reason behind the choice of beverage: wine in Asia is exhorbitantly priced and cocktails prove much better value.
The waitress made us giggle when we ordered the second (and final) round of drinks; she furrowed her brow, looked at us directly and said “are you sure you want another drink? They’re very strong.” In fact, they were just normal cocktail strength, but as most travellers in Asia will attest, many cocktails made in this region taste quite unalcoholic, they are that weak.
We left our comfy sofa to ride the elevator back to terra firma, where a man in a top hat hailed us a cab and instructed the long-haired driver (who’d look less out of place DJ-ing in a nightclub) to take us to The Blue Elephant, the home of the international group of Thai restaurants by the same name. In the London Blue Elephant, I’ve heard reports that girls leave with orchids. Would they do the same here? What would the food be like? Would its reputation hold up? Would Monsieur, a born restaurant critic, rate it well? We were about to find out.
One Night in Bangkok
Hi Epicuri-friends!
Monsieur and I are currently in Hanoi, enjoying the fight to cross the road without being crushed by mopeds, kidnapped by cyclo pedallers or shanghai-ed for photos by women with baskets balancing off their shoulders. We’ve had a couple of enlightening days in Bangkok, including a visit to see The Golden Buddha, the Grand Palace (wow) and the Weekend Market. It was hot hot hot and there’s a lot to tell when we get back, especially concerning a certain driver named Daeng.
Until then, here’s an old Bangkok song that Daeng kindly sang to us in his car yesterday:
To add to my retro eighties You Tube travel series I thought One Night in Bangkok from the musical, Chess, would be a suitable choice. Then I realised there was more than one version.
There’s the full 1985 original version:
There’s the downright WRONG version:
(Does anyone else find it a bit disconcerting to watch a little girl dancing to this in her pink wig and mini-dress? Odd. Seriously odd.)
And there’s the techno version featuring the crash scene from Lost:
There are also various other techno and remix versions, but that’s enough of one song for now.
