Tapas Cafe Hua Hin Opens!

Tapas Cafe is very excited to announce the opening of their new branch in Hua Hin. This restaurant is at the old Monsoon Restaurant on Naresdamri Rd and is a joint venture with the owners of Monsoon. They are about a 5 minute walk from the Hilton Hotel toward the fishing pier, on the right opposite the many seafood restaurants. Parking is available at the fishing pier.

Tapas Cafe Hua Hin is housed in a 100 year old shophouse in the old centre of town. Downstairs is the bar with an old colonial feel to it, at the back a garden, and upstairs a dining room with some tables on a balcony overlooking the street and sea beyond. Raul, their chef from Madrid, is in Hua Hin cooking and training the local kitchen team.

The area that they are in is fast becoming the main quality dining area in Hua Hin with long-established Mama Mia recently moving to a new location a few doors away. The Tapas Cafe management look forward to seeing you there…

Silom Party Room

The branch on Silom have recently finished fitting out a party room above the main restaurant. There is a mixture of seating and standing/dancing space, suitable for networking events and private, or corporate parties, with a sound system which can be used by a DJ, or can pipe music from your iPod, or from the restaurant below. Above is a pleasant roof garden to relax in under the stars – and smoke, if you want! Please contact Vaughan, the manager, for details: 080 080 6811.

Now Restaurants Can Increase The Selection of Wines Offered By The Glass

Lowest Priced Wine Preserving Machine in Asia

Keeps wine fresh up to 10 days or more

The VC-R1’s starting design strategy was to create a preservation system to:

• Preserve partially depleted open bottles of still wines
• Be easy to use & operator friendly (any employee can operate it)
• Self contained, light-weight, easy to move from place to place
• No permanent installation involved
• No limit of consecutive bottles which can be processed
• One year warranty on the machine and follow-up service
• The VC-R1 is also well suited for home use as it is small & compact

For Latest Pricing and Information:

Available in Asia from: Asia Pacific Distribution Co. Ltd., email: asiapacificdistribution@gmail.com
Tel.+66(0)89689-4491 or +66(0)818024844

Aside from a rather lackluster lobby, the remainder of the low-rise property sloping down to the beach is attractive and well-maintained. The property is studded with pools of varying depths and interwoven with separate lounging islands connected by foot bridges, punctuated with mini fountains and Jacuzzi jets arranged in clusters, and when night falls, star-like pinpoint lights that shine upwards from the bottom of the pool creating a lighting effect that is really delightful.

The rooms are large and contain many features that are very pleasing and others that are downright annoying. A friendly, highly trained staff who provide excellent service is the first plus that should be mentioned. A password-free WIFI network throughout the property is particularly agreeable, which they offer gratis, a policy other higher-end hotels in Asia should emulate. A large terrace with a king-size day bed off of the bedroom makes another spacious area for relaxing, with a screen that may be lowered electrically with the push of a button. An oval table that doubles as a desk and dining table is a nice touch. A few of the less desirable design features included an air-conditioning control panel, which proved difficult to remain at the specific temperature chosen although, this might have been the fault of this particular unit. The wireless portable telephone provided as the main telephone had “iffy” reception even at close range to the base station. The operator at reception had difficulty hearing us. Installing a bathtub in the bedroom, in an attempt to incorporate bathroom and bedroom into one (it did have screens that with some effort could conceal it) resulted in the surrounding marble floor being exposed to temperature changes from both the air-conditioning and the adjoining open-air terrace, which caused an almost invisible film of humidity to form creating a dangerously slippery surface. The faucets fixtures in both sink & shower are not clearly marked, what happened to blue & red as hot & cold markings? Large cylindrical handles on all faucets including sink, shower and bathtub, although attractive design-wise, were so slippery to turn with wet hands that you could not get a grip on them. What a  concept . . . knowing that these handles would be used around water! The doors to the cubicles that surround the toilet and shower rooms, open outwards in the wrong direction and the toilet paper roll is on the wall on the left side that requires a back-wrenching twist to reach it. There are too many lighting control buttons and all of them poorly marked. The magnifying mirror was lacking a light that negated its usefulness, especially since lighting around the sink area was dim. However, my wife was thrilled with the wonderful soap, shampoo and other amenities from L’Occitane offered by the hotel. How can interior designers get so carried away with trendy toys and design statements that they sacrifice comfort and practicability?

Mondo Vino
22/65 Naeb Kachat Road
Hua Hin Sub-district
Hua Hin district
Prachuabkirikhan 77110
info@mondovino.co.th
Tel.: Retail Shop: 032 531 493
Tel.: Office: 032 511 274-5
Fax.: 032 511 274-5#18

Mondo Vino is an attractive wine shop and cafe offering a wide selection of old and new world wines at very competitive prices, where you can buy bottles to take home or sit down and relax in the pleasant surroundings and enjoy a bottle or glass at the cafe. Mondo Vino proclaims: “We will not sell a wine that we would not drink ourselves, and if we can buy it cheaper, then you will too”. They always have a monthly promotion and a selection of wines selling for less than 500 THB.

22/65 Nahb Kaehat Rd.
Hua Hin Prachaub
Kirikhan 77110
Tel. +66 (0) 32 531-470
Fax. +66 (0) 332 531-488
www.putahracsa.com

Velvadi Sritrairatana, the present owner of Putahracsa Resort, inherited her grandmother’s property from her mother, a well-known Thai stage actress, who bestowed it upon her to manage. She has turned it into a beautiful boutique resort with the help of her husband, interior designer, Viboon Techakalayatum, owner of Design Scene Co. Ltd.

The exterior design is marvelous with its stark-white, thatch-roofed  buildings and villas contrasting with the well tended, lush green foliage and deep blue, free-form swimming pools, interspersed with over-sized white umbrellas and king-sized pool chaise longues.

The property extends on both sides of the road with villas surrounding each of the three pools and a beach restaurant on the seaward side directly facing the beach. On the other side of the road is the lobby, another restaurant and two additional pools. Another added touch, is a network of Bose speakers that sprout out of the ground like giant mushrooms and blanket the entire property with soothing, rhythmic sounds that neither disturb nor are they too faint to hear. Well done!
The restaurant at the beach offers a well put together menu featuring a few Thai and International dishes; the few that I sampled were all deftly executed and the cocktails properly made. They have a properly-selected wine list and even the house wines chosen by the management were agreeably good.

The  Hotel Manager, Franck Rodriguez, personally escorted us to the beach restaurant on our arrival and was very helpful throughout our stay. I would, and will, without hesitation return to Putahracsa Resort, a lovely and well-managed boutique hotel.

1 Damnernkasem Road  77110 Hua Hin, Thailand
(+66)32/512021 – (+66)32/511014
email: reservation@sofitel.co.th
Website: www.sofitel.com/gb/hotel-0891-sofitel-centara-grand-resort-and-villas/index.shtml
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Expensive-Very Expensive

An elegant and comfortable bar that I always pay a visit to at least once when visiting Hua Hin. It is off to the right in the lobby of  the Sofitel Centara Grand Hotel conveniently located in Hua Hin’s downtown area and also fronting the beach.

The bar is always staffed with lovely girls that know their job as well as being pleasant and courteous.

A promotion of a flight of three different white wines or three different red wines served along with an assortment of appetizers pictured above and below.

La Grappa Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria
20/5 Poolsuk Rd, Hua Hin,
Prachaubkirikhan, 77110
Tel. +66 (0) 32 516 510, +66 (0) 40 094 748
Open Daily: 10:00 a.m. – midnight
Credit Cards: All Major
Prices: Moderate

Andreas Bonifacio, the chef patron and partner, runs a tight ship and not only is he the Captain, at times he fills almost every other position, one minute he is in the kitchen cooking and the next taking an order at a table, followed by delivering plates of sliced Parma ham to another. Incidentally, a dish that should not to be missed is the large nodule of special mozzarella di bufala, imported from Campania, and served alongside the aforementioned Parma ham, and be sure to request the chef’s special forccacia filled with mascarpone and black truffle paste mixed with mushrooms. These dishes amply suffice as starters and pasta is quite unnecessary and you may segue into the main courses or, as we did one evening, order another round of appetizers such as vitello tonnato, and carpaccio di manzo (thinly sliced raw beef); as is the case with most everything served at La Grappa it is beautifully presented in addition to being of excellent quality.

La Grappa’s central location on Poonsuk Road nestled amongst other popular restaurants and not far from the Hilton Hotel is ideal and there are two different sections to choose from: the outdoor terrace with an adjacent bar, which is partially enclosed or the air-conditioned main dining room.
The restaurant prominently displays at the front entrance, as might be expected, an extensive collection of Grappa of all types both well-known and uncommon. Without further descriptions, just take a look at the dishes pictured below they tell it all.

Platoo Restaurant, Next to Courtyard Marriott
Tel. 837-508175
Website: www.platoorestaurant.com
email: platoochaam@hotmail.com
Credit Cards: No
Prices: Inexpensive

Platoo is a fairly typical expansive, Thai beach restaurant housed under a  high-peaked, thatched roof directly on the beach, although slightly elevated and set back behind the high tide line. Another smaller structure next door provides an annex in case it is needed. It might be considered unusual that all the wait-staff are wired so that they can transmit their orders through wireless headsets, which makes a great deal of sense in such a large establishment. The prices are reasonable and the place has a good location in Cha Am. We found the cooking quite good after two visits. It is recommended.