DCBill

We had dinner at Mandalay the Palace this weekend. Overall the meal was quite good--interesting courses and flavorful items. I will echo the comments earlier about the "main courses"--three dishes arrived together; some hot, some cold. I was unsure--is this one course, two or three? I think spacing these would provide more of an experience in both overall dining and enjoyment of each item. Service was excellent, attentive and generally helpful. I think the timing was a little too fast--I was expecting a two hour or more experience. We made it to 1:10 by not bothering to get our coats right away. I had indicated in my reservation that we both like spicy food. In Vincent's follow up, he seemed pleased and said the chef would be happy and look forward to spicing it up. I was surprised that only one dish was spicy--and that was because there was one hot pepper on it, and we were instructed to chop it up if we wanted it to be spicy. The space is great and the cocktails were imaginative. (We did not do a pairing) Is it worth $70/head, plus drinks etc? Not sure. Will we go back? Probably not at this price point--but maybe.

Fail! My partner and I went to Doi Moi last night. We were excited to try it--love Little Serow and Bangkok Golden. The reviews of Doi Moi made me think this could be a new favorite---in town, and Tom Sietsema wrote "Little Serow without the line"! After giving my name, I got an estimate of 20-30 minutes. No problem! Time to look around, check out the space, smell the food! We waited at the bar. And waited. After a while, a server came from behind us at the bar and handed my partner a little bowl of nuts. We both had the same thought--nice!--they recognize we have been waiting and are offering a little something to tide us over. My partner ate one. The bartender came over and in a stern voice demanded "did you order those!?" Um, no. She took the little ramekin, sighed and said "well, you may as well keep it now" and put it back down, the shook her head in disgust. Whoops--apparently they sell these little baby bowls of spiced nuts for four dollars. She was pretty ungracious about it and made us feel slightly like petty thieves. The server handed it to him, for Pete's sake. Properly chastised, we resumed waiting (while sneaking cashews out of the bowl when the bartender's back was turned). After about 45 minutes I noticed another table for two being seated, and knew they had come in after us. I went to inquire; the hostess looked for my name, said "we tried to find you" (somewhat accusingly) and said there were now three tables ahead of us. Now I had been paying attention and noticed a couple of the host staff walking through the bar, not really looking around--apparently not finding people! I told the hostess we had been in the same place at the bar and that I had been paying attention. Certainly none of the staff came anywhere near looking for us. Reaction: well, there are three tables ahead of you and some people were promised certain tables. Mind you--they do not take reservations (except only at 5:30 pm or so on OpenTable--apparently a technique of some sort to draw people in?). Still with no table, and no immediate prospects for one, we decide to cut our loss and go somewhere else. We finished our beers at the bar and prepared to leave. The hostess came over to say she wanted to buy us a drink. We already had all we wanted to drink (for the moment). What we wanted was a table--and they seated another directly behind her while she offered that drink. See you later. Sorry for the rant. We eat out a lot and really just require a table, a couple of drinks and of course excellent and/or interesting food. I don't know what I should have done differently other than perhaps just stay at the host stand at the outset. I think their response, when their error was discovered, should have been to apologize and give us the next table. I don't think I would have even been irritated--just hungry. Instead the response was kind of "Blamey" toward us and "now wait your turn". Bummer--it will be a long time before I will try Doi Moi again.

My experience is that either the spice level changes a bit, or just my chemistry changes--usually a different dish (or dishes) gets me each time. I do think the sweet milk beverage might calm it down a bit. Last night I had a dry Riesling (on the by the glass menu) that did a nice job of keeping things even, and then finished off with a Singha over ice cubes.

Hi--I am brand new to this great site, and spent a lot of time over the last few days reading up. Last night we went to Little Serow for the sixth time in the last few months. I am obsessed with the food; last night we were rewarded with an "extra" course--a sweet'ish chicken dish that the server said they are experimenting with. I love that every time I go there, it is an intense, delicious and NEW experience--even though some of the dishes remain constant, I get a different feeling each time--different spice, heat, aftermath! This weekend we're going with a group to Bangkok Golden to begin an exploration of it (and at a bit lighter hit to the wallet!) Thanks for the great site!