The Speakeasy, Blind Pig, Medici restaurant and top suite of Muse hotel, Bangkok
Miss Menendez from Muse hotel was so kind to show me around the top room of Muse hotel which is 220sm large and offers a spectacular balcony facing the US embassy, Witthayu road, site.
The room wasn’t finished at that point of time, so don’t expect the room to look exactly like this anymore, it probably even looks a little better now. It runs at a published rate of around THB 70k++. I could imagine eventually booking it for a day and combining it with a fun night at the Speakeasy.
The idea behind the Speakeasy and Blind Pig is good. There used to be rooms during the times of Rama V where people could talk freely about all political issues without having the fear of being observed : they were called the “speakeasies”.
The cigar lounge is really cool, I haven’t seen anything like that in whole Bangkok.
The terrace bar is good and one level above there is a huge area that is sometimes used for special events and private bookings.
Medici restaurant is an excellent Italian restaurant. It almost feels like eating at Dracula’s castle, sitting in the basement there. Chef Francesco from Tuscany is a really friendly guy, he reminds me of an Italian friend the way he talks. The pasta dishes I tried there had all been very good and come at a surprisingly reasonable price.
Service was good, not outstanding. The place is really popular at the moment, always fully booked at weekends well in advance.
BarSu is one of the best, real hotel bars you can find on Sukhumvit and entire Bangkok. It is one of my favorite places to drink in the early evening. I wasn’t able to video capture any interesting scene there as it was simply too early. The place is very chic and large with a centred bar, yet still offers some intimacy at the couch seating areas close to the windows. The live bands are pretty good as well. The crowd and vibe might not be as strong as at Spasso, Grand Hyatt hotel, but I consider BarSu to be more upscale and they are more focussing on the real bar experience. Some people might be missing the freelancers though, I am actually glad that they have a different approach. Soi Cowboy is close anyway, no need to bring ‘em in the house…
The 407 rooms hotel was recently rebranded from the former Marriott riverside hotel into an Anantara. That alone was reason enough for me to check out the place, moreover my tax advisor always stays at this hotel and I already knew about the good swimming pool. The hotel was among the best hotel experiences of my last trip and especially the excellent price/value relation knocked me out. The hotel is very well managed, they are often fully booked and consequently they are one of the few, bigger hotels in Bangkok that is a real money-maker.
The breakfast is one of the best you can possibly find in entire Bangkok. The pool area is huge and really beautiful, the only problem is, because the hotel is booked so well, there will already be quite a lot of people in the morning. The gym is well equipped and large as well.
Mandara Spa again is among the best Bangkok spa you can find .
I never had a chance to try their japanese teppanyaki steakhouse Benihana. I heard it is underestimated and the price levels look fine. Price levels in general are fantastic of this hotel. I had a Anantara suite premier and also got shown their top suite, the Suan Luang suite. Especially for people who look for all those free additional amenities, the hotel has a lot to offer.
I was pretty much amazed how big and tranquil the whole property is. You have to keep in mind when staying there, you should just stay there for relaxing. It is not a wise location to choose if you want to be active in the centre of the city (for example Silom, Ploenchit, Dusit, Sukhumvit area…).
Negatives are that the place still looks older and it is noisier at times because of the centred pool. It reminded me strongly of the Dusit Thani from its rooms . But they are gladly currently in the process of updating rooms, giving them a fresh appeal and making some of them larger.
For people who just come to Bangkok for relaxing a few days and who only want to spend something in the THB 5k++/day range, this hotel is a great option. Have a look at my Top-50 Bangkok hotels video guide at the moment.
The hotel was built in the 1920s, but got modernized and enlarged in the 90s. The old trees at the pool area around which they built the hotel are absolutely amazing. It is a colonial-style built hotel and the butlers are dressed in white suites.
The butlers and staff are really attentive, it reminded me of how the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok in its 70s and 80s might have felt in that regard before it went downhill in terms of service. Although the people around at Raffles are very friendly, I would not call them skilled, they sometimes lack the training or general understanding. They employ quite a lot of staff, many are close to the lobby area and there doesn’t seem to be much specialization in their function. A few people there are doing lots of different things which should not be connected.
The old, classic room itself was ok, nothing to rave about. Vattanac Capital recently invested into a building opposite from the hotel which will look pretty modern. Still I didn’t had the feeling that Phnom Penh is very dynamic, people are just incredible poor and infrastructure is really bad. They mostly get their tourists just because of Angkor Wat. I have no idea what all the diplomats there are really doing : paid vacation ?
The 2 places I enjoyed most was the pool area and the Elephant bar. But expect the pool area to get really crowded as hotel guests around noon might have taken every single chair. The food in the restaurants was maybe good for Cambodian standards, compared with Thailand it is just 2 levels below.
Most negative issue about the rooms are noise levels, as the walls are very thin and they tend to spray the hotel area (part of their pest control) around 10pm occasionally. The leaves of the trees around the hotel didn’t look healthy I sadly have to admit.
I also checked out the new Sofitel hotel as a visitor which is clearly worse than the Raffles. Staff there isn’t attentive at all and their praised pool is only mediocre. This is just the best you can get in Cambodia and it doesn’t even come at such a cheap price relating it to the countries GDP per capita. Seeing Angkor Wat once in my life was nice but after 2 visits to Cambodia I strongly doubt I will be back soon again.
Baan Khanita operates since more than 17 year, having 4 different branches. I visited the place on Sukhumvit Soi 23. Unlike from what I heard that they mostly focus on foreigners, the majority of guests in there where business Thais for lunch and it was rather full. I had a large Tom Yum Goong which was good and it had the medium spice level that I requested.
They give you an appetizer which is free of charge. I heard in their Sathorn branch they charge for it which might give people the “tourist trap” feeling. The place itself looks nice, decoration and ambience is like you would expect it in an old Thai dining house. The staff was friendly and pretty quick around the tables.
Price levels are rather high for Thai standards and that is probably the most negative issue about the place, next to not really being an authentic Thai restaurant.
The 392 rooms Conrad hotel is located on Witthayu road, at All Seasons Place, directly opposite from the US embassy.
This hotel was the most positive surprise from all hotels I visited on the last trip. I thought that the place might be too (Hilton group) Americanized, but I really enjoyed my stay there.
I very much like staying at Witthayu road now, all the places I visited there had been pretty good. The motorbike drivers around are also more friendly, have better maintained bikes and don’t want to overcharge you right away like it is often the case on Sukhumvit or on Silom road. With a motorbike you will be mostly anywhere at places of interest from Witthayu in about 15 min (longest 30 min), the location is great, safe and clean. The 7-series BMW limousine service of the hotel is good as well. The Conrad hotel is more a business hotel, it is just a less touristic area with not many sights in walking distance.
I had a terrace suite there which I prepaid for around THB 10k++. For this price, I believe the room was just absolutely amazing ! The terrace is huge and even got a little garden. The room is well technical equipped : they have an ipad docking station connected to a good TV, they even have a Bose sound system. This was the first hotel in Thailand I ever visited that had a video game console there, a Playstation 3. For me, finally having an ipad docking station with a good system, a sound-proof room with a relaxing balcony made me really happy. Laundry also did a good job getting my suite ready. For just THB 10k++ it is likely that I will book the terrace suite again, it is a nice and not expensive environment.
A friendly staff person introduced me to their top room, the presidential suite which costs something around THB 70k++. Especially I liked the bathroom there and it also has a steam room. The pool is fantastic, clearly one of the best ones of entire Bangkok. I didn’t had enough time swimming there, but I had a drink at the pool bar and the staff is good, speaking pretty well English. The gym and spa looked inviting as well. The concierge and the executive lounge staff handled my few tasks well, they even put some fresh flowers and additional little amenities into my room while I was away at dinner. They really tried hard to make me happy. I didn’t had a chance to eat at their restaurants but their bar in the lobby, the Diplomat bar, is really good, clearly a reason for making a stop there if you are in the Witthayu area. I’ll be back.
My first thought of this place was that it is probably one of those 1st time Bangkok tourist places where everybody want to take their pictures and say that they have eaten in or seen the world’s highest al fresco restaurant. I mean you know those situations when people arrive at Suvarnabhumi airport for the first time and often get ripped off from the transportation scammers around there. But I was wrong about the hotel, they are pretty honest, mostly helpful and the rooms are good for the price levels.
Internet is even free there : that was the last hotel of which I expected it, because it would have been so easy to charge the rather uninformed guests there. They upgraded my room to a tower club river view on the highest possible flor. I think I paid only something around THB 6500++ for it which is a really good deal. The views from the balcony are amazing and that is the main reason for staying there. I had a good view over Chao Phraya river and could perfectly observe the Peninsula hotel, my favorite riverside hotel from there. I also noticed that the Shangri-la hotel in front of Lebua got a helipad, I didn’t know of that before.
Rain showed me around and also introduced me to their top suite which only costs around THB 30k++ depending on season and demand. It is a good party place for special occasions. Inside the rooms there are pictures from the Hangover 2 movie shoot. They strongly advertise the movie, even in the elevator area in the lobby you will find plenty of promo stuff including this movie. I mean why not, they focus on popularity and on those tourists who come exactly for that “I was there” experience. The movie generated worldwide gross revenues of over USD 500 million, just a quarter of what Titanic made with almost USD 2 billion. The Beach for comparison only made USD 40 million (not even 1/10th of Hangover 2 !), meaning what an immense impact scale this movie will have now on Thailand. Every fucking ass knows of this place now, seriously ! The success relation of those movies show again that people still prefer seeing party, girls, crazy stuff over beaches and culture in Thailand.
The Ritz-Carlton has a different approach for their image/brand. Of course they would not want to get connected strongly with too much naughty stuff, it could have a negative effect on conservative guests who simply cannot tolerate it for official or inofficial reason. They never wrote on their website that the movie was shot there or advertised it in any way.
The most annoying fact about Lebua State Tower are the visitors, not the guests. There are hundreds of people coming every day just visiting the hotel, especially for the rooftop restaurant, Sirocco. The lobby is small and there will always be people waiting around the elevators, just forget being anywhere alone/private in this hotel. The hotel staff as well sometimes is really upset from the immense number of visitors, trying to keep them in line with hotel rules which sometimes forces them to get rude. I didn’t experience any problems in that regard.
The pool is ok, although there are far too many people around (they have 410 rooms !). F&B in general is mediocre there, I had tried Sirocco once before but didn’t wanted to try it another time on that visit at least.
In summary I have to say that the Lebua at State Tower hotel is a pretty decent place for special occasions, the view is just amazing.
The place that has its origins in Beijing got recommended to me by Nicci who checked it out with her boyfriend (French bistro Oskar owner) and really liked it.
The very large 400sm Scarlett opened end of January and is inside the “old” Sofitel hotel Silom which will soon be rebranded into Pullmann. The hotel is under major construction/update but you won’t notice it that much and they had a cool idea how to enter the hotel without seeing anything of it.
They actually let me chose the table and everything started well, but our luck didn’t last long. Soon a foreign couple was taking the table next to us which was really close, I expected when coosing the table that the small one next to us nobody would want. I already felt that they had an argument from the beginning which likely would not stop so soon and eventually could spoil our mood. So we only ordered 1 quick dish, looked at the terrace and moved on to Medici restaurant, Muse hotel. We sadly had to surrender fast being in lost position, i.e. the wrong neighbors.
The crowd hanging out there is pretty cool and you could call it a Hi-So spot, they certainly attract the right people for establishing themselves in this category.
I think Tar and I need to eat at this place again, I didn’t really got a broad impression of it. I had the chance to shortly chat and shake hands with a person from the restaurant who caught us before we took the elevator down. The service was good in general and the food as well. They are a pleasent alternative to D’sens and Reflexions, having a very different concept/approach, clientele and menu. Especially the price levels are remarkable of this large bistro-feel place. 2 star Michelin chef Manuel Martinez (Le Relais Louis XIII, Paris) is in their advisory board, they did a great job providing the team with a concept that will most likely work for Bangkok.
I guess I need to try it again, maybe lounging out at the terrace a bit as well and enjoying the view from the 37th flor.
Napa on 26 is located at the end of Sukhumvit Soi 26, a bit further outside behind K-village. Cher told me that there used to be a golf driving range course which they replaced for an area with many little shops and restaurants. There seem to be a high number of Japanese and Korean visitors around there.
The restaurant is smaller than I expected it to be having capacity for maybe 25 guests, the interior is very elegant and got a lovely atmosphere. They have a bar in front of the restaurant and there are wooden wine barrels at some walls. It is rather dark inside and the video really doesn’t give a good impression of the place.
It was at the end of the last trip and I was pretty much out of energy/motivation to try any harder to capture this place better. Nevertheless I have to say that the Californian-style Napa on 26 with European food was among the best restaurant experiences I had in Bangkok. The chef Mr. Schillinger is from Switzerland, we got a chance to chat with him : he is very friendly and his team makes a very honest and attentive impression. It is one of the best, rare, fine dining restaurants I found/tried so far in Bangkok.
Grand Avantgarde suite, Le Meridien hotel, Silom, Bangkok
The grand avantgarde suite currently is my favorite luxury hotel suite at the moment in Bangkok and it isn’t really that expensive. It costs something around THB 35k++ per day and when you prepay, you can get it for around THB 30k++.
I strongly doubt that anywhere in the entire world, you can live with such a degree of luxury and service at that price ! That’s BANGKOK – where dreams can come true !
The Chang beer founder is owning this hotel, that’s also the reason why you won’t find any Singha beer in the mini bars.
Nim, an intelligent and helpful person from Le Meridien introduced me to the room.
There was a helicopter movie scene shoot going on right at the moment when I checked in the room. They were on the helipad of the C.P. tower from the 7-11 owner. I wonder what they shot there ?
This time I had the opportunity to try their spa which is an excellent deal for money. The treatment was pretty good. The only negative thing is that the walls are thin and you could hear your neighbor. Breakfast is very good and diverse. My second stay there was as good as the first one. I already prepaid my 3rd stay.
