Sisaket Thai Dinner, Sat 28 February 2009

Not many of you would know this but Sisaket is a region in north-east Thailand, about 570 kms from Bangkok, reachable by train or some rather dusty buses. It is also the place where one can find the lamduan flower and wander through some rather splendid waterfalls. It was an ancient Khymer centre and has many historic ruins. All this has probably very little to do with the restaurant we're trying out this month, apart from the fact that it is also a nice place for a Thai dinner.

As we had several people who did not turn up and did not give us any notice last month, I think it's fair that any person who asks for, and gets, a confirmed place and then not turn up, should help subsidise the next month's round of pre-dinner cocktails. The restaurants we tend to pick are often small and cosy places and when I try to accomodate a large group, the restaurants really do expect us to honour our bookings and often we had to negotiate quite hard to get the size of bookings we want, including sometimes even paying a deposit upfront (which you don't know about). So when people don't turn up, it's really rather annoying and embarrassing for the club (and expensive for me). If you had bought cinema or theater tickets, you wouldn't get a refund if you don't turn up. So, from now on, if you cancel less than 48 hours from the dinner date (without a pretty good reason) or if you don't show up, then you will be asked to donate 10 Euro into a pot for the next month's pre-dinner cocktail drinks from now on, or else risk removal from the dinner club mailing list.

Anyway, now that you're aware of how seriously we take our dining, please do send in your emails if you want to try a pretty top-rated Thai restaurant on the 28th February. Just for your info, I had originally wanted to go to Fruhsammers but since the weather is still so cold, I thought perhaps a spicy Asian place may be more suitable, so don't think I am picking only Asian places. We will do the serious gourmet stuff when the weather warms up later in the year and I'm already planning an interesting BBQ for the summer. In the meantime, if you want to have a look at the Sisaket Restaurant, their website is http://www.maothai.de/sisaket.php (though it doesn't tell you much). The address is Mauerstr. 76, 10117 Berlin, near Friedrichstrasse and Checkpoint Charlie, so it's really quite easy to get there. I will not make a big booking this time, so we will use the electronic hat again if too many people apply. Closing date is Saturday 21 February and all confirmed folks should get an email by Sunday 22 February.

See you soon!

Chris

PS. Don't look if you are shy but this is a picture of an interesting cream selling in China: http://www.berlindinnerclub.com/gallery/image001.png :o)

How it went on the night...

The place was actually rather better than I had expected, and my standards are somewhat demanding, so this is definitely a promising place for people to come again with friends and business partners. The dishes are very authentic, and made with fresh herbs and ingredients from Thailand, so there is absolutely nothing to complain about the dishes. It's actually worth trying some of the dishes that look unfamiliar on the menu and I had, for example, some king prawns done with minced pork, which sounded unusual but tasted really rather nice. The service was good, the ambience is modern contemporary Asian and cosy and comfortable.  The prices were very reasonable though I won't recommend the wines, but then, one should not order wine in a Thai restaurant anyway.

Everyone had a good time, especially those that came along to Trader Vics for the cocktails before dinner. They were excellent too! :o)