27 September 2008

Restaurant Review: Tawandang German Beerhouse

Hmm. Tawandang.

It's a beerhouse, alright, and a micro-micro brewery. Not bring a beerdrinker, I don't know to rate their house special, but I can say that the rest of the party seemed to like their brews well enough to ask if they can purchase a keg. By the way, the answer was no, because they didn't use kegs.

Despite its name, the food is more of the Thai variety, more emphasis on the fried options. Their house specialty is pork knuckle, which I will say is pretty darn good. It's almost as good as the one I ate in Warsaw, although smaller in portion. They got the contrast of the crusty outer skil layer from the juicy dark meat inside.

The beer hall was just that, a beer hall. Instead of the thick solid wooden furniture, it was flimsy restaurant furniture, but same general concept and same general layout, with rows and rows of tables, separate parties barely separated by space, thousands of potential customers squeezed into a main hall and a upper balcony area.

The large stage on one end home to a staff of performors. The performances vary. The first time I went, was a mix of Thai and English pop music. The second time I went, was a theme of New Orleans. It's bizzare, listening to western pop being performed by Thais. That's even more bizarre, is hearing some og the Thai spin offs, where they took the core music from a western hit, and added their own lyrics in their native language. It's not a translation. It's a bastardization. It's a common practice among many Asian countries. Hearing 2Pac's Me Against the World clobbered up just ain't right.

The two times I've been, they held a drinking contest. They pick three people out of the crowd, one of which usually is a farang. The contestants, on the call, would tear a rolled up t-shirt that reads "I (heart) TWD" out of its packaging, put it on, then pick up the pint of beer and chug it down. The first one done, wins a 20% off coupon good for life. I know. Because our table's volunteer outright beat his opponents.

And for family style dining, you can't go wrong with many selections. For a party of ten, with a beer tower as well as first round of individual drinks, our tab came up to a fat 380 baht per person.

Not a bad deal, and a lot of fun. This is one of those places that you go for the experience more than anything else.

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