We continue our foray into the Indian eateries of Pattaya with a trip to Ali Baba. Ask anyone for an Indian in Pattaya and pretty high on their list will be Ali Baba. You can find it by going down Pattaya Klang (Pattaya Central Road) towards the beach, and just before the beach it’s on the left, above a tailors (which the same people own). I’ve eaten there several times, and I won’t be rushing back.
First time I went there, was on my very first night ever in Pattaya. A friend said to me that a crowd of his friends were going for a curry, would I like to join them. Well, Ok I was jet-lagged, but it was chaos. The order was wrong, from what I remember the flavours were very mediocre and everyone had something to complain about. OK, I don’t like eating with crowds!
Recently I went again (there have been several visits in the meantime). A good friend took me there, as he was “a friend of the manager” and we would get great service. What’s more he even offered to pay. Well, a free meal can’t be bad (I thought) so off we went. No crowds this time, in fact the restaurant was almost empty – just one other table of about 5 Indian guests.
The meal was a disaster! First it took an age to come. The papadums took nearly 30 minutes. The onion bhajis were tasty, but very greasy. There was a definite pool of oil on the plate when we had eaten them. The curry I had – chicken dopiaza was cold – and had to be sent back to be warmed again. When it came back it tasted raw – like the curry powder had just been stirred in at the last minute. The vegetables were flavourless and the naan was overcooked and burnt in places. My friend had keema mutter and again it was cold and had a weird taste. Definitely not as it should have been. So really the meal was very poor. Add insult to injury, when the bill came, my friend said we should split it. The 800B I had to pay was overpriced for what we’d eaten.
In my opinion this place suffers from the “Emperor’s New Clothes” syndrome. It’s not on my “rush to return” list. Marks out of 10 – 2 for the papadums I guess! Nothing else. Maybe I’ve been unlucky – write in and let me know!
Disclaimer! This review is written by an independent reviewer. The views quoted in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Nicky or anyone else connected with the site! HOWEVER we do respect the reviewer and his right to his opinion.
