TallGuyJohninBKK

One thing I like in particular about the service staff at Tops Central Chidlom Food Hall is, if they're out of some item, you can actually persuade them via their main customer service counter, especially via the on-duty manager, to check their on-site warehouse and even their computer system of stock in other stores. And if they find the item elsewhere, they'll have it transferred to their store for you to buy there, sometimes even on the same day while you wait... I can't say I've ever encountered that kind of service from Foodland or Villa. Now if I could just get the Tops Food Hall folks (I've failed miserably thus far) to actually pay attention on their own to when they run out of something, and if they do run out, to on their own think maybe it might be a good idea to obtain some available stock sitting around unpurchased at other locations. That part, they just can't seem to manage to do.

I used to live off on Tops-stocked 2 liter Waiitrose sparking water bottles... But with COVID, Tops (even their Food Hall locations) became very inconsistent in being able to keep in stock that product and a lot of other imported items as well... So in the end, I gave up on them and bought my own home carbonation system for making sparking water... Tops probably lost about 1000b per week in Waitrose sales from me on that deal....

I've also always found it a bit interesting how the different supermarket chains have somewhat different home country affiliations via their products... Villa, to me, has always had the best selection of US-centric imported brands. Tops has long had an emphasis on UK brands via their affiliation with Waitrose... And Carrefour used to have the same for France with their house brands, and that has continued somewhat with their Big C successors and their present stocking of a few things from the Casino brand.

ya, Villa's original Soi 11 location lost their lease...and/or...were unwilling to pay the higher rate at expiration being demanded by their landlord, pre-COVID, if I recall.... As things turned out, the landlord there might have been better off to have kept Villa in their portfolio at the very convenient top of the soi, BTS-close location. At least you pretty much can be assured that Villa the company isn't likely to go out of business in most scenarios. Back then, the original Villa Soi 11 market was my default, go-to shopping location.... Alas, no longer. Their relocation to a more remote location along with the emergence of online shopping due to COVID changed all that.

It's weird how grocery store chains here make their location decisions. --Foodland originally had the Soi 5 location, then they added a much larger and nicer new location at Suk Soi 16 a relatively short distance away... but kept Soi 5 and even kinda remodeled it a couple years back. --Villa had an original larger location at the top of Suk Soi 11, and then a smaller and less used location in the basement of the Ploenchit Center... Then they moved the Soi 11 location to a new and smaller location very far into the soi... But then came along and opened a new and larger location not far away on Soi Langsuan, while keeping both Ploenchit and Soi 11. --Lately, Tops has been opening bunches of new store locations in various areas between Asoke and Thong Lor... and make their already confusing marketing even more confusing by adding newer brands/locations like "Tops Fine Food" in addition to the large "Tops Food Halls" and regular "Tops Supermarkets," and now lately even the Costco-like "Tops Club Rama II."

Are you talking about Foodland or Villa?

I'd be a bit leary of fresh produce from the Khlong Toei market... Thailand has problems with excessive pesticide use and residues on their fruits and veggies.... as has been documented in the past by the private group ThaiPAN, which ran its own lab certified random testing in past years. And the stuff that ends up in fresh markets is probably untracked and little regulated... though even the major supermarkets also had problems with this in the past... even among items labeled "organic," which tends to have little meaning/value if it's a Thai government "organic" designation.

I thought the Soi 5 branch used to have car parking available in one of the structures nearby there.... but I'm not a car driver here...so can't say for certain. PS - one of the reasons I've stopped shopping at Villa stores in person so much over the years is I kept getting OLD fresh produce from their veggies section. Whereas, the fresh veggies at Foodland Soi 5 always were kept well refrigerated and I never got rotten tomato or wilted lettuce from them. The old Villa branch on Soi 11, before it relocated further into the soi, used to keep a lot of their vegetables sitting out on counters or shelves, non refrigerated. They used to sell packages of tomatoes, two per tray wrapped in plastic wrap....and I can't tell you the number of times I got them home, opened the package, and found the underneath/down facing parts of the tomatoes had gone bad, and no way to see or tell that while looking at the package in the store.

Makro sometimes has them, sometimes doesn't... And probably depends on the branch involved. This is what they look like. And it seems they've changed the brand they're carrying also. From the Sathorn branch. Villa also stocks the smaller jars of the El Sabor brand of sliced jalapenos... But I've never cared for them, as they come out of the jar soft and soggy.... Whereas the Mezzetta brand from the US comes out firm and a bit crunchy, as you'd expect from a fresh cut jalapeno pepper.

It sounds like you've got some entirely different kind of delivery operation going on in your area. Our Tops Online grocery deliveries, ordered via the Tops app or website, always come via a delivery truck, never a motorcycle. I'd only get a motorcycle if I was instead doing a small Tops order via Grab or Foodpanda. And with Grab or Foodpanda, you can pay via cash upon delivery, but also can pay via stored bank card within their apps. My US bank cards work just fine with both the Foodpanda and Grab apps for all purposes.

Villa's are the best/easiest place for jalapenos (Mezzetta brand from the U.S.)... unless you want to go big time to Makro for the 2+ kilo Casa Fiesta tins they sometimes have in stock.

That's interesting. So Tops may have more than one delivery hub for the Bangkok area... Sukhumvit area customers definitely are served by their Rama III location. I guess my main point was, AFAIK, Tops Online at least in central BKK doesn't just deliver from whatever is the nearest local store to your home. I've got a dozen or more different Tops market and Central Food Hall locations far closer to my home than the Rama III branch that our deliveries come from. As for foreign bank cards, I've always had trouble using mine if I try to pay via the Tops onllne website... But instead, I choose the "pay on delivery" option, and the delivery folks carry with them the handheld bank card reading machine. And I've never had my US cards declined once via that route over many years of use with Tops. I used to have the same problem with Tesco... Couldn't get the Tesco website to accept my US bank cards... But the hand-held card machines carried by their drivers worked perfectly fine.

It can be a whole lot more convenient that going out in the smog and heat. Tops online does free delivery on orders 1000b and above. Gourmet Market I believe is 1500b and above, but still will deliver lower orders for a set fee... And these days, you can order groceries from Tops, Gourmet Market and LotusS -- but not Foodland or Villa -- via either the FoodPanda or Grab apps, and get either free delivery or for a very low fee even with small sized orders. These days, I'd say 75% or more of our grocery shopping is done online, even though I'm within walking distance of Villa, Tops, Foodland branches, and short BTS trips to either Central Food Halls or Gourmet Markets. PS - FWIW, I haven't noticed in my increasingly rare visits that Foodland Soi 5 is doing any big business in deliveries..... but I'm not hanging out there watching all day every day, either... so who knows.

AFAIK, there are no legal "trusts" in Thailand. There isn't such a thing provided for in Thai law.

Central Food Hall at Chidlom BTS has a quite good selection of imported beers, including from the US, UK, Japan, Korea, etc... My personal favorite is the Rogue brand from the U.S./Oregon. Yes, the prices are going to run in the $7-$9 per bottle range. But I figure I can afford a few and still come out far ahead based on what I'm saving on rent vs. what I'd otherwise be paying for housing in the U.S.

These days, for our basic grocery shopping, the majority of it is done via Tops Online, which has a good and broad selection and for Bangkok comes from a central warehouse on Rama 3 -- not from a smaller local store like the Soi 17 Robinson's Tops branch. And then supplement that with in-store shopping as needed from Central Chidlom Food Hall, which has a quite good in-store bakery, along with periodic online grocery orders from Villa, and an occasional walk over to Foodland Soi 5 to stock up on pinto beans and a very few other selected items. For me, the basic difference is -- the current smaller Foodlands and Villas are what I would call grocery stores, whereas the current larger, more broadly stocked Tops Food Halls and Gourmet Markets are more like supermarkets.

Villa at Soi 11 and Soi 33 sometimes had the same kind of staff...though I always thought the Foodland Soi 5 liquor gals were better looking... One in particular there, at least in the past, was quite the stunner....

I believe, when I was checking with the local bakery staff there sometime back, they informed me in answer to my question that they were using palm oil in making their own croissants there.... That was the end of my Foodland bakery shopping.

IMHO, the Tops Central Food Hall at Chidlom BTS is the best farang oriented supermarket in the area... followed by the often pricier Gourmet Market branches at Siam Paragon or EmQuartier. Central Chidlom Food Hall has a newer sister branch very nearby at CentralWorld. But it's harder to get to being up on the distant 7th floor of CW, and is laid out in an unfathomable way that makes it almost impossible to find any given thing there. I also like Central because they have the local monopoly on UK brand Waitrose products in Thailand, which fill the need for a lot of western things I like. But Foodland and especially Villa also have a few things that you just can't find at Central and Gourmet markets, especially in the category of Mexican food groceries. Both Villa and Foodland stock the same U.S. brand of 1 lbs bagged dried pinto beans, which are an essential for me. I've never found the same product at either Central/Tops or Gourmet Market. And Villa stocks, unlike all the others, stocks the very good local brand of El Charro salsas and frozen Mexican entrees along with the also very good El Sapo brand of salsas. Except for stocking pinto beans and some local brand tortillas, Foodland is horrible when it comes to any decent Mexican food grocery products. And Central/Tops and Gourmet Market are almost as lacking/bad.

I live in the same area...and know Foodland Soi 5 well.... Possible reasons: --tourism levels, while recovering, aren't back to what they were before... And those that are coming, the Chinese for example, probably aren't the type to be regular Foodland shoppers. --along the way Foodland for some reason opened the newer and larger and nicer outlet at Sukhumvit Soi 16. Although it's a bit farther away from my home than Soi 5, it's definitely a nicer and better shopping experience than the smaller, low-ceiling, narrow aisled Soi 5 branch. --I think COVID really accelerated the trend toward online grocery shopping and home delivery vs. in-store shopping. And for some unfathomable reason, unlike Tops and Lotus and Villa, last time I checked, Foodland's online website and mobile app are entirely in TH language with no EN option available. Which seems a very odd choice given their status as a kind of international market.

Most Thai people I know seem to have a self-chosen first name nickname, usually short and easy to say.... unlike their given Thai first name, as in our example here of Ava vs. Pawornwan.... Serious question -- given the prevaience of often western style chosen first name nicknames here, why don't Thai parents simply name their kids with the shorter, simpler first names in the first place? That's one thing about Thailand I've never quite understood. In the west, people get usually short and simple first names chosen by their parents like Fred or Frank or Felix... (as opposed to Astralwanderer). But they don't usually end up then later in life going by some other first name nickname such as Pepsi or Roller or Roughrider! But I guess if I had a given first name such as Pawornwan or Jumpeeporn or Siriwaolak, I might be looking at something like Ava as an alternative! ????

There is a growing, fledgling movement in the U.S. toward allowing online notarization services...and a few states already allow it. Obviously that's not going to work for the US Embassy's freedom to marry affidavit here, since the Thai amphurs' only want a document from the applicant's local embassy. But for generic notarization needs, the U.S. online route may well work. I was serving as an executor for a deceased family member two years ago, and was required by a financial entity to submit a notarized document. I didn't want to go the U.S. Embassy $50 route for reasons other than cost. So searched and found a legit online notary in Texas where I got it done and submitted for I wanna say $30 to $35...and then they send the notarized doc to your desired recipient using the secure Docusign system. And that doc was accepted by the financial entity. Involved doing an online video chat with the notary and displaying and her capturing my official ID, which was my U.S. driver's license. All in all, a bit better deal than shelling about $1500 USD for a RT air ticket... ????

FWIW, I renewed my US passport here last year, and everything went quickly and smoothly. Even though I live within walking distance of the U.S. Embassy in BKK, they told me they wouldn't accept me to apply in person, and so I ended up having to do the mail-in route, which then gets forwarded and processed in the U.S., and then returned back here. Got my new passport back in the mail less than 3 weeks after submitting my paperwork. Think I'd tend to agree with you on that point above....

When I choose to drink Guinness, it's because I like the taste and the texture of the drink -- not because I'm trying to get blitzed... I'd buy a 0% Guinness if it were available here. PS - I was in Hua Hin earlier this year at a pub that sometimes sells Guinness on tap... I asked the staff why their Guinness stocking was inconsistent, and my waitress replied that at their price of nearly 300b per pint, punters were choosing other options.

I wouldn't be so happy about a six-week scheduling wait for "a very simple procedure".... when Thais can walk in and get married the same day on demand, AFAIK. Also, did Laksi require you to have witnesses and/or a translator? And an Embassy certified copy of your passport?