Terrace 61 Restaurant

[jfchandler]

The BKK Post had a great, glowing review the other day of a 195 baht daily lunch buffet offered at a restaurant called Terrace 61, which is located near the intersection of Ram-Intra and Ramkamhaeng roads, just beyond the Fashion Island complex and across from the Noparrat Rajathanee Hospital.

The review says the restaurant sits on a 7-rai plot of land and has seating for 1,000 -- but offers a buffet with pretty much everything one could imagine at a quality consistent with top-flight hotels.

And yet, a search of ThaiVisa finds no mention of Terrace 61.... If the BKK Post review is even partially on target, it sounds like a place worth trying...

An excerpt of the review follows:

Where big is beautiful

Asian cuisine with a Manhattan connection, a guru's recommendation and affordable prices: who could ask for more?

Writer: VANNIYA SRIANGURA

Published: 31/07/2009 at 12:00 AM

In the restaurant world, there's no such thing as a formula for success. I've seen restaurants that had "all the works" but still did not survive; and restaurants in the city's prime commercial areas still struggling to draw in customers, and restaurants that offered some of the best food in the world, but no-one really cared.

Yet, I've also seen restaurants - secretly tucked in only-god-knows-where location and as tattered as imaginable - that have tried to be in the deepest corner of shade but could never get away from endless media and public attention. So nothing seemed to be surprising to me anymore. Until I arrived at Terrace 61.

Nothing seemed to fit together at first. The name sounded politically false for a four-year-old restaurant claiming to focus on the taste and quality of its food rather than the ambience. With seating for over 1,000 in a seven-rai-plot of land, it was gigantic for an eatery. The menu, featuring pretty much everything from Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese and Western cuisines to home-made bakery, was amazingly sweeping. And they said it was a small family business!

The comprehensive lunch buffet, available every day of the week and priced only 195 baht, dares to offer quality and quantity that's nearly equivalent to a top hotel's buffet line. And I even believed everything had been bared in front of me. But I didn't know about New York and Martha Stewart.

Now you're wondering what a restaurant on Bangkok's submissive district has to do with the Big Apple and the world-famous lifestyle guru. The answer is Terrace 61 is a branch of Pongsri Thai restaurant, a famous eatery in New York that opened in 1972. With four outlets throughout Manhattan, Pongsri is claimed to be one of Martha Stewart 's favourite places for Asian food.

We were at Terrace 61 during the buffet hours between 11am and 2pm, so we decided to also sample some food from the buffet lines. I passed freshly made papaya salad of various genres from the som tam station and headed straight for nicely prepared hoy tord (crispy fried mussels pancake with bean sprouts), which was absolutely delicious. At the buffet, there were also a wide selection of dim sum, khanom jeen (Thai-style fermented noodle) with various dressing, pasta, entrees and desserts. Most were truly delectable and worth beyond the prices.

The full review is online here at the BKK Post web site, though they seem to change their links periodically....

Their map of Terrace 61 is posted below...

In searching a bit....

The Nation had a very good review of Terrace 61 after it opened back in 2005.

The restaurant seems to have its own pretty well developed web-site.

Given the size of the place, it's not surprising that they've divided it into different areas... as listed on their web site:

# Reception

# Dinning Room1

# Dinning Room2

# Private Room

# Banquet Room

# Seminar Room

# Buffet Lunch Area

# Bar-B-Q Garden

# Bakery Shop

# Coffee Corner

Anyone been to this place and have anything to say about it... good or bad???

[AyG]

I had lunch at this restaurant yesterday. The glowing Bangkok Post review is, in my opinion, justified.

The fried appetisers were fresh and crispy; a woman was standing at the station and frying up small batches constantly. Far better than most 5* hotels I've been to. The selection, slightly surprisingly, included samosas with Indian spices.

There was Isaan food, with somtam made to order, barbecued chicken (excellent and moist) and barbecued pork.

There was a salad station with lettuce, tomatoes, beans, etc., but only one premade salad (with fermented pork sausage).

There were about half a dozen curries and stir-fries. The fish with lime and chillies was excellent, with a great, fresh taste. I also enjoyed the roasted belly pork with broccoli, the soft ribs with chilli jam and kaffir lime leaves. Also good was the stewed pork leg with mushrooms.

There were about half a dozen chilli dips with a selection of fresh and tempura'd vegetables and cha-am egg.

Not a lot of western food - just a couple of soups, bread rolls and spaghetti with sauce. But then the place is catering to Thais, not farangs; I was the only farang there.

Desert was limited to a choice of shaved ice with all the toppings or cake. The frozen peach cake was so good I went back for seconds and thirds - even though by this point I was full almost to bursting point.

I'm sure there was more, but memory fails me.

The only negative, really, is the ambiance. The dining room was a little bit sterile and some of the tables a bit too close together. I felt a little uncomfortable chatting to my companions. Incidentally, the dining room is air conditioned, but the food is outside in the open air. The place was fairly busy, but only one of the two dining rooms was open.

As for the cost, its was less than 250 Baht a head, including bottled water and ice. Excellent value.