I've seen a lot of comments regarding the availability of turkeys for Christmas this year...

 

... listening to Pattaya radio 103 today I heard that Big C Extra (Pattaya Klang) are taking orders for ready cooked turkeys.

 

No indication of price (won't be cheap of course), but I thought it might be of interest.

 

 

I suspect that a lot of this supposed turkey shortage is just restaurant operators trying to talk up prices. Several have said to me "we had to put prices up (by several hundred Baht) this year to cover the cost of turkey" but they dont really address the facts that hardly anyone will eat more than a few slices of turkey which cant possibly add so much to the cost, and that several places in town have turkey every week as a matter of course and have not increased their prices for that for some time.

10 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

I suspect that a lot of this supposed turkey shortage is just restaurant operators trying to talk up prices. Several have said to me "we had to put prices up (by several hundred Baht) this year to cover the cost of turkey" but they dont really address the facts that hardly anyone will eat more than a few slices of turkey which cant possibly add so much to the cost, and that several places in town have turkey every week as a matter of course and have not increased their prices for that for some time.

 

Which places have turkey every week these days? I looked at most of the pub-restaurants a few months ago (Fraser's, O'Gara's, Jamiesons, etc., etc.) and couldn't find one that offered turkey as a routine Sunday lunch choice any more. Fraser's will make you a turkey dinner if you order it in advance but they want a minimum of 6-8 people at a sitting before they will do it, so that's fine for a big party but no good for just showing up and hoping to get a roast turkey dinner.

Was in BigC extra yesterday...........they have emptied the lamb freezer out and put in whole frozen "cooked" turkeys price seems to be about 2700 a bird.........they can be ordered and the turkey picked up hot xmas day .

9 hours ago, Guderian said:

Which places have turkey every week these days? I looked at most of the pub-restaurants a few months ago (Fraser's, O'Gara's, Jamiesons, etc., etc.) and couldn't find one that offered turkey as a routine Sunday lunch choice any more.

 

In Dicey Reilly's on Sunday a few weeks ago they had something that looked like turkey in the buffet. If it wasnt turkey then it was a hell of a big chicken.

 

Personally I dont like turkey very much so I dont pay much attention to it, but I saw it in the Hilton also quite recently, though I cant remember which day of the week it was. I've also noticed it in places in Bangkok and on the darkside.

To http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/profile/51556-guderian/, 

 

First word....Dumbassery! 

 

Have you been out and checked the price of Turkeys in Thailand? Obviously not. I make you a deal.... you buy one, bring the receipt, and I'll cook it for you for 1/2 the turkey price..... buy a big one, please.

Makro have something called pre-cooked frozen turkeys. The label says 450B/unit, but that seems rather cheap. Maybe it's 450B/kg, though that seems rather high. I have no idea what they are like.

14 hours ago, KittenKong said:

Makro have something called pre-cooked frozen turkeys. The label says 450B/unit, but that seems rather cheap. Maybe it's 450B/kg, though that seems rather high. I have no idea what they are like.

 

It probably is 450 Baht/kg. I was in Big C Extra yesterday and noticed that their vacuum-packed, ready-cooked Australian turkeys were costing 2800-3200 Baht for a bird of +/- 6 kg. So roughly 500 Baht/kg.

What made me doubtful was that the Makro ones had no individual price tags on and there is no facility for weighing them (that I know of: maybe you have to get them weighed and ticketed at the meat or veg counters). They looked quite nice.

 

I wonder if the "pound per person" rule applies to these? If so that might put the cost per person at about 200B. Though as they are pre-cooked there wont be the loss of weight during cooking to factor in, so it may be a fair bit less.

 

Edited December 14, 20169 yr by KittenKong

20 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

What made me doubtful was that the Makro ones had no individual price tags on and there is no facility for weighing them (that I know of: maybe you have to get them weighed and ticketed at the meat or veg counters). They looked quite nice.

...

Yup, lug them to the meat counter, barge in line, plonk it down in front of everyone elses stuff and get it weighed and stickered before checkout.

 

The nauseating news on 103 claims that Big C Extra's 'big birds' have sold out and more are being ordered. I am not sure if the half dozen currently in the lamb locker are already someone else's bird and only out there as eye candy. This being Pattaya, it would not surprise me in the least.