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King Seafood Restaurant, Pattaya, Thailand

To get to King seafood restaurant - situated in Pattaya's Walking Street, notorious for its "nightlife" - you have to run the gauntlet of pimps, touts, rip-off merchants, "service girls", "freelancers", and lady-boys until you see the huge neon sign proclaiming that the fish are so fresh "they are still swimming".

Walking Street, as usual, was throbbing with people wanting to part the unwary tourist from their cash. Suit, sir? Sex show?. Neon lights flashing everywhere. Invitations aplenty. It's quite overwhelming - even if you're accustomed to it. "Hellooo, welcome inside…"

There are no photos for this review. We had a couple of cameras with us but we kept them in our bags. It's more bother than it's worth to look like a tourist in this area.

I don't like Walking Street - it's a real tourist dive, and much more expensive than the norm because of that. It's sex, Sex, SEX, everywhere. I've no objection to sex, but I don't want someone trying to sell it to me at every step, thanks. A sex show with ping pong balls? Massage, madam? A lady-boy or two, sir?

"…walked like a woman and talked like a man… Lola" (The Kinks)

We get past the Tourist Police mobile station which is set up there every night. Now why would they feel the need to do that? Yeah.

So why bother?

Because King seafood restaurant would make it into my top ten of restaurants in the world. It's worth it! Believe me, we've tried to find as good or better elsewhere but…

"…nothing compares, nothing compares…" (Sinead O'Connor)

Go a little way down Walking Street, past the Lobster Pot - which looks pretty similar to King from the outside, but the food just isn't quite the same standard - and there on the right you'll find King.

As you enter King restaurant, on the left you'll find lots of seafood displayed on ice: scallops, lobsters, fish, etc. Further down there's a wide range of veggies. This is great because you can take a plastic tray and choose your own, if you want. Then hand it over to the waitress and tell her how you want it to be cooked.

Although the kitchen is enclosed (good idea to keep out flies etc) there's a glass partition so you can see inside, and the chefs appear to be clean and doing a good job. That's a nice touch, when a restaurant doesn't feel the need to hide its kitchen. Very reassuring!

I always choose our own veggies but leave it up to the staff to pick our fish, scallops, or crabs or whatever. We're regulars and I know they'll select the best ones for us. You probably don't even have to be a regular to get the best - just smile! This, after all, is the land of smiles.

On the right there are tanks with live beasties in them: crabs, shrimp, fish, and even a small shark or two. You must be careful with seafood. It can be fresh, as in still alive when you bought it, but if it's not been kept properly then it's dangerous. For example, crabs excrete ammonia so if they've not been kept properly then basically they've been living in their own waste and, despite being "fresh", they should be avoided if there is any hint of ammonia about them.

Over the years we've been to King countless times and never had any problems with the food at all. Well, that's not strictly true. I think this is very much a night-time place. We once went at lunch time, and I think the cleaner or someone must've cooked the meal. It was fairly mediocre. Don't go earlier than 6pm.

Once you've got past all the lovely food on display you're in the restaurant area itself. Much of this is built out over the sea. This is all illegal building and the "powers that be" have been talking about demolishing it - and all the similar places - for years, but nothing is ever done. For once I applaud slow and ineffective local government.

So at last we get to the meal itself. As well as being able to do a DIY on the way in, personally picking out what you want, you can choose from an extensive menu. It's a seafood restaurant so, guess what, there's lots of seafood on it. It's also predominantly a Thai restaurant. That's not such a stupid comment as you might think. Pattaya is a tourist destination catering to tourists of all nationalities. Many, many restaurants are German, British, Swiss, Russian, etc, with only a token menu of Thai dishes. We like Thai food.

A big problem is that very often the Thais think that all farangs (foreigners) don't like spicy food and it can sometimes be very difficult to explain to them that we like it Thai-style - "phet-phet" (spicy). However, they know us at this restaurant and they now say to us, "You like spicy, yes?" and we reply, "Yes, just like Thai people." This is not the same as going into an Indian restaurant in Britain and ordering the "hottest thing on the menu". It simply means - please don't make it bland just because we're farangs.

Price-wise this is not a cheap restaurant but it's not in the fine-dining price range either. You can eat much more cheaply in Pattaya, or much more expensively, but at less than £20 for a small feast and a few beers for two I certainly wouldn't complain!

We had scallops in butter and garlic, two blue crabs (beware - they'll try to give you king crabs if you don't specify what kind of crabs you want, and even then they sometimes make a "mistake". You need to be quite firm on this. King crabs are great but they cost a small fortune, so watch out) in a delicious "chilli paste" (more of a gravy than a paste, but wonderful all the same), a pork Thai green curry, seafood soup with coconut milk, veggies stir-fried in oyster sauce, and a small portion of steamed rice.

Rice is an important part of the meal to Thais. Where we might say "have a meal", they say "kin khao", which translates as "eat rice". So we are a bit farangish in our lack of rice.

The staff at King are cheerful and friendly. Some of them have been there for years and could probably do the job blindfolded. There does seem to be quite a high turnover of young ones too, though. I think they might be students. We invariably leave a pretty large tip - that tells you what we think of the service. They take very good care of us, without being annoying or over-attentive.

The ambience? Well, you couldn't ask for a nicer place. You can sit out over the sea. You have a view of the whole bay and of the various boats and ships going about their business. What else could I possibly say about King? If you're in the area, you should definitely try it! (After 6pm.)

Contributor's Note

I originally wrote this restaurant review for my own website.

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British Expat
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nice to see more Thailand info here. thanks for adding. i've never been to King Seafood but reading this does make me hungry for a local 89 baht all you can eat thai bbq.

Thanks for your comment. Lots of people are big fans of the al-you-can eat for 89 baht type of buffet, but I'm afraid I'm not one of them. I'm a terribly fussy eater, which is a right nuisance sometimes.

Sounds like a lovely joint. Unfortunately I'll probably never experience it as I'd never get past the pimps, service girls, freelancers, or, if I'm drunk more than usual, the lady-boys.

Your comment made me laugh! Seriously, though, King Seafood Restaurant is a great place to go.

"Sounds like a lovely joint. Unfortunately I'll probably never experience it as I'd never get past the pimps, service girls, freelancers, or, if I'm drunk more than usual, the lady-boys."

ha! Nick next time you are over this way we'll have a beer and fight off the lady-boys but i'm not going to fight too hard with the free-lancers lol.

LOL! But how good are you at spotting lady-boys? Here's a quiz for you to test your skill.
http://www2.b3ta.com/femaleorshemale2/

And don't forget - in Pattaya the best looking women are always men.

i'm pretty damn good at spotting them, if i do say so myself. i've got it down to a science, height,hand size, adams apple, tone of their voice and aggressiveness.

i may not hook up with too many "Ladies" here in thailand but those i do meet are always female lol.

Aha, but I notice you didn't try the quiz. Honestly, I think I'm pretty good at spotting them but I've been wrong a couple of times - not that it matters! (Meaning, I'm not a customer anyway so it doesn't matter.)

Can't see my making it to Thailand, unfortunately - but I did sample what appeared to be pretty genuine Thai food in self-service takeaway form inland from the Côte d'Azur. Right up my street.

I've very rarely had real Thai food outside of Thailand. It's nearly always either adapted to the western palate or uses cheaper and easier to get ingredients - green peas instead of pea aubergines, and even red bell peppers instead of red chillies.

There was a fantastic Issan restaurant in Shepherd's Bush but most other so-called Thai places we tried in the UK were quite dismal approximations to Thai food.

took the quiz, 100% of ladies identified correctly. net quizzes are not the best way to tell though for obvious reasons. site pop up wouldnt let me copy and paste results here.

agree about the thai food in america being a much watered down version. sort of like "mexican" food in america if by mexican you mean just add extra cheese.

Koh Samui Jun 11, 2008 21:32

kohabitat, I would definitely want you to be around when I embark on the journey towards King Seafood Restaurant.

stravaig, I would agree with you 100%. The local Thai restaurant here in Cebu City, Philippines, is called Krua Thai and run by an Austrian family. It's wildly popular, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

One thing I didn't mention in the Intel is that King will quite happily give you a take-away (or even a doggy bag if you can't eat all you've ordered). Mr S likes to go to a pub quiz every week (at least that's where he tells me he's going) and quite often brings something back for me from King. Some wives get flowers when their husbands have a guilt complex. Mine gave me crabs.

King crabs no less, not just the cheaper blue crabs. He must've done something really bad!

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