Bangkok has many reputations. It is well known for it’s nightlife, for it’s temples, for traffic and even for it’s tuk tuks. Thai food is now one of the favourite foods of the World and Thai herbs and spices are eagerly used by inventive chefs across Europe and America. However Bangkok is not known as a centre for good restaurants: I think it should be. Not for it’s Thai food but for the vast range and assortment of other cooking styles which are paraded in the top hotels, by master chefs from those countries, but also in down town restaurants where entrepreneurs from around the World have bought their food and culture to this diverse city..

To me there is one aspect of gastro excellence that is missing. There are no proper restaurant reviewers: or to be more precise you will never read a negative report. The bad are either ignored, or lied about in a pay platitudes write up in a give away publication. The reason for this is the defamation laws in Thailand. Writing a bad review can create massive problems: including potential jail time for the unlucky. The problem is that defamation is a criminal offence, so anybody thinking they have been defamed starts at the police station. The police will then arrest the accused. Bail will hopefully be set and the case will be heard in a year or two. Damages claimed will be vast and losing the case would not only be expensive but could also mean time inside. The only defence is that it was in the public’s interest for that information to be published. The main legal problem being is that reviewing a restaurant is everything about the reviewers experience on that single visit and does the public really need to know about a single bad meal? Especially if many others (the owner’s friends) say the opposite. As a restaurant reviewer I always felt my reputation was as much on the line as the restaurants. I had a reputation as a hard but fair reviewer. However I am sure that what I wrote in Europe would end up with me in jail in Bangkok, in addition I can imagine much trouble if one restaurant was rated above another. Would a knife and fork less than a perceived competitor be an issue for the police rather than the next staff meeting? I fear in some cases it would be!

So on this site I have reviewed restaurants that I think are good: maybe not the best, but for their price, and cuisine, good value. I will add on average a restaurant or two a month. I would like you to add your comments at the bottom. I hope we can develop a code so we can say what we mean without encouraging local restaurateurs to reach for their policeman! To borrow from an earlier Brit: “To damn with faint praise!”

Some reviews have also been published in the Sukhumvit Eye, a satarical magazine.