La Bodega Restaurant and Music Cafe or “the Austrian-Spain connection”

A culinary expedition with Ambrosia

The open air Music Cafe.

La Bodega Restaurant and Music Cafe are two different types of restaurants, located under the same roof, on two different levels. Under the same management, this “eating house” is located on the corner of Second Road and Pattayaland 3.
While the Music Cafe is one of those typical Bistros, La Bodega is an intimately-proportioned restaurant. To approach the latter, one has to walk into Music Cafe and up a rather steep staircase that leads you to an open-air patio. The setting is pleasant, lit with a lot of fairy-lights.
The interior evokes reminiscences of a Viennese Cafe with a great touch of a Spanish Bodega. That might be so, because both owners are from Austria and one of them spent many years in Spain and still owns restaurants there.
The menu highlights European style food, though delicious Thai dishes are available as well. Apart from the standard menu, which is rather small but has some interesting dishes, there are also four course daily specials which are worth trying. For those with a healthy appetite and a fondness for good meat, Fondue Chinoise is recom-mended. It comes together with salad buffet and garlic rice. Thin cut slices of four different kinds of meat, chicken, duck, beef and pork, which are prepared in a chicken broth at your table. Very tasty sauces round out this delicious meal. Don’t forget, if you are going to have the garlic rice, let your partner taste it, for it really contains a lot of garlic and it might spoil everything if you have a romantic night in mind afterwards. The offer is: ‘Eat as much as you can, all will be refilled if you still feel hungry’. On request, you can eat the rich tasting soup finished up with an egg, at the end of the meal.
Another fantastic meal for meat lovers is the barbecue which comes in two varieties. Grilled by yourself on the table, it is a hearty but still low calorie meal. Of course, salad buffet and, again, garlic rice are in-cluded the price.
Not to forget the homemade cakes! Having a sweet tooth, remembering them makes my mouth water. Especially the apple-cake is exactly how it should taste.
Besides all other usual beverages, La Bodega and Music Cafe offer a nice range of wines and champagne from Australia, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Another charming aspect is the air-conditioned room for app. 25 guests. It can be booked for birthday parties or intimate business meetings.
The Music Cafe on the ground-floor is open-air with a big terrace. Here you can enjoy little snacks, like canapés or the famous cakes together with real good coffee. It’s quite interesting, both at the terrace or in the patio upstairs, to sit and watch the colorful scenery on this lively street.
The prices are medium ranged but the food is definitely worth the money. The owners and the staff are very friendly and I am sure you will feel comfortable in this homey ambiance.

Enjoying the ambiance in La Bodega on the second floor.

Recipe: Pork kidneys with Madeira.

Dishes or ingredients I particularly fancy, like Limburger cheese, “Thurian” or shrimp paste, even though their smell is offensive to others, are accepted by my fussy proboscis without a problem. I also love kidneys, if prepared properly. It is difficult these days to obtain calf’s kidneys, which are the usual kind used in European cooking. Many Westerners are biased against pork kidneys. This for little reason as they can be as good as the much more expensive veal or lamb variety and that only if you are able to find them.
Buy two or three small pork kidneys at the meat counter of one of the supermarkets. Cut them length-wise into
halves. Remove most of the fat and the gristle inside and rub them with salt. Let them stand for a few minutes, wash and blanch - but not cook - briefly in boiling water (Thai: “Luak”). Throw the water away and rinse the kidneys. Cut the slices across in small crescents. Dry and dust with wheat flower and pepper but hold the salt as one never knows how much the kidneys have absorbed of the salt used for cleaning.
Brown two or three tablespoons of butter in a skillet. Have a cup of sliced button mushrooms ready or any other kind of mushroom you fancy. Add the kidney pieces to the butter, brown them quickly and add the mushrooms. Sauté together for another few minutes. Add a generous dash of Madeira (or sherry) and let it evaporate after which you add two or three tablespoons of double cream or whipping cream. Stir, taste for salt or pepper and add half a tablespoon of chopped parsley. Serve with mashed or boiled potatoes or whatever you like. Scrumptious indeed.