Dining Out: The Elvis Pub - for edible memorabilia!

by Miss Terry Diner

The Elvis Pub is one of the newer attractions on the scene in Pattaya and is the venue for Ritchie Newton’s Elvis show. Ritchie, who has been the subject of articles and personal profile in the Pattaya Mail, is an international Elvis impersonator hailing originally from Germany, and has been packing them in to the Second Road venue, opposite Big C. He is also one of the partners in the Elvis Pub, and even more importantly, was a trained chef!

The actual restaurant is inside and air-conditioned, but is quite small, seating 16 patrons only. Outside, there are more tables, and it is there that the customers come to watch the Elvis show. The restaurant is cosy, with a bar along one wall, with every other bit of wall space being taken up by hundreds of photographs of „The King“ of rock and roll.

Showing Ritchie’s origins, on the table is a wicker basket with German mustard and a Remoulade (a type of mayonnaise), plus a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce, a pepper mill and the usual salt and pepper.

The menu (in German and English) is not large, with only 18 items, but it will take you some time to go through, as it is a wonderfully descriptive piece of work beginning with a potted history of Elvis Aaron Presley (1935-1977).

It begins with breakfast (from 8 a.m., Ritchie assured us) and, naturally, the ubiquitous ABF, described as being the traditional American breakfast and was part of Elvis’ daily diet, as he was an American.

After breakfast, there are a few pages called Burgers and Sandwiches. These range between 75 and 145 baht and include the Elvis Burger, the King Creole Double Cheeseburger with marinated red onions and the Heartbreak Hotel Hero. These are filled baguettes and it is rumoured that Elvis would spend $40,000 to take his entire entourage to a Hero shop in Denver when he felt like one of these. (The Elvis Pub will do you one for B. 145!)

Next up are Small Dishes (B. 95-125) with meatballs, salad and Circle G chicken nuggets. Six mains follow (B. 135-195) including Burning Love ham steaks and Tupelo pork chops. Each dish has some snippets of information about Elvis and his life, and Ritchie assured me that the actual recipes are the ones used by Elvis’ personal chef who wrote a book detailing the personal preferences of the world’s number one rock personality.

There is a small drinks list, with the usual beers B. 45-70 and Erdinger and Warsteiner available for B. 85.

While perusing the menu, Ritchie offered us an Elvis drink, a vodka and grape drink shooter. Nice, but too many would be dangerous. I followed this up with my usual Singha Gold, while Madame had tonic water.

Madame was keen on trying the Elvis Burger, while I went for the Love Me Tender steak in red wine, with medium-rare being the cooking instructions.

Large plates of food arrived with ample servings of Belgian Fries (though the French still claim the shoestring chips were their idea, and I got the feeling that Ritchie felt they were German, but after extensive research, Miss Terry believes they are correctly Belgian Fries).

Madame ate every piece of her burger, including the decorative tomato, but then she always was a toothsome person. My steak arrived as per the medium-rare order and the sauce, with peppercorns and onions, was simply delicious. Neither of us had room for anything else and even turned down the offered coffees.

Both Madame and I were more than happy with our choices of the menu items, the restaurant is clean and cheerful, and practically an Elvis museum. The Elvis Pub gives you the opportunity, if not to eat with Elvis, to at least eat what Elvis enjoyed. The only restaurant with edible memorabilia! Stay for Ritchie’s show after 8.30 p.m. five nights a week. A very inexpensive fun place for a fun night out.

The Elvis Pub, 435/45 Second Road, North Pattaya, telephone 038 361 673.

Birthday time in the wilds of Naklua: This coming Tuesday night, November 13, will see the Pussycat ogling den (Naklua Road) celebrating the birthday of Lanky Bob, the popular long-serving (or should that be ‘long-suffering’) whip wielder and ring-master at the somewhat isolated chrome pole palace. The den opens at 7:00 p.m. and no doubt the birthday boy will be in attendance from the kick-off.