Not just eating out - it’s an ‘event’!
by Miss Terry Diner
La Piola is a new restaurant in Pattaya, but chef
Roberto Ferin is no stranger to this area, having run L’Opera Restaurant
at the Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estate for some years. The restaurant
is a new concept for Pattaya, but one that Roberto will be only too
pleased to explain to you.
First off, ‘La Piola’ means a ‘family’
restaurant, where the chef is the owner. In this case it means that
Roberto is ‘it’ - the man who meets, greets, feeds and treats his
customers to a never ending barrage of bonhomie, the like of which it is
hard to imagine. Roberto is everywhere, and the restaurant does not just
revolve around Roberto - it IS Roberto! On our evening, he met us at the
door, waving a bandaged finger, “It’s a new slicing machine, she’s a
very sharp!”
Before going into the concept of the restaurant, a word
about the restaurant itself. It looks European with its patterned
chequered floor tiles and light coloured natural wood tables and chairs,
with brightly coloured place mats. Italian background music is there to
remind you where you are, and along one wall is a wine collection, with
Italian wines ranging in price between 660 baht to 6,000 baht. Next along
the wall is an Italian coffee machine, which “costa fortune,” said
Roberto. There is also another enclosed section just for people who want
to drop in for a wine and a chat.
So now to Roberto’s concept. The restaurant serves
antipasto dishes and main courses with pasta or risotto. Antipasto is 300
baht and the same price for mains. You can have one or the other, or both,
if you’re hungry. The items in the antipasto change, as do the three
main course dishes, which depend upon which ingredients are the best
available at the markets that day, and what Roberto feels like cooking
that evening.
The antipasto has 10 dishes, including several
salami’s including a spicy salami from Calabria, Parma ham, vegetables
in garlic olive oil and a most interesting rolled chicken with sage and
Parma ham inside. By the way, this is real Parma ham, and Roberto showed
us the official imprint to prove this was the genuine article!
We began with the antipasto, which is brought to the
table on a wooden platter, with the hams and meats draped artfully over
melon. Side dishes have the various vegetables and you just pick and eat
(or should that be ‘pig’ and eat). Roberto’s own Focaccia bread and
crusty loaf are there too, and we chose (or rather, Roberto chose) a
Verdicchio wine, which is a not too sweet Italian summer wine, to go with
it.
After a suitable pause we decided on the Italian
risotto, which came with asparagus spears and saffron and gorgonzola
cheese to be eaten with a delightful pork and a Sicilian style red
snapper, which came surrounded by mussels. We had the B. 660 Don Giovanni
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo red with these and it was an outstanding wine at
the price.
The mains were excellent and we left just a smidgen of
room for Roberto’s home made creamy Tiramisu, since it was obvious we
were not going to be allowed home without trying it. (It was fabulous, by
the way!)
By the time we had finished at La Piola, we found we
had been eating and drinking for a solid three hours. We had collected a
couple of new acquaintances at our table and we were all singing O Solo
Mio with Roberto, while knocking back the Limoncello’s. This is not the
restaurant for a quiet evening, but is one to go with a group and just sit
back and let Roberto make it happen for you. In the words of our chef and
host Roberto, “Justa letta me take a the responsibility for you for a da
food. You make da big decisions all a day, now justa come and a relax!”
It was a wonderful evening of dining out in Italy. Do go. Highly
recommended.
La Piola, Pattaya Second Road, Tiffany Show complex, telephone 038 362
058, email [email protected], parking in the Tiffany compound.
