Hua Hin - Dined at Chao Lay

Thanon Naresdamri, Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan.

This restaurant is specialised in seafood and Thai food.

The food is good, it is prepared as it should be in Thailand. It's a good idea to order a few dishes, one per person for example, and share the dishes. You're meal will be varied, and you get a better impression of the Thai kitchen

Service is good and fast enough. Chao Lai is vast, very vast, but most of the time, your food will be served within 15 minutes, and you will also get what you ordered. Because the restaurant is so vast, the staff is not very personal. For communication with the kitchen walkie-talkies are used. Ordering extra dishes is, like everywhere in Thailand, no problem.

The restaurant is located in a dead-end street, you have to walk past the kitchen, go up a stairway, and then you are inside. The entrance is not very attractive. But once you're upstairs you're in a vast, efficient restaurant, that is located above the sea. Most of the times it's crowded, but nevertheless try to get a table next to the sea. Even if it's crowded the staff does not try to get you away when you finished eating. The tables are big, the chairs reasonable, so you can spend a few hours in the restaurant.

The kitchen is downstairs, so you cannot see it very well. In front of the kitchen, next to the entrance are reservoirs with fresh fish, prawns, etcetera. So you can see what you are going to eat.

This restaurant is not cheap. This is caused by the location and by the fact that seafood is expensive in Thailand. We have to pay at least 500 Bath for a meal, this is without drinks.

We have eaten in Chao Lay for at least 8 years, every time we were in Hua Hin. Or last visit was in 2009. We did not go there anymore because people were waiting for a table in front of the restaurant, and that is something we don not want to do.