Mr Daniel turned 52 this year. If you don’t know me, then when you read this blog you probably think of Mrs Sachi and I as sexy jetsetters in the prime of life but the fact is that everybody who reads this blog was most likely at my birthday party this year, or the one before. Or related by blood. Heck, even Mrs Sachi doesn’t read these pieces… But I digress.
So my beloved treated me to a night at one of Bangkok’s finest flophouses, the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit, part of Marriott’s Luxury Collection, which is lucky because it’s a different Marriott brand from the Sheraton Riverside and we have to stay at each ‘brand’ to max out Sachi’s Elite nights. It’s bloody expensive but bloody nice.
Everything is just a bit fancier than the places we usually stay. Like the bath. Big enough for two and all the fittings are fat and heavy. They look like they have been in place for a decade but still look good and function perfectly. Even the drain in the floor has a bronze plate, not stainless, so that it doesn’t rust. Everything has the heft of luxury. Your feet sink into the carpet.
There are a few other touches to let you know you’re staying in a classy place.
We stayed here back in ’22 and I was very impressed. There’s no a club lounge but they treat you to two hours of cocktails in the jazz bar and, by goodness, they make the best cocktails in Bangkok. I still have a half-written account of that stay on this blog in draft status. We also came here for Le Petite Chef, years ago, but that piece is unfinished too. Here’s a pro-tip kids: if your story or blog post is boring to you, it will be to everyone else so don’t publish it. What’s that? Follow my own advice?
Anyway, back to business. This time I didn’t arrive late, sweaty and on the back of a moto-taxi, The Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit has it’s own entrance from the Skytrain.
First order of business is to have a swim. The pool is well worth a visit. It’s the nicest one in the city, in my opinion. While swimming about its twists and turns and admiring the garden, you wouldn’t know that you are in the cholesterol-choked heart of Bangkok. Here’s a picture.
And for your sins, you get a 360 too.
It’s really something. The pool wraps around a central area and is broken up by tropical gardens so you’re not face-to-face with a six-year old wearing a look of guilty relief
The garden is amazing as well. I’ve not seen better at coastal resorts, yet I could probably throw a stone and hit Asoke BTS station below.
And that’s it. We couldn’t hang out too long because it was almost cocktail-hour.
The housekeeping staff had been in while we were swimming and there’s a gift for Mr Oguni.
Should I take my wife’s name? Daniel Oguni does have a certain… exotic ring.
Like any quality hotel, these days, there’s a pillow menu. These used to excite me but now that I’m a veteran hotel-skunk (close relation to the lounge-lizard) I find I can’t keep more than two or three of them down without getting sick.
But those two hours of decadence await. Where are we off to Sachie?
I don’t want to give the impression that this isn’t a classy place but they do have this sign at the bar. It’s a bit odd because I think Mrs Sachi and I were some of the youngest folk in there and I’d left my playing cards, gun and pills back in the room. I had my knife but they don’t check. It’s a Swiss-Army knife, because I’m a dad. Maybe they should be patting people down?
Anyhow, to business. It’s not a lounge and most of the tables were empty, but had ‘reserved’ signs on them. Oh dear, that could be a problem. Luckily, there was one table unreserved, right at the front, by the stage. We were a little spoilt.
Above you can see cocktail menu, got to work down that. There was beer and wine too. It’s a nice bar, here’s another 360.
They don’t feed us, much, but there are these snacks, which deserve a mention and are delicious.
We are set for booze, and snacks. There’s definitely some sort of show going on.
It turns out that the show is a UNESCO festival thing, which explains why it’s in an expensive hotel and nobody knows about it. I used to work at the UN HQ in Bangkok and they mostly put fly-in delegates into fancy hotels for talk-shops that get no press, little done and pay lots of money for vanilla-events that go completely under the radar. I mean, you’re not going to see a UNESCO logo on a two-day, 20,000-people rock festival or anything. As Mrs Sachi and I worked out way down the cocktail menu the reserved tables started filling up with the elderly and influential. But, to business…
They did feed us a little more, tofu, a single nacho and chicken on a stick. It was lovely.
Opening up with the espresso margarita. Careful Dan, you know what happens if you have too many of them. I want to point out the little napkin that came with the drink because I found a few in my laundry a week later.
I guess this is the mojito. It vanished into me in a matter of seconds as it was both delicious and barely tasted of booze. That means it’s good hooch mixed by a skilled barman.
This is what the proles pay.
That looks like the Manhattan, but it’s not great. Tastes like medicine, but I guess some folks like that. Meanwhile, Oleg was tickling ivory. Do play the video, he’s good.
He’s from Ukraine, so probably underpaid, and is performing jazz/classical mashups. It’s OK but we are reaching the end of our two-hour free booze marathon and I don’t feel like paying Bt490++ for a drink. I gave clear instructions that I would like two double scotches, on the rocks.
I didn’t say “each” but that’s what we ended up with. It looks like I’ve a surplus of cocktails and sparkling too. Speaking of which, I must mention that their signature cocktail, the vada gimnlet features a chilli and stalk of lemongrass and is excellent. Usually signature cocktails are rubbish. The special cocktail this night was sex on the beach, so I told the waiter that my wife would like (a) sex on the beach. Not a good joke, I know, but sometimes you just have to work with what you’re given.
By now it was after 8pm and we had no right to linger. In fact a waitress asked if we would be leaving soon but I just gestured to the four whiskeys, single G&T and whatever the orange thing was and she wandered off. Oleg was done by now and Saxman Koh Jazzman was next up. Here he is now.
He had dropped by our table to introduce himself earlier, which was nice but kind of weird. Dude knows how to work a crowd though.
He was joined by vocalist Wakasa and Takeshi band. Not bad, but I’m not sure I’d pay full price.
After drinking the table dry and saying bye to Jazzman Koh we went out for chicken noodles and I’m ashamed to say that I fell over and skinned my knee, but it’s Asoke, Sukhumvit and Soi Cowboy is just around the corner so public drunkenness is not unknown in these parts. I stupidly stopped at 711 to buy beer that I didn’t drink and just had to take home the next day. Aspirations.
Speaking of the next day, we were treated to a very fine breakfast at Rossini’s, their Italian restaurant.
It’s amazing, it really is. But I couldn’t enjoy it much as I was battling a five-appliance hangover.
The thing with a fancy hotel’s breakfast is that, even in a fancy hotel, patronized by the great and good, everybody looks shit at breakfast. Take the older Italian chap with his bushy moustache and male-pattern baldness. He’s looking smart in a fashionable collared shirt but he’s scuffing about in the hotel slippers. Then there’s the dingbat in the ‘don’t thread on me’ t-shirt with a chopped up snake literally watching Fox News for breakfast. That can’t do anybody any good.
And that’s the stay, but it isn’t. We did some exploring on the way out. For instance, Le Petite Chef (The Little Cook) is clearly still going.
On our prior visit to meet the little cook, we were asked to wait in the hotel’s library.
It’s a time capsule of shitty airport novels but each has a number so I suppose there’s a catalogue somewhere. A drawer of index cards that I can riffle down to find a masterpiece by Clive Cussler or John Grisham. I’ve got a rant in me about books as decoration but I think this photograph gives you a hint.
Yep, Scotty Muller’s Upgrading and Repairing PCs (14th edition and enclosing a CDROM) is a bit long in the tooth and deserves its place next to the Longman dictionary (also with enclosed CD). These books must be more than 20 years old and, frankly, useless to anyone. But if the book-library was a bit shit, around the corner…
Perhaps something for the everyman. When I was a kid, the city council only had books and VHS videotapes in their library.
From what I can gather, you’re invited to select your botanicals and create a personalised, special, bathtub gin. It was a bit early for me so we will have to come back another day.
And that really is it. I’m going to say that the Sheraton Grand Sukhumvit is my favourite in Bangkok although we have only stayed here twice. It really is a cut above, just not a cut that we can usually afford.