I was honoured to be invited to the ‘Members Only’ Royal Bangkok Polo Club (part of the Royal Bangkok Sports Club (‘RBSC’)) for dinner. This is the most exclusive sports facility in Bangkok and has links to King Rama VI. |
You overlook the RBSC golf course while at the St Regis hotel. I met my friend in the open air club ‘lobby’ which looks over a lawn bowls bowling green. We went to the bar for a drink first. When I first left Shrewsbury School I was a member The East India Club in St James’s London and also used to be able to use the Mid Ocean Club, when I lived in Tucker’s Town in Bermuda. Private members' clubs have a very different feel to ‘public’ bars and restaurants. There was a ‘clubby feel’ to the service from staff and some very good prawn cracker snacks in the bar. Then we moved on to the restaurant, as it stops serving at 9:15pm. It is a large room richly furnished in royal blue with dark woods but too brightly lit. I found the vast menu daunting, there were pages of formal Western cuisine, Thai, Japanese, pizzas, pasta, clay pots etc. My host suggested the feta cheese & nuts salad as a pre-appetiser and I was so glad he did. It was a mouthwatering salad and a perfect way to start the meal. Then we both had the lobster bisque served in bread bowls. The bisque was a little too concentrated for me but the pasta dish that followed made up for that. My Italian-Chinese angel hair pasta with prawns was perfect. The restaurant was quiet by the time we ate but it was still interesting to watch the Thai social elite of Bangkok around you during dinner. After dinner I was taken on a tour of the incredible equestrian facilities. You do not feel like you are in the centre of Bangkok. I was told 80 horses are currently stabled there and about the Ambassadors’ children who take riding lessons etc 5 out of 5 ‘teddies’ - jump at the chance if a member invites you to the Royal Bangkok Polo Club. An almost magical oasis of calm refinement in the centre of Bangkok. | |