As a dude, what does your perfect day entail? Maybe hanging with bros over beers? Or grubbing on barbecue along with too many beers? Or how about hitting the strip club along with so much beer that you actually forget your own name?
You can do all three at a place called Kineree in Thailand…and it’s awesome!
The Down Low on Kineree
Staying for a week with buddies in Jomtien, the quiet beachside suburb of wild and crazy Pattaya, it’s definitely a lot quieter and not a party vacation. In fact, at night in Jomtien, there is little to do other than relax at the ubiquitous beer bars that sit by the night market and on many of the streets that sit perpendicular to the beach. But none of the sinful grown-up fun that Pattaya is known for infects Jomtien…or does it?
Tucked away in a quiet suburban neighborhood on a nondescript street; hidden within a windowless building that could possibly double as someone’s home with a dirt lot out front, sits Kineree. In fact, I would never even know it was there if my local buddies didn’t tell me about it. They brought me post haste, and we parked across the street, walked up past a saluting security guard, and entered the pitch black of thumping music and neon inside the stern double doors…
So what is Kineree? It’s a bar, but that’s not all it is. It’s a restaurant, too, and even though the food is a high point (I’ll tell you about that more). But it’s definitely not your grandfather’s bar, or restaurant – unless your grandfather was a huge perv.
The best way I can describe Kineree is that it’s a semi-private Gentleman’s Club. Walking in, there is a long, empty lobby with strange Thai artwork on the walls and a modern pond and fountain in the middle – a curious use of space for densely packed and real estate valuable Thailand. But it serves as a classy buffer for what comes next, like Switzerland where you still have time to turn around and run out if you happened to walk in by accident before you’re offended beyond.
Past that, you walk into the craziness – a thriving bar with plenty of cocktail tables, bar seating, and also many leather couches. It’s REALLY dark in Kineree, with blue neon serving as the only lighting. Waitresses hustle and bustle to bring drinks to thirsty patrons, who mix and mingle with dozens of attractive and bold hostesses and strippers.
That front room is way too “fraternity party crossing the line” for me, so we walked to the back room, set up with more leather couches and much of the same, but only one-third as crowded and far more mellow – you could actually hear the music in here. We sat down and ordered beers and drinks and immediately got back up to hit the buffet. While Kineree has a regular menu during the week, their weekend buffets are legendary. On Saturdays, they have a full rib and barbecue spread and on Sundays, like when we came, they have an incredible spread of comfort food.
From perfectly cooked roast beef to turkey, pot roast to mashed potatoes, green peas and Brussel sprouts, turnovers and gravy, and amble crumble for dessert, this all you can eat buffet is stellar.
We spent the next three hours eating as much as humanly possible, drinking our faces off, entertaining beautiful and eager women, laughing uncontrollably, and basically “bro-ing out.”
When we walked out, drunk, full, and happy, it was still day time, and the neighbors knew nothing about the antics that just took place.
All hail Kineree! This place is “All World” – all the way.
About Norm Schriever
Norm Schriever is a blogger, Amazon best-sellling author, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. His work appears in the Huffington Post, Business.com, Good Morning America, The Anderson Cooper Show on CNN, NBC, MSN, Yahoo, Hotels.com, and media all around the world.
Norm grew up in Connecticut and graduated from the University of Connecticut, where he was never accused of overstudying. After expatriating to Costa Rica in 2011, he started traveling the world and documenting what he saw. He now lives in Southeast Asia, writing his heart out and working with local charities.
