Eating At The Village At Coconut Island

4/19/2016

Breakfast

Breakfast at The Village was quite good. They offered a great spread of fresh fruits, pastries, an egg station, soup, rice, chicken, dumplings, smoothies and the list could go on. The breakfast was included and it's always nice to know you can get a hearty start to the day without spending any more money. We always have trouble getting up and around to the breakfast before it ends, though. One day they had already started to tidy things up when we entered the restaurant. A nice lady scooped up pastries and sausages (that we didn't eat for the record haha) and presented us with a platter of them.

Lunch / Dinner

After spending time in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, we nearly choked on the prices at the restaurants here. Even with our 20% discount the prices were what we would pay at home and more. Exactly what I was afraid of! Being on an isolated little island leaves you helpless to whatever anyone wants to charge for anything. Our first day we were told we could not use our food voucher for some reason. So we bought a pizza, I think, and shared it along with out bottle of water. There is a package including food and beverages you can buy, so we laughed imagining what the waitstaff thought of us sharing one small pizza and water while the girl at the table next to us ordered (literally) 8 cokes in the time we were sitting there.

Nevertheless, the food was tasty, but largely not tasty enough to justify the price inflation. In my opinion!! The street food was fresh, delightfully flavorful, and infinitely cheaper and if we had access, we would have consumed that instead.

When we were finally able to use our voucher for the pasta/pizza lunch we enjoyed some pasta bolognese and an onion/bacon-y pizza. See below. Looks nice, right?

What Disappointed Me...

I know that most people staying at the resort were probably just interested in their getaway, relaxing, being waited on, going to the beach, etc. But I really like to learn about the culture and to practice the language wherever I am visiting.

With the exception of 2-3 staff members (whom I cherish for this), everyone else refused to speak Thai to us. They would always respond back in English. It was almost like they had been conditioned to never speak Thai in the resort. That bothered me.. I'm sure a lot of people aren't interested in hearing Thai and are glad they spoke good English. But for me, it made me feel cheated. Again, I'm not sure if it is how they are trained, or if it is personal preference of the employee to ignore your attempts to practice the language and respond in English every time. It made me feel uncomfortable. So for the few employees who would give a huge smile and reply in Thai, I cherish and thank them for being the best part of my experience at the restaurant! (One was a waiter at the restaurant, another was a woman manning, er... wo-manning, the fruit station at breakfast, and the third was the girl at check-in. I realize that isn't the restaurant though.)

Do you like to practice the language when you visit somewhere new? Have you ever experienced something similar like I did in this restaurant?