Panwa Restaurants - The Captain's Bar and Lounge - 1/5 Stars

Meeeeeh is the only way to describe this place. Like the Moon House, it's attached to a small hotel/guest house, but it's far more up-market. The Captain's Bar rises above the ground on lovely slate stairs, and enters an open air lounge that has excellent views of the harbour. They seem to play a few Michael Buble CDs on continuous repeat (I think he's really big in Thailand). It's very clean, and is the closest to a North American-type restaurant as we've seen here in Thailand. For one, there's actually a cash register like you'd see in a McDonalds, with a neatly labelled screen of menu items (I think. It was in Thai.)


With all that going for it, you'd think it be a winner, but unfortunately, the Captain's Bar seemed determined to disappoint us.

1) It's only open for breakfast (6 to 9), lunch (12 to 3), and dinner (6 to 12?). Scheduling your meals around that isn't particularly easy.
2) It serves cocktails in what I believe are double shotglasses. Tiny for the 140 baht price tag.
3) The food was the first flavourless thing that either of us had managed to eat in Thailand. Bland and expensive, my pineapple fried rice came with very pretty garnishes and was served inside a hollowed out pineapple, but it had little flavour other than a touch of curry. Lucky Star's Pad Thai seemed to have been cooked without seasoning, leaving it about as flavourful as a sock.

All together, both LuckyStar and I agree that this place is DEFINITELY not worth visiting. It gets a 1 out of 5 on the Regrettable to Edible Scale of Restaurant Judging.

Panwa Restaurants - Ship Inn Bar and Restaurant - 2/5 Stars

It's a good restaurant, but the Secret Cove is literally right next door. The Secret Cove has a more extensive menu, better service, cheaper prices and more comfortable seating. The chairs at the Ship Inn don't allow you to slide your legs under the table with any comfort, which gets annoying very fast. The service was decent, but again, Secret Cove was better. And finally, the food also left me wishing we'd just gone to the Secret Cove instead.

Over all, not a bad place, but due to its location (right next to a better and cheaper restaurant), I doubt we'll ever go back.

We give this restaurant a 2 on the Regrettable to Edible Scale of Restaurant Judging.

Panwa Restaurants - The Moon House - 4/5 Stars

This little place is attached a small hotel, and is right off the main road on Panwa Cape.

Downsides--the traffic is very loud. Our first visit was somewhat unimpressive, but subsequent visits have cemented this restaurant as one of our favorites. They have very friendly service, and quite good food.




I don't recommend the banana and ice cream milkshakes at all--they used some kind of ice cream that tasted like nothing so much as an abomination when mixed with banana, and over all? Big no on the milkshakes.

On the other hand, my fried rice was pretty damn tasty (though not as good as the fried rice I ate on Karon Beach, which should be recorded in history as the finest fried rice ever made), and LuckyStar's pad thai was excellent. We're becoming major connoisseurs of fried rice and pad thai, but hey. We like what we like!

In addition, I heartily recommend their Papaya Salad as one of the best tasting things I've ever eaten, and Luckystar has a strange love affair going on with their veggie burger.

The Moon House gets a 4 out of 5 on the Regrettable to Edible Scale of Restaurant Judging.

Panwa Restauraunts - The Secret Cove - 4/5 Stars

Located on Ao Yan bay, this is our current favourite restaurant. Good service, decent prices, tasty Thai, Western, and Indian food, and good drinks make this a good, solid restaurant, but the view makes it amazing. The beach next to it is strewn with coral and sea shells, and at low tide, nearly the entire bay is exposed. It's great for exploring once the tide goes down, filled with awesome looking snails and hermit crabs.






On the Regrettable to Edible Scale of Restaurant Judging, this one gets a 4.