Chocolate Ville - A huge, made for Instagram Restaurant (Finally, a kind of proper post!)

Chocolate Ville is located not too far from me in Bangkok and is a huge, purpose-built Instagrammer's dream restaurant that seats over 1000 people. Built in a twee fusion style of East coast US coastal town with a smattering of stereotypical and usual 'Britishness', it attracts tour buses of tourists and locals alike.

The sun was just beginning to set as we arrived to battle the throngs of Chinese tourists and their flag bearing leaders, all ready to jostle their way to the best shot of this photogenic paradise.

We were invited by a Doctor and his Dentist wife whose 7-year-old boy-girl twins I tutor once a week, a joyous pair of little imps, and he brought along his sister and her two children, one of whom had just returned from a 10-month student exchange program in the UK. The funny thing was, it was me who'd interviewed her for suitability to go on the exchange program originally, about 18 months ago. I didn't recognise her but she excitedly recognized me and then spent the whole evening asking me if I knew random people who lived in a city about 200 miles from my place of birth....

The twins, who aren't bad at speaking English and are quite easy to teach at home without their parents in the room, made me look like an idiot, as is easily done and often the case, by refusing point blank to speak English all night despite Daddy's cajoling and Mummy's constant "What's that in English?" routine. One thing I have learned is that kids never, ever perform to order, especially when they go into a meek and mild mode when with their parents.

It was the first time my wife had met them and Fon got on very well with the kids mum but didn't have a lot of time for the hard-drinking Doc. She is a senior occupational therapist specialising in autism, ADHD and LD in children and has very little time for Doctors as she complains they don't understand the illnesses and that they simply prescribe drugs and send kids packing. Unless in extreme cases and as a last resort, the wife tries to discourage parents from routine medication. It made no difference to her that my new drinking buddy was an orthopaedic surgeon, however!

Anyway, a few snaps!

We have displays of traditional Thai dancing.....

A lighthouse....and yes, you can go to the top to take even more pictures!

Some pretend shops, lots of teddy bears and a phone box....

A clown who makes balloon animals but doesn't do anything funny.....

The concierge who shows you to a free table. ( that's the guy in the middle. The two on either side of him are fibreglass penguins....)

"Darling, am I looking radiant?" or "Shit, my waters just broke!". Choose your own caption!

I think I'm going to throw-up....

Video? I'm spoiling you tonight! Check out the background music.......Yes, this place should be called Twee Ville.

Reluctantly following the wife through the entrance AND a bonus action shot of a bird in flight...

Time to go home!

The food? Ohhh, yes, I quite forgot about the food. Well, there is quite an extensive menu of both local and international fayre, including steaks and pizzas and it was surprisingly tasty and not too expensive. Considering the number of covers, our orders arrived quite quickly and hot too, which is always a bonus in Thailand.

Of course, the place isn't really about the food!

The bill came to a total of 6000Baht (£140 GBP, $190 USD) which considering the good Doctor and his wife were ordering dish after dish after dish including an expensive imported steak, I didn't think was too bad for 5 adults and 4 children, and we did have quite a few bottles of imported German beer. (Me and the Doc, not the kids!) Perhaps if the Doc hadn't picked up the bill, I might have been slightly less charitable about the prices!

It wasn't a bad evening and Chocolate Ville is worth a visit on a number of levels! It would be a great location for a Steemfest4 party @rolandp , I can just imagine the number of photos and posts on Steemit would run into the millions!

And you know what? I didn't see a single bar of chocolate on sale anywhere, just a bit of chocolate gateau or chocolate ice cream. That's poor!

The location is on the ever-excellent @steemitworldmap

@nathen007