• Apex Hotel on Second Road (adjacent to Soi 11) serves all-you-can-eat buffets - American breakfast from 07:00-13:00 (110 baht/adult, 60 baht/child) and dinner from 18:00-22:00 (180 baht/adult, 100 baht/child).

• Bier-Kutsche German Restaurant in Walking Street between Soi BJ and Soi Lucky Star is a good German restaurant with moderate prices.

• Cool Kitchen in the PS Bowl/Tops Supermarket complex (junction of Central Pattaya Road and Second Road) has good Western and Thai food including narm tok mu (spicy pork salad) and yum pla dook fu (crispy catfish salad), and is open 24/7.

• Cool House (next to PS Bowl/Tops Supermarket) is Cool Kitchen's sister restaurant, with much the same menu but more ambiance.

• Food Wave food court, top floor of Royal Garden Plaza, is an upscale food court with decent views of the ocean. There's even an Orange Julius nearby - Mmmmm!

• Lek Hotel , Soi 13. Serves a large variety of Thai, Western and international favourites and is open to non-guests. The buffet breakfast (07:00-13:00, 110 baht/adult, 60 baht/child) is especially popular, and the buffet dinner (18:00-22:30, 180 baht/adult, 100 baht/child) also draws a crowd.

• MK Restaurant has locations in various malls including Central Festival (Big-C). A chain of Suki restaurants whose jingle translates as "Eat what? Eat what? Eat what? Go eat MK!" (it loses something in the translation) and that's just what you should do. Here you'll get to boil raw ingredients right at your own table with your own utensils. And don't worry about putting those chopsticks in your mouth after touching that raw chicken - just dip them in the boiling water for a few moments.
  
  

• Benihana  international Japanese steakhouse chain has a location on the second floor of Royal Garden Plaza. Expect to pay around 1000 baht/person, excluding alcoholic drinks.

• Bruno's Restaurant   on Thappraya Road is a fine dining restaurant serving both excellent European cuisine and some Thai dishes. Multi-course set menus from around 400 baht/person, à la carte also available.

• The Green Bottle on the ground floor of the Diana Hotel has good steaks and other food.

• Hard Rock Cafe  (in the grounds of the Hard Rock Hotel resort on Beach Road) serves American food from essentially the same menu as elsewhere in the world, from 11:00 until 02:00. Starters 99-377 baht, salads 199-266 baht, mains 277-810 baht, deserts 111-222 baht, beer 122-255 baht/bottle.

• Manhattan Steakhouse   located near the junction of Thappraya & Pratamnak Roads is Pattaya's only "world-class" steakhouse. Expect to Pay upwards of 2,000 Baht per person.
  
  

::.Vegetarian

• Five Star J. Restaurant ( "jay"="vegetarian" ), at the junction of South Pattaya Road and Third Road; A small inexpensive indoor place that's 100% vegetarian and has a vegetarian owner/manager who speaks good English; also caters for vegans - open 09:00-21:00.

• Vegetarian Club of Pattaya meets at 18:00 on the second Tuesday of every month for an "international vegetarian adventure buffet" (99 baht, reservations required - tel. +66 -38710805) at Café New Orleans, Soi Pattayaland 2 (Soi 13/4).

• Thai Vegetarian Union website has news and information on vegetarianism and veganism in Thailand.
  
  

Pattaya is internationally known for its nightlife. Although it's infamous as a sex tourist destination, there are ample opportunities to dance, drink, and observe humanity even if paid sex is not of interest.

prices - a very rough guide: small Heineken (330ml) / Bacardi Breezer (275ml)

• 7-11 ( open 24/7 but alcohol only sold 11:00-14:00 + 17:00-00:00 ): 38 baht / 55 baht
• small restaurants: ~50~55 baht / ~120 baht
• beer bars: ~70~75 baht / ~120~130 baht
• go-go bars: ~90~99 baht / ~150 baht
• discos: ~150 baht / ~200 baht

::.Bar Beer
In beer bars and go-go bars, drinks bought for employees - "lady drinks" - are (very roughly 50%) more expensive; the actual price is often posted on the wall and/or in the drinks menu.

Pattaya is especially famous for its beer bars (also called bar-beer ), staffed by "bar girls" who are "for hire" to the tourists and ex-pats who drink there. Popular beer bar pastimes include pool, connect-four and shut-the-box.

Open-air beer bars can be found all over Pattaya, with the biggest and best known concentrations being along and around Soi 7 / Soi 8 and Walking Street, at numerous points on Second Road, Beach Road, Soi Buakhao, and in smaller numbers just about everywhere else, including along the southern end of Naklua Road and at Jomtien. Although the staff of a typical beer bar will usually all be prostitutes, customers who have no intention of paying a "bar fine" (money paid to the bar so that the girl can leave with the customer) are generally very welcome and indeed make up the majority of the clientele.

Indoor beer bars can also be found all over Pattaya, the most notorious areas being Soi Yodsak (Soi 6) and parts of Soi Post Office (Soi 13/2). While some of these bars are much more "bar fine" oriented, in most cases customers who simply want to buy drinks are still welcome.

The official closing time in "entertainment zones" is 01:00 (in practice usually somewhere between 01:00 and 02:00, depending on the location) and 00:00 elsewhere - however "closing" is defined as switching off the music and non-essential lighting, and numerous beer bars remain open 24/7.