Yaa- the PN artist by Dream

When you walk into our Phranakorn Nornklen Hotel, the first thing which attractive you is the big Phranakorn district painting map on the wall in reception area. It reflect to meticulousness and attention of the painter. That make many guests wondering and can not to refrain to ask “Who is the painter?”
P’Ya, a 28 years old young man, the painter of Phranakorn Nornlen. He graduated in The Faculty of Painting Sculpture and Graphic Arts at Silpakorn University. He first started working at Phranakorn Nornlen 3 years ago, P’Ya know P’Rose’s friend (P’Rose is the hotel owner) and during that time P’Rose need someone to paint and decorate the hotel. So, P’Ya has attended to be the part of the hotel until nowadays.
P’Ya told me about his past with full of sorrow which I can feel how happy he is. He told me about the first time he walked into the hotel that “Oh! How depressed place it is.” “This place make me thinking of the horror movie.” But it’s just a covering. “I felt strange at first.” “But I’m happy to be here, no pressure, feel free and sprightly that’s why I love to be here and still be the part of the hotel”

As you know by your sight, The big Phranakorn district painting map (at the reception) is his master piece. He took a month to paint this wall especially The Grand Palace which took him 3 days to finish! The map was P’Rose and P’Oak's idea, but P’Ya had to figre out everthing by himself, from drawing style to color tone.
Moreover, every rooms of our hotel are also painted by P’Ya! Each of them has different mood & style, which make you feel refreshed & relaxed. All the rooms were designed by P’Rose. P’Ya told me about the working progress, after P’Rose told him what she what the room to look like, then he’ll find some reference from Internet or books in order to get a rough concept in mind, and then start drawing!
The color tone of each room is dependent on pattern and room’s character. Some of the rooms still maintain the original pattern from the previous 'hotel' , the combination between the old wallpaper and new painting make the room look more refreshing, rustic and full of suprise.
P’Ya is beloved by everyone in the hotel because of his easy-going character even being a solitude. He told me about the motivation which make him to become artist, Egon Schiele is his idol and Chalermchai Kositpipat, a thai artist who inspired P’Ya to study in Arts. Beside the artworks at P.N. , P’Ya also paint but only respond to his desire & not for sale. He said one day he would love to have his own gallery if possible.
His viewpoint of life: "Take it easy, if you want to do anything, keep going but don’t bring troubles to anyone."
Remark : P’ refer to someone older than you. Thai people have to say this word before the name to show the respect.

Noodles story by Tukta, translated by Boom

Since Somdej Phranarai period, Thailand traded with many foreign countries. And one of those is China! Chinese people sailed their junks to trade with Thai people. Not only the goods, they also brought noodles (in Thai we called it “Guai Tiew”), too! It was normally cooked while they were on a journey. To cook noodles, they boiled it in pork soup filled with some kind of vegetables. For Thai people, it was exceptional menu. Apart from that, Chinese people began to make their own noodles in Thailand by using paddy rice.
After Ayuthaya period, later we were in Thonburi period. There were many Chinese people came to Thailand to trade and earn for their livings. So, producing noodles was so popular because it could be bought easily. The sellers would serve the buyers by carrying their stuffs at both end of a pole by placing on their shoulders. They also sold by paddling. And they would serve you both with soup (we called it Nam) and no soup (we called it Hang).
So, noodles was one of the fast food menu during that period.
In this issue, I visited a noodle shop which is situated along Padung Krung Kasem Canal or The Wet intersection (not far from our hotel) for more than 79 years! And I want to recommend you this place. There are Sen-Lek (thin noodles) , Sen-Yai (broad rice noodles), Sen-Mee (thin rice noodles) , Ba-Mee (egg noodles) and Woonsen (glass noodles) available here. Each will give you different taste. All of these you can order both noodle soup (Guai Tiew Nam) or the noodle with no soup (Guai Tiew Hang) which will be served with a little bowl of soup (filled with pepper) to make it more tasty. I suggest you to fill a little amount of mashed and roasted beans, sugar, fish sauce.
If you love spicy food, you shouldn’t miss noodles in spicy soup (Tom Yum). It’s really delicious!
In every bowl, you will see the meatballs which are designed in different shape like flat and round ones both in deep fry and hard-boiled. And you can pick some crispy fried fishskin to fulfil your yummy noodles! About the price, it’s not expensive – only 30 Baht.
Note : When you order noodles, you have to tell the size of the noodles. Then follow with Nam (noodle soup) and Hang (no soup) like Sen-Lek Nam (thin noodles soup) and Ba-Mee Hang (egg noodles with no soup) etc.

Tar story by Tar, translated by Boom

Good morning. Let me introduce myself first ka! My name is Tar. Some of you may recognize me, but it’s fine for those who may not. I’m a barrista at Phranakorn-Nornlen. Before now, I worked as a front house staff at the reception desk. I worked for almost 2 years and wanted to try something new in another position. So I was assigned to a new one, that is taking care of food and baverage and also stocks in the kitchen. Some days, I cook food (mostly light meals) for our guests especially in my friend’s day off! Soon, I will be a professional chef (I have a dream and have to reach the goal). One reason that I was changed to a new task is I like to eat tasty food, so I want others to try my cuisine! The other one is I think sometimes we should do brand new things to make our lives interesting (P’Rose told us that anyone who has many dimensions in oneself is an interesting person and being such a person, we have to be eager in learning new things!) And we can find out what we like and dislike. I don’t mean that you to quit your job. I do mean that just doing anything that you are happy like I’m doing right now.

But I don’t discard the front house desk! I still help front house stuff by giving our guests’ information (they usually ask for information when they see me at the cafe’)
So I feel that I work both at front house desk and the cafe’ at the same time! And that’s a lot of fun. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me. I’m glad to find the information for you J

Oh, I almost forget to tell you that our hotel will grow our own vegetables ; non chemical. You will have a question like why we do that. The answer is we are organic hotel! We want our guests to get something fresh, clean, delicious and be healthy. That’s why we grow our own. Because normally, there are not much free chemical vegetables sold in marketplace to make it looks fresh.

Want to know where is our vegetables will be grown? All of them are at rooftop ka. We just began this project recently (while our hotel was closed on March) and placed some of its structure. You can take a look at the picture na ka. And one more thing that make our rooftop garden unique from the others is the gardeners. They are not someone who normally be a gardener but also our staffs. They have a passion in taking care of the vegetables so our owner let they do it. I think they incredibly go along with it!

I would like you guys to encourage us to run this project and soon you will taste our organic vegetables. And I will let you know about its progress later. And maybe the seasonal vegetables added!

Have a nice day kaa!