Learning New Dishes
May 21st, 2009If you have a boy living with you, or one that is a frequent “guest”, he will go out to the street restaurants and bring food back to the room for lunch or dinner. The cost of each dish will range between 25 and 35 baht, plus rice. Although it’s much better to make the rice in your room, as the restaurants use the cheapest quality. The very best quality rice is inexpensive, and a rice cooker can be purchased at Big C for as little as 350 baht.
Thais like to share several dishes at a meal, so for two people get 3, and for three individuals get 4 entrees. Thus, a meal for three should usually cost less than 150 baht. I will typically give the boy 100 baht if two are eating and 120 if there are three people. For a larger group, I’ll ask the boy how much he needs to feed everyone. No matter how you slice it, eating this way is dirt cheap, and the food is wonderful.
The challenge comes when the boy asks what dishes you want him to get. Of course, most of us do not know the names of Thai dishes, not to mention what all the options are. For the first few attempts, keep your instructions simple. I usually say get 3 different things to eat, and make one a vegetable dish. The boy probably won’t know what vegetable is, so you will have to teach him a new word. The fact is, most everything you say will involve some translation issues, so be prepared.
Rather than focusing on what you want, it’s better to tell him what you don’t like. Tell him not too spicy. Also try and explain you don’t want things made from blood. Most boys understand a gesture of slicing your wrist as a way to communicate this. I also tell them I don’t want anything made from internal organs. Run your hand over your stomach and chest and say nothing from inside this part. You should also instruct him to never bring you fish, crab or clams. Use your hands to make the shape of a clam and most boys will make the connection. The street restaurants usually don’t have fresh fish, and eating crab or clams puts you at high risk of getting very sick.
For the first few meals, tell the boy what dishes he brought that you really like, which ones are OK but not your favorite, and what you really don’t care for ever eating again - I like very much, I like little bit, I not like. The reason you need to tell the boy what you like little bit, is he often does not have a lot of good choices and needs to know he can select that dish in a pinch.
When you begin to see redundancy in his food selections, tell the boy to bring two dishes he knows you like, and one new one for test. This is how you begin to discover new dishes, and over time you will have given him a wide range of entrees to select from. You may still see redundancy, because the boys have their favorites. So what I often have to do is say, no green curry and chicken, something the boys I hang out with will get every single time.
Meat in most dishes is cut up into small bite sized pieces. This is often done by chopping with a large meat cleaver, bone and all. So you have to be on the look out for small bone fragments hiding inside a piece of meat. If you watch the boys eat, they pick apart the meat looking for the bone, and they know what dishes to expect this in. Over time you can put these selections on the not like or not like too much list, but explain why - not easy to eat because of small bone inside. Of course, you will then have to explain what bone is.
If you are with a good boy, and he brings home a dish you don’t like, he will concentrate on eating that dish and not hog the other two. This is to make sure you have plenty to eat of the dishes you like.
Over time it’s a good idea to let the boy get a dish he likes, but you do not. Just tell him to make sure the other dishes are ones you like a lot. You can also, on occasion, give him permission to buy an extra dish that he only likes.
There are those times when it’s not convenient to make rice 20 minutes before eating the meal. In those cases, just tell the boy to get one dish for him and one for you. Often a single dish can be too small a serving to satisfy a big eater. If you want a little bit more on your plate, restaurants will make the serving slightly larger for an extra 5 or 10 baht. A common term for this is VIP size. If that does not communicate tell the boy you want the bigger size. Make sure you explain you want the bigger size for 5 or 10 baht more or you could end up with a meal large enough to feed 3 or 4 people.
For some, this may be a bit too adventurous, but I love it. Eating is an important aspect of Thai culture, and you greatly improve your bond with a boy by embracing his way of eating. It just takes a little trial and error to get things down so all parties are happy. Of course, the boy is never going to tell you what makes him happy, so it’s on you to make these discoveries. It’s on you to make sure he knows what the boundaries are and that you have a genuine interest in him enjoying the meals you share together. It’s on you to be fair!
RELATED POSTS
May 21st, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Last time a friend of mine’s mother cooked a frog dish, with fresh pepper and thai basil amongst others.
It was spicey but delicious…
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 am
Once again we are divided by a common language ! An “entree” in most parts of the English-speaking world is a small dish consumed before the main meal. In the US it apparently means - contrary to its etymology - the main meal !?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entr%C3%A9e
I share your suspicion of shell fish, unless bought fresh from the market. But fish is usually fine, and usually bought only hours earlier by the street sellers. And the day before it was swimming in the Gulf of Thailand.
The dangerous stuff as far as I’m concerned is the lukewarm food that sits on display for hours. Everything should be cooked on the spot.
When rice costs 5 baht, I really don’t think it’s worth the bother to cook it yourself. Rice is not as easy as it looks.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Well, you’ll never hear me say Americans speak proper English. I think your understanding of entree may very well be what we call an appetizer.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/entree
I am surprised at how bad the fish is where we get food, and I live in one of the nicer areas of BKK. I’m not talking about whole fish. These are dishes with fish in them. I’ve always suspected its whole fish that didn’t sell the day before that gets used in other dishes so it doesn’t go to waste.
The difference in quality of rice is very noticeable. All the boys prefer making it in the room rather than buying it on the street. Its actually quite easy to make. The trick is getting the amount of water correct and the boys all use the same method for doing that. In any case, its the boys making the rice, so no bother at all.
We always buy sticky rice from the street, because that is very difficult to make.
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I think Dr Johnson will understand, when it comes to rice, it is almost like saying the cheapest wine is only $10 a bottle why bother going for the more expensive stuffs. The quality of the rice counts, not to mention the different crop combinations. Just like any commodities rice is getting more and more expensive these days, and you can never expect the street vendors to serve any good ones. For the yummy taste of green curry with chicken, it is certainly a treat to have it on hot steamed rice done just right.