Food

We have all had very mixed feelings about Thai food. We came here thinking (especially R+K) that of course we LOVED Thai food. But travel broadens the mind... or changes it anyway. I remember when K and I were in Andalucia 17 (!) years ago, and had the revelation that the "Spanish food" we loved was in fact mainly a creation of cookbook writers, and had almost nothing to do with what Spanish people in fact ate. So with Thailand: in a chi-chi restaurant here you can get food not unlike what you would get in a Thai restaurant in the US - with some local additions, variations and authenticities. But what Thai people mostly eat is very different, and it can be quite hard for the farang palate to take. It's not the spiciness. On the contrary: the much-vaunted BK street food, routinely touted as the best in the world, is certainly cheap and certainly everywhere, but often it seems to be a bland and monotonous choice of greasy fried chicken, or greasy fried-chicken-flavored rice, or chicken fried noodles, or the ubiquitous very bony small grilled fish on a stick.

Perhaps we are just getting jaded. Annyway, today we completely blew the budget and the culture by eating at a (relatively) cheap sushi restaurant for lunch and then an excellent Italian restaurant for dinner. There seem to be a lot of the latter in BK for some reason. K had a porcini and truffle risotto; I had spaghettini with arugula and sausage; the boys, of course, had pizza. (And Tiramisu.)