Light Snacks Will Be Served

On Bangkok.

I wasn't going to put this piece of writing on the blog. It's ponderous and dark. Probably too much so for this medium. But today I read this piece by Pankaj Mishra (my restaurant gets a shout-out, which is nice!) and I thought, what the hell. I'll give you a slice of my Bangkok pie. It's of a different flavor.

The prosaic sort of poem below was colored by two events that happened outside my house. And those things that happen within the confines of the restaurant. Bangkok has a sinister side, but most writers don't get it right. I'm not sure I do either, but this is, I guess, an attempt.

I read this piece at the Bangkok Literary Festival held at the Neilson Hays Library a few months back. The topic of the readings was the city in which I live. And so, here we go...  

 

After the wild-eyed tuk-tuk driver nearly ran me down,

In front of a festering canal beside my house,

He scowled, then spilled out of his machine.

He came at me with an amphetamine tick and a beer-perfumed hiss,

And I wondered what the hell I was doing here.

Then I began to run.

Once, when my best cook disappeared, I wandered to the bank through the back streets of Sukhumvit.

Morlam chirped from cheap speakers, as I made my way to the teller, and I thought about him.

I cared about him.

And looking down at the cracked pavement, trying not to trip, beside the bus stop,

I spotted my chef.

He was sitting on the sidewalk, on a straw mat, a block from the restaurant.

Beside him, an ancient-looking fortune teller, sipping an energy drink, whispered in his ear.

My eyes met the chef’s, and then they didn’t, as if guiltily we shared the same secret.

The chef came back to work the next day.

I had dreamt of a restaurant, and then I had one, and so I stopped writing stories about others and tried to make one about myself, under this backdrop of Bangkok.

And it was through the eyes of others, like the Burmese furniture maker who swam across a river to become a waiter, that I began to understand this place.

And the chef from Yasothorn, with a sharp stutter from a motorbike accident, who pages through catalogs of amulets, looking for one that might bring him something better.

Then there’s the dishwasher whom I once watched kill a rat with his hands. “I wouldn’t dream of cooking,” he said, when I tried to promote him. “There’s just too much noise in my head.”

We are guests, 13 of us, sitting at the same table, waiting for what comes. The one thing we know is that Bangkok does not belong to us.

After a long night at work, we sometimes go to Rama 9 Road, to eat Isaan food and drink beer.

The restaurants there bear the names of places and dishes from upcountry – Larb Phet Sisaket, for instance – which must make customers feel closer, or farther, from home.

The massage parlor girls spill in, with the bartenders and the taxi drivers, and in the fluorescent light, their hard lives seem less so.

And after many drinks we sometimes talk about our dreams, and often, my staff talk of going home.

This Thursday, after midnight, I returned home from work.

And on the same street where I was almost run down, beside the brown canal, there were piles of blood-stained cotton.

Pairs of surgical gloves were ripped inside-out and left to lie beside the empty wrappers of life-saving things, syringes and bandages and the shattered plastic from a broken bike.

I sat and stared at it in dim light from my own motorbike, as it idled, alive.

The next day, as I began to write this piece, I thought about dreams, and how they drift into our lives, changing our perception of a place.

This city we live in invites cliché, as we catalog the strange sensory experiences here that come to define Bangkok.

But they don’t, really. They’re just smells and sounds and sights that we cling to, for safety, on our way home.

They’re our handlebars. 

 

The Customer is Occasionally Wrong

I’ve been waiting to write this post for a long time. It is not intended to nip at the heels of diners, or to generate sympathy, or even to encourage other restaurateurs to stand up to their clients. It might make some people angry, or indignant, but my intent is not to provoke.

I’ll begin by saying this: I really like people. All kinds. I’m comfortable on the floor, talking to strangers. I enjoy spending time with my customers, and over the past year many patrons have become friends. Without them, my restaurant is a sad, empty husk.

But let’s consider an altruism  altrustic aphorism that is rammed down our throats from the first time most of us take a job in the service industry: The Customer is Always Right.

Ah, the limitless possibilities of infallibility.

I used to preach this very line to my staff, and I danced around the subject once here, in the story of the lady in pink who only ate pink things. While it’s best to bend over (backwards, mind you) for customers in most situations, there are times when one is asked to bend a stretch too far. There are some customers that are, in fact, wrong. I assume they know this, because entering a place that serves food does not exempt one from societal norms. I’ll give you a few examples:

If you throw a birthday party for 23, order water and a few salads, and sneak in 3 bottles of rotgut rum in your pants to drink under the table with your friends that is wrong. You know it is. And you should expect to be thrown out when we catch you, but we won’t. Because we are masochists.

I bet he doesn't play the violin

If you do not eat any animal products, and you waltz into a restaurant and dourly demand a meal without any animal products, when the cuisine cooked in that restaurant’s kitchen is built on a foundation of seasoning that comes from animals, this is not right. It’s like going into a guitar shop and demanding that they sell you a flute. Really, I have nothing against vegans. But my restaurant does not sell what you seek. And it is not your right to demand for us to do so. (Still, we probably will, and especially if you call ahead, because we are masochists).

If you storm into a restaurant to demand a table, at 830pm on a Friday night, with two escorts in tow and a rented luxury car parked in plain sight outside, thinking that this will aid your chances of getting a table without a reservation, it won’t. And if you force the owner to ‘call your butler’ at your 5-star hotel while he is busy serving perfectly nice people their dinners, well, that is not right. If you then throw coins in anger at my staff, and spit on the floor, and threaten to burn down the building, well, that really isn’t right either. And you can fuck off, because we’re not that masochistic.

Right now, as you read this, you might think – oh, this is just bitterness. Venting. Catharsis. Whinging. Well, perhaps, but I’m trying to get somewhere. I’m trying to make a point.

The Customer is Always Right is Occasionally Wrong. It encourages people to act in bizarre and uncouth ways. Ways that they would never behave in someone’s home, or grocery store, or library. 

What the wrong customer does is affect the dining experience of respectful guests in a negative manner. Whether it’s backing up the kitchen with a ridiculous order; shouting and cursing in midst of dinner; berating staff so that they’re afraid to do their job; or taking up all the tables so that they can surreptitiously sip booze that they snuck in, in their pants. It fucks up a machine we spend a lot of time tuning. It gives bad people an unfair advantage – they get all the attention while perfectly civil people are ignored. And that is selfish.

Last Friday I had probably the weirdest night in terms of service since we opened at Soul Food. But the thing was, after all the problems had subsided, I looked up at the bar and in the dining room and felt a surge of contentment. Like a glance of warm sun in winter. A regular offered to buy me a beer. People smiled and chatted as they ate their meals. My staff breathed a little easier, and things returned to normal.

And as I hop and skip from one cliché to the next, I’ll admit it. This is why we do it – for that feeling of satisfaction we get when others are happy for what we do. It's a relationship.

And this relationship of trust and respect is what's right about customers, and about us, the guys on the other side.

 

A Quick Note on the Patpong Sex Show

This note is for readers of this blog who might visit Bangkok someday, and might be tempted to indulge in that strange ritual that is the Patpong ping-pong show. It has become part of the Thailand tourism 'experience,' so much so that almost every friend that swings through town believes they ought to see this bizarre sexual theatre. I try to talk them out of it, and if that doesn't work they end up going on their own. But last night I went with guests. And it was the worst 15 minutes I have ever spent in Thailand. Period. 

In a dingy, blacklit room that smelled of piss and cigarettes, we watched 5 disinterested women well into middle age do strange things with eggs and needles and glow-in-the-dark rings. It's boring and rather sad, but that's not the worst part. 

The place that we happened upon was not a safe place to be, evidenced by the shouting matches between clients (usually foreign tourist couples, sometimes with kids) who were getting ripped off to the tune of $250 (Yes, that is 8000 baht) for a couple beers. If you don't pay, you're surrounded by shouting women who don't let you out, as well as a few thick-armed thugs who glower and guard the door. It's pure intimidation and extortion, in a dark, strange, disorienting room. Police are not allowed in (they carded my Thai friend to make sure he wasn't police) and you really have no legal or personal protection once you're inside. I assume most people pay and get the hell out. 

After about 10 minutes of watching this, and getting dripped on by a leaky air-conditioner (liquid in a run-down strip club ain't cool) we decided to leave. There was a glass on our table of orange soda with a straw in it. It wasn't ours and I moved it to an empty table. In that glass was the scam -- that orange soda cost 3200 Baht, or about $98. After arguing with a Thai woman who spoke to me with a ferocity that gave me goosebumps, we paid for what we drank (400 baht for 4 beers) and left. A bouncer shoved me around a little bit on the way out for good measure, and that woman told me to 'shut my mouth' about her scam. They attempted to charge us eight times our bar tab for that single orange soda. I was sober throughout, which made the visit even less pleasant.

To all who think this is 'part of the Bangkok experience' I assure you it's not. There's nothing Thai about it, actually: Thais don't scream at guests, they don't intimidate tourists, and they certainly don't pull sharp things out of their private parts. The only thing that's Thai about it are your own preconceived notions (which some unsavory characters will happily indulge for financial gain). It's also disgusting, and can be dangerous. 

If you want to experience the rougher side of Thai culture, go to a kickboxing fight and sit high in the stands at Lumphini Stadium. Place a bet or two with the bookies if you want, drink some cold Chang from plastic cups, dig the old music and watch the rats scurry beneath rickety stands. You'll lose a lot less money, and have a lot more fun.       

AA Gill Thinks I'm a Fool (he might be right)

While drinking my Monday morning coffee in Bangkok, I came across this article by AA Gill, The Times acerbic restaurant critic. It was called ‘The golden rules for a perfect restaurant.’ Just the sort of thing I should start my week with, I thought.

If Gill had written that headline – or me for that matter – it would have been called something different. Perhaps ‘You will never realise your dream, deluded fool!’ or perhaps, ‘AA Gill really hates when people tell him he should open a restaurant, because doing that is quite clearly insane.’ This was actually a very bad way to start my week.

I’ve worked in restaurants, reviewed restaurants for a living, and filed features on all sorts of restaurant-related business. I agree with much of what Gill says in his piece, but as my wife wisely tells me, ‘sometimes, it’s the way that you say it.' I’d like to add this: ‘Sometimes, it’s what you leave out.’

And what his piece leaves out, and what so many food industry professionals don’t readily admit when they’re explaining the woes of restaurant life, is that hospitality is infectious. Serving great food and drinks gets in your blood, it occupies your mind, and it might just supplant good sense. But it is very often about passion, not just about building a well-oiled factory, as Gill suggests. (Oh, and hard work, location, marketing and skill don’t factor in much, either, according to the article).

But for all those failed caterers and foolish concepts that form the backbone of Gill's brittle logic, there are a heck of a lot of successful restaurant operators too. People that love seeking out great ingredients, conceptualizing menus, leading a team of cooks and servers, walking through a crowded dining room, head high. People that wouldn't be caught dead behind a desk, writing cynical restaurant criticism.

A restaurant is a business, but not one born out of good business sense or craven profit margins. Like it or not, many restaurants are born of something like love, and that does occasionally translate into success. That "elusive and capricious alchemy" which all restaurateurs strive for.

And twenty percent of them find that in three years time, apparently -- if you’d like to reduce all this to a jumble of numbers, Mister Gill. 

I'm Way Late to the Game, But Still...

Holy Hell in a Seamy Underbelly!

Though friend and journalist Patrick Winn (who writes intelligently about this city) told me about it two months ago, I just happened to catch the recently published Maxim article about David Carradine's passing in the so called 'sex capital of the world.' A piece of trash like this only floats by once in awhile, and for that reason alone it's worth savoring for its rank, pithy sensationalism. 

The reporter, Mark Ebner, covers crime in Hollywood. And he's written for some great publications, which makes this story all that much worse. After reading the piece one might surmise that he didn't come to Bangkok at all; after some light research (imagine that!) I've come to the conclusion that this city just wasn't worth much of his time. 

The piece reads like it was fact checked with a John Burdett novel. But if Ebner had plowed through Bangkok 8 on the plane ride over, he probably would have known that the three major red light districts here - miles apart from one another - weren't all on the same block. And he might not have written that he'd passed the US Embassy on the way there, because, well, it's not really on the way to the Patpong 'sex bazaar'. I don't think he walked in the height of summer from Siam Square to the Patpong, but, alas, people have done dumber things in Bangkok (see: David Carradine, et al). 

Sigh. The sad part is that Ebner actually did visit, and spoke to a Bangkok blogger, who decided to reinforce his insight with another stereotype (the threadbare 'life is worth nothing here' thing). I beg to differ, even if my local motorcycle taxi driver seems to suggest so. The writer's descriptions of everything from Buddhist amulets to shrines to street scenes is written with the nuance of a tourist who stopped over for a night on his way to Phuket. Maybe that's what actually happened.

Regardless, this is exactly the sort of cliche-ridden hack journalism that results when mags decide to send someone over here to write about a subject that they know next to nothing about. Maxim isn't exactly the New Yorker, but I hope they're at least a little embarrassed by what they decided to print. 

For a more nuanced take on the article, see this very amusing entry at The Shark Guys. 

(Note: Patrick, I realized, blogged about this very same article way back. Find it here. He liked it, though.)

(Second note: After mulling over this entry while cooking dinner, I came to a realization: the reason magazines parachute people in like this is because no self-respecting writer would give their own city this treatment. Best to get an outsider who doesn't mind stretching truth  around a rather distorted framework.)