Four Seasons Restaurant - Bangkok

Day 2 in Bangkok started with us visiting Chinatown in Bangkok, the area known as Yaowarat. This is really totally different in look, feel, smells and atmosphere from the highly westernised shopping driven frenzy that is in Central Bangkok. Chinatown is a delight. Shops selling gold jewellery, clocks and Chinese medicines line the main road. The alleys are a maze of shops selling Chinese goods that are so unique that they belie description. You can see several types of dried mushrooms, bags upon bags of dried shrimp in all sizes, racks of dried squid and other fish, wooden barrels of preserved greens, and, other pickled vegetables I have no idea of. The wet market has fishmongers, butchers and vegetable vendors. All this in narrow alleys with delivery guys hustling to get thru. With my nonexistent Thai and their nonexistent English all questions lead to poor comprehension.

Chinatown is a must visit if you are in Bangkok. We had to buy our Chinese food, so it was Chinese Sausage, Shaoshing Wine, Shitake Mushrooms and Sister Stonethrower wanted some Chinese Tea. All this wandering took a few well spent pleasant hours.

After the disaster at Baan Kanitha we were determined to make amends.

We have had many meals at Four Seasons, the Cantonese restaurant from London with branches at Queensway and Soho. Their roast duck, roast pork are really good. It did seem strange that a Cantonese restaurant from London would open in Bangkok, but strange are the ways of the world. So here we were eating at Four Seasons in Bangkok. This was in keeping with our Chinese theme for the day.

One menu. The last page contained the drinks. A good omen. The restaurant had a happy buzz and staff seemed friendly. The beer test revealed that a Singha cost a mere 70 Thai Baht, a far cry from the outrageous 250 at Baan Kanitha.

To start, we ordered, at Sister Stonethrowers request, what was described on the menu as 3 inch Spare Ribs. Outstanding. Rich meaty ribs in a gooey sticky deeply flavoured sauce. The texture of those ribs shines thru in the photograph as well. Truly delicious.

3 inch Spare Ribs

As our main course HRH the Queen of Kutch ordered a Mapo Tofu which, to be fair, is not a Cantonese dish, but all the same it was decently prepared. Rather mild in its spicing and low on the oil but not bad all the same. To keep the meal healthy we ordered Kailan with Garlic. This was delicious. Every bite of the Kailan had me thinking of how nourishing the vegetable must be!! All that vivid green chlorophyll entering my ravaged system!

Mapo Tofu

Kailan & Garlic

As a staple we had ordered a Ho Fun Beef. This is a flat noodle stir fried with beef. Once again very good.

Ho Fun Beef Noodles

All the food that was served came to the table piping hot. It seemed alive and vibrant and tasted really good. We were hungry with all the walking we had done. So once we were thru with the food we all felt we could do with some more. So, Sister Stonethrower ordered deep fried prawns with Wasabi sauce. This was the dish of the day. Steaming hot tempura fried prawns topped with a sweet sharp wasabi flavoured sauce. Bliss!

Wasabi Prawns

All in all a really good meal at prices that would compare very favourably with a meal at say a Lings Pavilion in Mumbai. Its no great secret, the meal with 2 beers cost an equivalent of Rs. 2800/- And quality, that sorry to say, beats most Chinese restaurants in India. That is why Bangkok!

After we left the restaurant and were walking back to the hotel we saw a shop selling Moon Cake, a Chinese delicacy, so we bought two. One was Custard and the other was Green Tea. The Chestnut one was quite nice, not too sweet, very rich and similar in taste and texture to a `Kalakand’ – Milk Cake we get in India. The Green Tea one was too mild for me but Sister Stonethrower preferred it to the Custard one.

Custard Moon Cake

Green Tea Moon Cake

Do visit Four Seasons Restaurant when in Bangkok. Do visit Bangkok!

Bangkok - Baan Kanitha

Bangkok!!!

Why? Because it’s cheaper and better than anywhere in India. That is why! Also, by itself, i.e. without comparing Bangkok to any other place, Bangkok is not bad. I have been to Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Goa, et al and, frankly, Bangkok is better than anything India offers. That is why, since you insisted.   

Let me give you but one example. We landed in Bangkok and the aircraft doors opened at 11.35 am local time. We exited the aircraft, walked a fairly long distance to the immigration counter (albeit using state of the art walkways) with senior Mrs Stonethrower, at her pace, filled in visa forms, stood in a line to get our visas, got our visas, collected our bags, passed customs and sat in our hotel car at 12,12 on the car’s clock. All this without losing one’s temper and not speaking a word of Thai. That is why, if you still want to know.

Night 1, meal one. We had booked at Baan Kanitha a well known Thai restaurant with a couple of branches in Bangkok. We had been there before and quite liked it and had written about it in a previous post.. When we entered we were given a table in a corner, behind a pillar at the far end of the restaurant. This was a bad sign. We were given our menus, 3 menus in all - one for drinks, one with the restaurant specialities [a euphemism for highly priced dishes – jumbo prawn, lobster etc etc with accompanying glossy pictures] and the last the regular menu. I looked at the drinks list. A simple Singha Beer, 330ml, equivalent to a Kingfisher in India cost a staggering 250 Thai Baht which is almost Rs 500. Mind you this restaurant would be the equivalent of a Trishna in Mumbai. Brilliant, I thought, welcome to the best example of a tourist trap!!! Unfortunately, it was downhill all the way after that.

Before the food arrived, a really charming dish that is a signature dish of Baan Kanitha was presented. This is given by the restaurant complementary to all tables. It consists of `Paan' leaves and a variety of condiments which you place in the leaf and eat. Its really delicious.

Meng Kham - Clockwise from bottom, Onion & Chilli, Lime, Dried Prawns, Peanut & Toasted Coconut. Centre is a Sweet Jam

First up was Pomello Salad with Prawns. Decent, classic Thai Salad with the balance of sweet, sour, salty spicy and the fresh taste we all know. The prawns in the salad were mere add ons and if they were not there the salad would not have diminished in quality. No photo unfortunately.

Also as a starter we had Deep Fried Prawn Balls which was essentially, a Prawn Paste with deed fried Prawns. Again not bad but far from shining.

Deep fried Prawn Balls

Now we were up to the main courses. Red Beef Curry was pedestrian. I could not figure out what the difference was in taste and consistency between the Red Curry and the classic Thai coconut milk soup. The curry was desperately watery. Soft Shelled Crab, deep fried in a Green Curry sounded very good on the menu. The dish was once again unremarkable.

Red Beef Curry

Soft Shelled Crab with Green Curry

To mop up all these gravies we ordered a Pad Thai, an absolute classic dish. This turned up looking decidedly diabolical. It had a strange look, a stranger texture and the strangest taste. A dish which we had asked for, Sea Bass, we were informed by the waiter, was not available. As if all this was not enough, in some mad impulse, I asked the waiter to recommend some other fish dish that would be similar. Not to be outdone, smarty-pants suggested the most expensive fish dish on the specialities menu. My Thai was not good enough to translate for smarty-pants, and neither was smarty-pants English good enough to understand the phrase, `I was not born yesterday’.  We settled for a Tofu dish that was simply weird. It ended up with lashings of what seemed to be Lavang or cloves. Absolute shambles.

Pad Thai

Tofu with Crisp Basil

We quickly asked for our bill and left with our tail between our legs. Yes you can eat badly in Bangkok. Yes you can end up at a tourist trap and ripped. 

Never again. Pity!

   

My Self Help Manual - Get a Visa

I am sure you will agree that all of us are very troubled. Our lives are unsettled. We are extremely impatient. We want instant gratification. We want instant results. We have extremely short tempers and fly of the handle at the blink of an eye. We are over worked and over stressed. We reach the point of irritation in a flash. We need stimuli all the time, whether it is a television, a mobile phone or a computer. We can never relax, let our guard down, step off, and tune out. All this manifests itself in many ways. For example we become aggressive in our behaviour, we drive aggressively, we drink we eat too much. We have high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure. So we are put on medication and that starts the downward spiral.

In this situation many of us head to a burnout. Our spouses and family constantly plead with us to relax and calm down. Some of us do take this to heart and start yoga in an attempt to calm our jangling nerves. Many others take to practising religion in some form. Others turn to spirituality and gurus and Godmen. We spend time at Ashrams; the Brahmakumaris are a case in point. We want to go to Igatpuri to get into Vippasana mediation course.

Sound familiar?

Before you despair and think that Stonethrower has at last seen the inevitable conclusion of his wasted life, as he approaches his 50^th birthday, no. Before you think that Stonethrowers heart, if not liver are now totally shot to pieces which is why he has seen The Light, you could not be more wrong. Read on.

For all you fellow hedonists out there, I have a quick fix solution for you. No need for yoga, no need for Godmen, no need for temples, spirituality, Vedanta discourses or Gita pravachans!! Nope. To achieve calmness, patience, control of temper and total discipline I suggest you immediately apply for a Schengen Visa from the French Consulate. You sometimes get more and sometimes less benefits by applying to the British, American and other European counties. The French I have found, by and large the most beneficial. The most useless are the Asian countries – Thailand, China and Singapore. Hong Kong does not even have a Visa system, it’s strictly Visa on arrival. These are all useless.

The process of applying will sort you out. It takes just a total of 3-4 hours if you are granted a Visa in one shot, if not each additional application will take an additional 2 hours after an agonising wait of several days. You will be a changed person after this process. The advantages are manifold. Not only do you immediately appreciate the virtues I have listed, but you can do it in the city you live, it’s very cheap - only Rs 5000/- and takes a short time. The effects and benefits are, in proportion to other forms of self help so dramatic that there is really no meaningful alternative.

Let me explain and point out just a few benefits the process has on your life. An important caveat here, to experience the best results of this unique therapy, you must undertake the entire process yourself and not use agents and assorted secretaries. This is the same with religion, yoga, vipassna etc - you have to undergo the process yourself and not through a proxy

Humility

We are all extremely self centred and believe we are always correct; it is our way or the highway. When applying for a visa, us smart guys look at the Consulates website. This has certain information and instructions. Sometimes to double check, we speak with our travel agents who give us different information and instructions. Then, after we have been reasonably confused we actually submit our paperwork to the Consulates agent who has a third set of information and instructions, which, needless to say, is not mentioned on the website nor is the travel agent aware of it. This teaches us humility, to accept that we are not always right; others have more knowledge and wisdom than us.

Patience

We simply do not have any patience. Once you have been made to stand in line to submit the application to the Consulates agent you have already learned to exercise some patience. Then you are required to visit the actual Consulate and are told a time, say 11 am. You turn up at Consulate only to find no place to park your car so you park miles away and walk to the Consulate. Once you reach there a watchman will ask you why you have come to the Consulate, 11 am appointment you say contemptuously. WAIT, is his answer, under the Gulmohur Tree on the footpath in the hot sun or pouring rain, depending on the weather. After a good 45 minute wait on a footpath you are allowed inside the Consulate only to be made to wait in a room that reminds me of an American jail as I have seen on countless movies. Here you wait some more, if you have been naughty, a lot more. This teaches you patience.

Respect for fellow human

You may be a real hot shit. A wildly successful self made businessman, a powerful lawyer, a builder or a doctor capable of neurosurgery. You may have been educated in the finest institutions for which your parents have spent thousands and sacrificed horribly. You have the life of others in your hands. You may think you are the cat whiskers. However, when you are in the Visa process, a chit of a girl at the Consulates agent can strike fear thru your body. Let me tell you, when I was submitting my application, this girl, not a day over 23 asked me if I had my visiting card to supplement my application. I was shocked, this one question made jelly of me, who the heck would think I need to produce a visiting card in addition to all hotel bookings, flight bookings, train booking 3 years of Tax returns, 6 months of bank statements, an insurance policy and the kitchen sink? This teaches you to respect a fellow human being.

Controling your temper  

When you reach the Consulate at the appointed time, you will have to encounter and deal with surly, rude and arrogant security personnel. They have the right to tell you to stand on a footpath. Once you are granted entry into the Consulate, another similarly surly, rude and arrogant security personnel will ask you to hand over your mobile phone, switched off please. Then once the various doors have opened the surly, rude and arrogant security personnel will grunt and tell you to sit in an extremely uncomfortable plastic bucket seat to await your turn. Mind you all this is done to us by our fellow Indians. This kind of behaviour teaches to hold your temper. If your driver or cook spoke to you like that with the accompanying body language, you would have dismissed them in 30 seconds flat. Here you hold your temper.

So folks, you now see what I mean. To improve yourself in a short cheap manner do apply for a Visa.