Food hygiene in Thailand

[Old git]

' Old Git, claims that " the Thais are not reliable when it comes to maintaining food hygiene with western food" I'm not arguing but I would love to see your source for that remark. Hygiene is not specific to cooking styles. '

My source is me - who has spent nearly four years in the LoS if you tot up all my trips over the past quarter century.

' The bacteria that cause illness thrive in the same conditions regardless of the culture. '

But look at the difference between Thai cooking methods and western ones. The Thai way involves virtually no pre-processing of meat (other than the drying of fish) and as most restaurants make a daily trip to market, the bugs don't get a chance to fester. Moreover they cut their meat items up fine enough to be fully cooked when fried or roasted.

My last trip was for eleven weeks and I didn't get sick once - same last year. I don't touch burgers, pies or sausages, but I do eat stir fried Thai (usually in the evening) I eat kebabs off the soi BBQ stalls, and also fresh fruit from the street vendors. For my morning brunch I often have a chilli and rice, or a thinly cut pork or chicken steak if I'm hungry.

Another no-no are Indian restaurants BTW - they often don't take the trouble to keep things clean enough..

[paborn]

Old Git: "My source is me - who has spent nearly four years in the LoS if you tot up all my trips over the past quarter century."

I buy a steak and grill it or pan fry it. What pre-processing do you think there is? You know, it's a little tiresome to constantly read about claims of special knowldege based on nothing more than amount of time being there. That is not proof of anything. As to cutting things up fine for "roasting" God, do you know anything about cooking?

incidentily, I think your showing some Indian prejudice.

Well, I know I won't convince you but, really this is quite silly.

[frequent]

When I read your reply, I could tell your tongue was firmly planted in your cheek.His own cheek?

[Old git]

Paborn wrote: 'You know, it's a little tiresome to constantly read about claims of special knowldege based on nothing more than amount of time being there'

To which I will reply - 'You know it's more than a little tiresome when people jump to conclusions and make barbed comments after failing to correctly read what was posted previously..'

Manners, dear boy, - please!

[paborn]

Bacteria grow most rapidly in the range of temperatures between 40 °F and 140 °F - a kitchen that can deliver Thai food that does not make one sick is perfectly capable of handling western food. Cooking style, despite what you think, has utterly nothing to do with hygeine.

Facts, deay Git, facts.

[scottish-guy]

..Dear Git...*

Excellent salutation - which I shall employ if ever I'm called upon to write to Arsenal.

:drink:

*corrected your spelling for you

[arsenal]

My own experience is that the Thais employ similar standards of hygiene to the UK and in some cases quite a bit more. Good is good whether the cuisine is western, Thai or anywhere else.

[Oliver2]

Mine too. Observe the vendors selling cheap (to us, anyway) food on the pavements; they always wear plastic gloves, unlike many of the shop assistants ( in bakeries for example) here in the UK.

[Nirish guy]

Ha yeah but the fact that they've probably been wearing those same gloves for 3 days straight, whilst preparing their stalls, cooking the food, handling the cash, servicing their motorbike and the washing the dishes they've just served you your food in in the already dirty dish water and with a cloth that was probably used to clean the oil out of their wok AND clean their motorbike sump when you weren't looking probably doesn't come in to it eh :-)

I am jesting a "bit" as generally I don't think the average stall is that bad, but hey it is what it is, a roadside stall, with traffic whizzing past, usually pushed for god knows how far to get there and with utensils etc that will be lucky if they see proper hot soapy water once in a while each day even - saying that, won't stop me eating there and so far I haven't died or come down with anything much ......which is more than I can say when cooking here at home sometimes !

[paborn]

You have hit on the one area of sanitation that is iffy with street vendors. Not the cooking, but the dishes that they are not able to wash in hot water. I never eat at a stall except for grilled chicken or the like that comes right off the fire. It my be my loss but many years ago I did get very sick which continued at home. Since then not a single problem.

My notes, however, were about restaurants. If you can cook any food with modern standards oc cleanliness then you can cook any type of food. The Thai are clean - Lord they shower more than I do. I want to cuddle, but no, I have to wait till they get back from the shower.

[gerefan2]

The Thai are clean - .

Never seen a Thai toilet? Never seen the disgusting toilets in Toyboys or Eros? Clean they are not. Try the toilets on a Motorway then eat in their restaurants. Guaranteed problems.

I have been waiting 3 years for them to repair the 100 baht toilet roll holder in Toyboys and the leaking basin. What the women customers think when they sit on the flooded toilet I don't know.

And Thais are clean????

[sglad]

Never seen a Thai toilet? Never seen the disgusting toilets in Toyboys or Eros? Clean they are not. Try the toilets on a Motorway then eat in their restaurants. Guaranteed problems.

I have been waiting 3 years for them to repair the 100 baht toilet roll holder in Toyboys and the leaking basin. What the women customers think when they sit on the flooded toilet I don't know.

And Thais are clean????

paborn, I'm inclined to agree with gerefan on this one. While the working boys you've been with may have maintained a high standard of personal hygiene (good for them and you!), I wouldn't assume the same high standards of the general population. I'm in no way saying that they are filthy or worse off than people in X country. All I'm saying is that standards of cleanliness vary within Thailand as it does in all countries. At the student apartment building I was staying in Chiang Mai, the manager told me that I was one of the few tenants who got their full room deposits back; many of the Thai students didn't get theirs as they left their rooms in quite a state. Having been to some of their rooms, I can attest to that! Toilets that haven't been scrubbed in a year - yuck!

As for hawker food - which I too enjoy sometimes - just look at the rats playing in the drains nearby and sometimes running across your feet. Wait after the stalls have closed late at night and you'll see them crawling and nibbling all over the place. They're quite cute and chubby.

[Nirish guy]

- just look at the rats playing in the drains nearby and sometimes running across your feet.

In a strange way Bangkok has actually helped me re that as I'm guessing like most people I have / had a fairly high fear / dislike / terror of being anywhere near a rat, to the point of taking my breath away, making me freeze on the spot and thinking I was going to have a heart attack if I seen one within 500 yards of me. Now after so many forced ridiculously close encounters with rats as described above my fear has now decreased from thinking I'm going to die to just mildly shitting myself / disgusted - so i guess in a way Bkk has acted as a good aversion therapy towards the problem - as Sglad says though with the amount of them running wild over and under closed food stalls and all sorts I dread to think of the diseases being left in their wake :-(

Ps before anyone says I'm going off topic I would stress that I'm talking about BLACK rats, that are I believe, along with their brown cousins, very common in Thailand and I'm surmising that at least a few may be slightly gay ......so, there we go, right back on topic, black and gay in thailand !! :-)

[sglad]

Ps before anyone says I'm going off topic I would stress that I'm talking about BLACK rats, that are I believe, along with their brown cousins, very common in Thailand and I'm surmising that at least a few may be slightly gay ......so, there we go, right back on topic, black and gay in thailand !! :-)

Well, if you did go off-topic, Sister Marie-Francoise will be along shortly with her big black ruler (which she hides under her habit and uses for various things, ahem) to give you a hard knock on your knuckles.

[gerefan2]

Whatever...but don't anyone tell me Thais are clean...

[paborn]

paborn, I'm inclined to agree with gerefan on this one. While the working boys you've been with may have maintained a high standard of personal hygiene (good for them and you!), I wouldn't assume the same high standards of the general population. I'm in no way saying that they are filthy or worse off than people in X country. All I'm saying is that standards of cleanliness vary within Thailand as it does in all countries. At the student apartment building I was staying in Chiang Mai, the manager told me that I was one of the few tenants who got their full room deposits back; many of the Thai students didn't get theirs as they left their rooms in quite a state. Having been to some of their rooms, I can attest to that! Toilets that haven't been scrubbed in a year - yuck!

As for hawker food - which I too enjoy sometimes - just look at the rats playing in the drains nearby and sometimes running across your feet. Wait after the stalls have closed late at night and you'll see them crawling and nibbling all over the place. They're quite cute and chubby.

Your probably right, both you and Gerefan. I'm overastating my case. I find the Thai to be peronaly clean. I think, honestly, that I went a tad overboard in response to a SILLY argument. I still maintain that style of cooking has utterly nothing to do with type of food. If you keep a clean kitchen it's clean for any damn food. Otherwise you guys are right.

[arsenal]

I was really only talking about restaurants, not street vendors or go go bars.

[paborn]

So was I. I make no health claims for street vendors.

[sglad]

I still maintain style of cooking has utterly nothing to do with type of food. If you keep a clean kitchen it's clean for any damn food.

Agree completely. If the food is prepared in the same kitchen, the same level for hygiene can be assumed for all the dishes.

A side point about Thai cooking and Old Git's assertion that it is more hygienic. I beg to differ. A lot of Thai dishes contain dried or fermented ingredients like kapi or shrimp paste. Have you seen how kapi is prepared? Fine if it's prepared in factories with quality control but there are some cooks/restaurants that insist on 'authentic', homemade stuff. Same with dried fruit. Have you seen how they are dried? Again, fine if it is done on a large scale, controlled environment but I've seen strawberries and longans being dried on the ground by smaller producers with their dogs walking all over the place. What about khao soy and kway teow noodles? Yup, some Chinese family-owned restaurants still insist on making their own in their backyard...I leave it to your imagination but I must say they are often the tastiest.:D And let's not forget Thai boat noodles in pig's blood...how clean is the blood? Yum yum or should I say, "Oink! Oink!" And famous northern Thai sausages...the list goes on.

As for rats, I've seen them at mid range restaurants too (where you can get dishes for under 200Bt) and Thai customers would often coo how they cute they are when one scampers across. Oooh, nuu naarak maak. :D

[frequent]

Mine too. Observe the vendors selling cheap (to us, anyway) food on the pavements; they always wear plastic gloves...Yes but that is a very, very recent innovation, and not universally followed

[arsenal]

Gloves are not necessarily a good thing. For example if you touch raw chicken with your hands you automatically give them a bloody good wash before making the salad. This might not be so if gloves are being worn.

[Smiles]

There are rats, and then there are RATS.
There are the Sewer Rats (i.e. the 'dirty' rats, the ones y'all are hyperventilating over). And then there are the Rice Rats (i.e. the 'clean, rats which live in the rice paddy's in the countryside.)
The 'clean' rats ~ a distinct type and more sophisticated ~ do some damage to growing rice and would never think of going down a sewer.

Thais disregard sewer rats to the point of not acknowledging them even as one of the little buggers scamps over one's sandals at an outdoor street restaurant. But they don't freak out either. 'Rat' is seldom on the menus of city/town restaurants.

On the other hand, the older generation of farmers out in the boonies will catch, and eat, rice rats ... the 'clean' type. They are eating the rice after all.
My dearest, a farmer in the heart ~~ though now gentrified ~~ hunted them and feasted on rats regularly as a young man.

Did I "go Thai" regarding this last sentence? What do you think?

[francois]

Lemy (The OP) did the resulting discussion on hygiene and clean rats and sewer rats properly answer your question on how Thai men react to blacks? Curious minds want to know.

[Nirish guy]

My dearest, a farmer in the heart ~~ though now gentrified ~~ hunted them and feasted on rats regularly as a young man. Did I "go Thai" regarding this last sentence? What do you think?

Shit it seems I require just a little more aversion therapy as I almost broke into a cold sweat and could feel that horrible saliva in the mouth thing before you puke feeling kicking off in my mouth as I read the above ....

In all seriousness though it is funny / weird how one becomes programmed to dislike / fear things as my BF is a small guy, scared of his own shadow and permanently worrying about whether things are "clean" or not and yet when it comes to rats as you say Smiles he too was brought up around rice rats and doesn't even take them under his notice and things I'm an absolute nut job for my deep fear of them. He tells he stories of how he and his family members went into barns and killed them etc without a second thought, personally I'm not so sure and think he's been watching too much TV as this is the guy who if a wasp flies into the kitchen nearly breaks the door through to exit the room, no matter whether it's open or not !

When I was very young ( like 3 or 4 year old) my family lived in the inner city and I've a notion that rats abounded there and I must have had a few run ins with them there that left a negative lasting impression, I actually caught rtheumatic back then which I believe comes from an unclean environment ( my mother was spotless btw so it's wasn't HER) and the doc explained that was probably something to do with rats so I put all those things down to my aversion to this day.

Thankfully as I said Bkk has diminished my irrational fears somewhat along with reading a book or two about self CBT training too I would add.

[a447]

A lot of the guys from Issan have told me they eat rice paddy rats, as they are considered clean.

Even though my stomach is churning at the very thought, I just smile and ask: "Aroi mai?"

[Nirish guy]

A lot of the guys from Issan have told me they eat rice paddy rats, as they are considered clean."

Exactly and then you get one of them back to the room and after inviting him to "hey suck my dick" he has the cheek to screw his face up and say "cannot" ! FUCK YOU ! - you've eaten bloody RATS - so just get ON with it and quite complaining whilst trying to hold out for a bigger tip you chancer ! lol

[bobsaigon2]

But it’s all just cultural conditioning, isn’t it? Last year I came across a tin of Grant’s Premium Haggis. Poured it into a sauce pan and served it up with potatoes. Taste was fine, but could not forget that sheeps lungs were clearly listed in the ingredients . Only managed to finish half of it.

Many Asians have an aversion to dairy products. Most foreigners have an aversion to Durian.

A girl I knew from the African highlands put shrimp in the same category as cockroaches.

People from America and the UK cannot agree on the correct way to cook bacon.

In Saudi Arabia, I ate camel (bland) and the flesh of a large desert lizard (like chicken). BTW, the lizard hunting season is just starting. North Central Saudi Arabia probably the best hunting grounds, but should wait till after the 2 mil Hajjis have gone home.

[frequent]

But it’s all just cultural conditioning, isn’t it?Isn’t everything? In the West it’s common - unremarkable - to have a woman flop her tits out to suckle her spawn. I’ve never seen that in Thailand

[a447]

Last year I came across a tin of Grant’s Premium Haggis. Poured it into a sauce pan and served it up with potatoes. Taste was fine, but could not forget that sheeps lungs were clearly listed in the ingredients .

You're a brave man, Bob!

[arsenal]

Most of us eat raw (live) oysters but would be horrified at the idea.of eating warm deal blubber, which the Inuit love.

[scottish-guy]

... reading a book or two about self CBT training...

Reminds me of the time I attended a conference and one of the speakers presented on the subject of CBT.

I know her well, so afterwards I sought her out and told her that whilst her lecture had been very informative I was highly disappointed that it hadn't touched on any of my areas of interest at all.

"What do you mean?" she asked

"Well" I said with my best and most serious expression, "I found the title very misleading - there was absolutely nothing about Cock & Ball Torture at all"

:drink:

[arsenal]

Hilarious anecdote.

[cdnmatt]

There's lots of unsafe food practices in Thailand. Probably nothing that will kill you, but getting a case of worms or something definitely isn't unheard of. Lots of times the meat on sale at the markets isn't exactly up to par. They do their best, but if they have a slow night, they're not going to throw out the raw pork that is questionable. They just throw it back in the ice box, and sell it the next day.

Another one is how many of the street vendors clean their woks. They scrape them with a metal spatuala, giving you a little extra iron in your diet, which can also cause problems such as blood circulation. I know, because it's happened to me before.

All in all though, it's fine though, and nothing to be scared of. Don't try to make it out as though they have some superior hygiene practices, because that's hardly true.

[cdnmatt]

Oh, and I'll throw this out there as well. You may want to avoid eating steamed rice in the morning from a restaurant. In Thailand, they're notorious for keeping left over rice from the night before, and using it again the next day. Even when we grabbed food from the market for lunch, we'd always make our own rice at home with our rice cooker. I guess I'd give the dogs steamed rice from the market even during the early hours of the day sometimes, but their digestive systems are stronger than ours, so never really worried about it.



I think you're probably ok with sticky rice, but steamed rice I'd be careful of.

[StevieWonders]

Oh, and I'll throw this out there as well. You may want to avoid eating steamed rice in the morning from a restaurant. In Thailand, they're notorious for keeping left over rice from the night before, and using it again the next day. Even when we grabbed food from the market for lunch, we'd always make our own rice at home with our rice cooker. I guess I'd give the dogs steamed rice from the market even during the early hours of the day sometimes, but their digestive systems are stronger than ours, so never really worried about it. https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/article/8-ways-to-use-up-leftover-cooked-rice-a1754.html

[StevieWonders]

Most of us eat raw (live) oysters but would be horrified at the idea.of eating warm deal blubber, which the Inuit love."warm deal blubber" - that is what money boys feast on isn't it?

[francois]

I think arsenal means warm ell or warm seal blubber.:devilsh:

[paborn]

"I think you're probably ok with sticky rice, but steamed rice I'd be careful of."

Matt, just how do you think "sticky rice" is made?

"I guess I'd give the dogs steamed rice from the market even during the early hours of the day sometimes, but their digestive systems are stronger than ours, so never really worried about it."

Besides the implications for Canadian RSPCA - what is your medical proof for the rest of this ?

Also, I must thank Stevie Wonders for pointing out the salient fact of your rice nonsense. ALL FRIED RICE is made with day before rice. I even make rice and put it in the frig to fry it - otherwise it STICKS too much to the wok, it's a matter of the starch........ wait, I spoke too fast - ALL FRIED RICE made by someone who knows how.

[arsenal]

"warm deal blubber" - that is what money boys feast on isn't it?

Brilliant wordplay. Worth the typo for that alone.

[Marsilius]

Maybe this doesn't happen anymore, but 20 years ago in Bangkok it was quite common to see a big block of ice delivered onto the pavement whereupon food/drink vendors would chip bits off as required. Meanwhile, street dogs would merrily pass by and, as is their wont, pee all over the said block of ice.

[cdnmatt]

"I think you're probably ok with sticky rice, but steamed rice I'd be careful of."

Matt, just how do you think "sticky rice" is made?

What? Do you know how sticky rice is made? I lived in Khon Kaen for 8 years, os obviously I do. It's made quite a bit differently than steamed rice, but more importantly, is stored totally different. Sticky rice is stored in a dry container with no added heat, usually one of those baskets with a lid, or a rount ice box / cooler thing. Whereas steamed rice is generally stored in a warm and humid rice cooker.

Do you have a rice cooker at home? Have you ever made rice for dinner, then accidentally forgot about it, and left rice in the cooker overnight? Not exactly appetizing in the morning, is it? And sometimes restaurants do just that, but instead of throwing the rice out in the morning, they go ahead and sell it.

This is well know, and although obviously doesn't happen at every place, it definitely happens. There's been a good number of news reports of people getting sick due to that.

Up to you, but I always preferred to cook my own rice at home, even if we were grabbing lunch / dinner from the market. Besides, most people use either those blue or green bags of rice, which was fine I guess, but I always preferred the red stuff. Tad more expensive, but was larger and fluffier grains.

[Nirish guy]

Try telling my PH bf that you CAN get sick from reheating rice - I can show him 100 web pages, NHS studies, news paper reports of proven cases of complete schools being closed down due to the kids been sick and that being proven to be because of them reheating rice ( well storing it incorrectly and reheating it more perhaps) but will he listen - will he hell as like, I get a shrug of the shoulders with a look like "what, you, a white man, are talking to ME about rice - fuck off would you" :)

And the annoying thing is we haven't actually died YET - mind you I think that's more as I'm sneaking into the kitchen and putting it into the fridge at the earliest possible moment whereas he would think nothing of leaving it sitting out ( covered) in a bowl over night - which for everything I've read is EXACTLY where all the problems start ! But hey, what would I know as I'm only a white man ( it seems !)

Thankfully I've now got him at least half into the way of only using those 2 minute to microwave bags of rice now and chucking whatever is not eaten on the bin so my chances of going down with something shitty have been significantly reduced somewhat of late it seems.

Now, if only I could get him to also then cover any other food we leave or he cooks and then box it and put IT back in to the fridges well then I'd REALLY be winning - but alas no chance there either it seems - and the same goes for maybe closing ANY cupboard door behind him that he opens or closing the fridge door when he's finished in there for that matter too ! - Come to think of it the guy is a bloody health and safety liability claim on legs - god love his employers ! :-)

[cdnmatt]

Oh, your guy isn't exactly a fan of lids either? Yeah, I have the same problem with my guy. I was able to successfully convince him to put shit into the fridge instead of just leaving it out on the counter overnight, so that was good. Although, I suspect that was mainly because the dogs would keep stealing his food if he didn't.

Was unable to convince him to use lids though. The guy takes up about 75% of the fridge, leaves stuff in there uncovered for like 5 days then actually eats it, etc. All the while, there's things like sandwich meat in there, plus whatever I'm defrosting for dinner that night.

Once I finally get back to Asia, maybe we'll just have to get him his own separate fridge. He could use one anyway with the amount of shit he puts in there. Any given time, he has about 8 different food dishes sitting there.
I tell you NIrish, the shit we put up with for a bit of love. :)

[paborn]

Matt, I was not commenting on the storage of any food including rice. Bacteria grow at 40 to 140 F - in any kitchen, western or Thai, leftover food must go directly into the frig. At refrigerator temps, there is no problem. But, as food cools down it is right in the growth zone of bacteria.

I was pointing out that sticky rice ( s short grain variety ) and long grain regular rice are both steamed. They are, then, handled differently. I would not be comfortable with any food not stored correctly. This is why I do not eat street food other grilled chicken right off the grill in Thailand. Street vendors do not have the proper facilities to be sure food is handled properly. However, research has shown that most people get sick because there is no real way to clean the reused dishes in really hot water.

Everything I see here refers to the improper handling of food. It has, again, nothing to do with Thai food, Western food or Indian food. It has to do with the improper handling of the food. By the way, I have two rice cookers so guests can have white or brown and, years ago, I took the Thai cooking courses that are offered by the Oriental Bangkok - yes, I can cook rice. It is the storage of same that is the issue.

[cdnmatt]

Sticky rice is dryed out immediately after it's cooked, whereas steamed rice sits in that warm and humid rice cooker.

What are we arguing about here?

You're right, sticky rice after a day or two probably isn't the safeest option either, but it's a whole lot more safe than steamed rice after a day or two. Most times sticky rice will just dry out and get too hard to eat, whereas steamed rice turns into a bowl of mold soup.

Yes, I know there's unsafe food practices all over the world, hence why I said in my first reply to this thread not to worry too much. All you have to do is watch some Kitchen Nightmares episodes to find out. heh, I remember about a month ago Steven Colbert interviewed Gordan Ramsay about his new show, and asked what's the most disgusting thing he saw in a kitchen during taping of that 24 hours to Hell or whatever it's called. Ramsay replied saying he once say a dead rat stuck in a toaster, and upon calling out the owner on it, she replied with, "oh, it's ok, we don't use that side of the toaster, we only use the other side", lol.

Nonetheless, I still think my steamed rice in the morning warning is a good one for SE Asian countries. I'll be living back in SE Asia shortly here, and plan to continue that little rule, but to each their own.

[paborn]

Matt, you are right with one thing, "what are we arguing about?" I repeat bacteria grow as a result of poor handling - period.

[frequent]

A friend of mine - a fellow diabetic who is way more anal about his diet than me - who abjures freshly steamed jasmine rice (very high sugar content) happily tucks in to steamed jasmine rice that has been left overnight. Something about the re-heating process minimises the sugar he tells me. Following is a link to the Glycemic Index of most forms of rice, but not jasmine rice. The lower the GI, the less bad the rice is for you. Jasmine rice has a high GI, somewhere in the range 70-80; others put it even higher (http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php?num=956&ak=detail)

https://www.yourdiabeteshub.com/making-rice-nice-diabetes/

[frequent]

What? Do you know how sticky rice is made? I lived in Khon Kaen for 8 years, os obviously I do. It's made quite a bit differently than steamed rice, but more importantly, is stored totally different. Since sticky rice is a completely different variety of rice than jasmine rice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutinous_rice), should we be generous and assume that by "made" you mean "cooked"? Or do we continue with the other working hypothesis that you haven't a clue (about most things)?

[cdnmatt]

Oh fuck, really? Yes, I meant cooked.

Honestly, I have no idea how it's grown, because as it turns out, I've never worked as a rice farmer in Thailand before.

Definitely know how it's cooked though.

[frequent]

Honestly, I have no idea how it's grown, because as it turns out, I've never worked as a rice farmer in Thailand before.I'm denying any rumours that I am one of the rice farmers in this picture:

7793

[cdnmatt]

Gee, thanks for the image. Really helpful to me.

You know full well by now that if you want to discuss an image with me, you need to textually describe it.

[frequent]

Gee, thanks for the image. Really helpful to me. You know full well by now that if you want to discuss an image with me, you need to textually describe it.Matt you stated that you didn't know about varieties of rice because you are not a rice farmer. Evidently I do know about varieties of rice but (irony warning here) I am not a rice farmer - hence the pic (of rice farmers) and the disclaimer

[cdnmatt]

Ok, well I didn't know. For all I knew, you were posting a photo of Leo or something, as I've posted several images of us now.

[frequent]

Ok, well I didn't know. For all I knew, you were posting a photo of Leo or something, as I've posted several images of us now.Having finished (I hope) parading your ignorance of the staple food of SE Asia here, why don't you hop on over to the "This Board has got so fucking boring thread" where you made three points, each of which Smiles or I has either refuted or challenged, and give us the benefit of your knowledge there

[cdnmatt]

No thanks, it's almost 7pm, and my parents are going to be back from Seattle in about an hour or so.

I think I'll get dinner going. Have pork tenderloin out, but unsure what to do with it. Think I'll just do a goulash, and call it done. That's easy enough, and delicious. Kind of a waste of prok tenderloin though.

[frequent]

No thanks, it's almost 7pm, and my parents are going to be back from Seattle in about an hour or so.

I think I'll get dinner going. Have pork tenderloin out, but unsure what to do with it. Think I'll just do a goulash, and call it done. That's easy enough, and delicious. Kind of a waste of prok tenderloin though.No rice?

[francois]

Correction, No rice, eh? They are Canadians.:devilsh:

[cdnmatt]

Of course rice! I didn't have a loaf of french bread on hand, and it's not like I can just go out and buy one myself easily, so rice it was.

I could get a loaf of french bread myself, but it's just a huge pain. First, you have to take a taxi and they're not exactly cheap like in Thailand. Then if I'm really lucky and get a good hearted taxi driver who isn't too busy, he'd just go buy the loaf for me, but then I'm still stuck paying like $35 for a $4 loaf of bread.

And if the taxi driver can't help, then I'm stuck asking random strangers to help guide me to customer service, then I have to bug customer service to give me someone to help me find a loaf of french bread, then help me get to the checkout line. Then I have to somehow find my way back to customer service, get them to call a taxi again, find the taxi when it shows up, and get home.

It's really a huge pain in the ass being blind, so we just had rice with it instead. Was delicious! Although not as seasoned as I would have liked, as my parents always throw a fit when they see me seasoning aggressively. "Matt, we're old, stop with the salt~! don't make it too spicy!", kind of thing.

[frequent]

Of course rice! Although not as seasoned as I would have liked, as my parents always throw a fit when they see me seasoning aggressively. "Matt, we're old, stop with the salt~! don't make it too spicy!", kind of thing.Salt??!!! What are you trying - elder abuse??

And on a completely different note - paramedics are standing by for an apoplectic Francois - did you see that Google and Apple have abandoned the college degree requirement for new hires?

[scottish-guy]

...I could get a loaf of french bread myself, but it's just a huge pain

Wonderful when people make a really good joke without realising.

:p

[frequent]

And for those who need further convincing there’s this story about recycling cooking oil into soap: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/shopping/2018/08/23/try-soap-made-from-bangkok-street-food-oil/

[gerefan2]

Wonderful when people make a really good joke without realising.

:p

Ah, but do you think his talking braille computer will get it?

[francois]

And for those who need further convincing there’s this story about recycling humans into soap:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/morbid-monday-soap-on-a-bone

[scottish-guy]

I feel like complaining that Mme Francoise is completely off topic

[frequent]

I feel like complaining that Mme Francoise is completely off topicQuelle horreur

[scottish-guy]

Oh I wouldn't go so far as to call her that

:p