My colleagues and I have some standard hang-outs in the neighborhood. We have cute nicknames for them — or at least I do, and the rest of them humor me by acknowledging what the nicknames stand for. These places are mostly where we go to drink the famous $.45 beer. There is the Pavement, so named because in good weather, it is a strip of pavement where the owners let us sit in their lawn chairs and drink beer without eating. There are two Pavements, just up the road from each other. The Bad Pavement has a bathroom so horrible the Boys won't let me go near it. The Good Pavement has a bathroom that is downright reasonable. It's a squatter, sure, but it's about as bad (or good, depending on if you're a glass half-full sort of person) as a restroom at your average small time gas station.
However, now that the weather has gotten cold, we can't sit outside. The Boys decided to try out a new location, a restaurant down the street in the other direction. I had not been there with them, but last night after the school Halloween party, we decided to try it out. The Boys had only ever had beer, but it was dinnertime, so we decided to eat.
Six of us walked into the restaurant. The place was crowded (always a good sign). They kicked a man who was sitting alone off a table and moved him somewhere else so we could sit down. They brought us two Chinese menus -- perhaps thinking we could speak Chinese since we knew to say "jiu" (six). I poured over the menu, picking out the various characters I know (I found "chicken"). They realized we were clueless, and brought us a picture menu. (The picture menu is the best invention.)
We looked and drooled. Peanuts. Sliced beef thing. Cucumber and mushroom salad. Chicken something. Pork something. But we also wanted meat on a stick, but that didn't come on the picture menu. I again poured over the piece of paper looking for chicken. I found chicken, but I didn't know what the rest was.
Then the manager came over. He spoke some English (we eventually discovered). We pointed again and again. Then we told him that we also wanted chicken wings (complete with arm flapping and bawk-bawk noises -- I never said I was suave). He went away.
About five minutes later, the food started arriving. First the peanuts, which were cold and covered with a sesame oil dressing. They were fantastic. Then the beef arrived. It was cold too, but it tasted like beef and also had a delicious dressing. The food started coming faster -- sauteed corn, chicken, pork in black bean sauce. The cucumber. Chicken wings. We gorged ourselves on the food. One guy said it was the best food he's had since he arrived. Now, I've had some good food here myself, but this was definitely near the top of the list.
We ate and drank. Drank them out of cold beer, even. (Because why put more beer in the fridge when you take some out?) Although, it's not the first time we've drunk an establishment out of their alcohol. Then, we were delivered a note, in English, along with some more cucumber. The manager thanked us for coming in and apologized for his poor English and gave us the cucumber. Crazy.
Then came the moment of reckoning: the bill. For all the beer and food for six people, we were charged a little less than 200 kwai. That's $30.
I am positive we will be going there again.
Oh, and the bathroom, while not "ridiculously clean" as stated by a colleague, is very adequate. A squatter is a squatter, and there was definitely some oversplash on the floor, but the toilet flushed, there was paper, and soap and water. In this neighborhood, that's pretty awesome.
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