The strangest and most unexpected thing just happened - I had a bad meal. Not a disappointing meal, not a meal I could have taken or left, but a meal so bad I couldn’t eat it. After a long, hot, emotional day at the elephant sanctuary, I couldn’t muster the energy to head into town so I decided to eat at the hotel restaurant. A nice British couple I’d met on the outing today told me they’d been very disappointed with their meal when they had eaten at the restaurant but I figured they’d just ordered poorly. I ordered well - spicy beef salad starter and Malaysian curry with chicken main. The salad was my worst nightmare - mostly onions (white and green) and tomatoes, topped with “beef” that 90% gristle. I picked out what I could - slivers of julienned carrot and cucumber, a few leaves of lettuce . . I even hunted for and ate every cilantro leaf I could find. I sent back the bulk of the salad chalking my disappointment up to poor ordering. I had fallen into the same trap as that nice British couple. Then came the curry. It looked about right - meat in a curry sauce - but something was amiss from the get go. I noticed that the rice was long grain (think Uncle Ben’s) and not the short, sticky rice you see in Thailand. This restaurant, like many other fine dining establishments in this town, tries to cater to Westerners by serving what they think Westerners want - Eastern food in a Western style. But I have yet to meet one of those poor conflicted souls in Thailand - the Westerners I have met delight in authentic Thai food and expect that is what they will be served, this being Thailand and all.
I spooned the curry onto the rice and dug in. Then the sadness really set in. The curry had no flavor - no hint of spice or freshness, no complexity or depth. It kind of tasted like ketchup. But far worse than the lack of taste was the quality of the meat - this fine dining establishment had served me nothing but skin and knuckles and gristle. I couldn’t really find anything that seemed edible. This is the stuff I’d trim off and throw away because even my dog won’t eat it. I tried a bite to make sure I wasn’t missing something but struggled to get it down.
I pushed my plate away and called over the waitress. I told her as kindly as I could that the dish was inedible and asked her to take it away. I expected her to offer me something else or to subtract it from my bill but she just smiled and bowed. She had no idea what I’d said. I might have just explained that I had suddenly decided to go vegetarian or that I received an important call and had to rush back to the US immediately. She brought me the check. 900 Bhat or roughly $30. That’s about 10X what I would have paid for a far superior meal at a local street vendor. I was pissed.
As I walked back to my room I felt angry (and hungry) - not a great combination. I wondered how it was possible that such crap food could be served is such a magical place. I wondered why this hadn’t come to the attention of management months before, how all of the diners before me had shirked their duty to inform the powers that be that this was not acceptable, not here at Rachamankha. As I continued to stew, I noticed that every chandelier in the place is exactly the same - a sort of white fabric cube, edged in brown piping, with a brown tassel hanging from the bottom. When you actually stop and look at them, they’re not pretty. And it seems a fairly sophomoric design choice to simply repeat the same fixture over and over and over again. Back in my room I noticed for the first time that my air conditioner is one of those wall-mounted fixtures you see in old European buildings - effective but an eyesore. Why did they make that choice in such a design-conscious hotel? One bad meal had turned my whole world grey.
Still hungry but still too tired to head to town, I opened a can of Pringles from the mini bar and hopped into bed. I grabbed my book, read a few pages and drifted off to sleep around 9:00.
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