When You Don't Eat Thai or Western Comfort Food, What's Your Go-To? [S8.E66]

Gregrgensen 00:00:04 On this episode, we discuss food. Specifically what do we eat when it's not Thai food or Western comfort food?

Ed 00:00:11 So if you ever wondered what long term expats eat when they're looking for more variety, you'll like this episode of The Bangkok Project.

Greg 00:00:28 Sawat dee krap and welcome to the Bangkok Podcast. My name is Greg, a Canadian who came to Bangkok in 2001 when I couldn't come up with a reason not to go. When a friend suggested it. True story.

Ed 00:00:38 Well, that's how logic works. If you don't have a counterargument, you just go with the flow and it changed your life.

Greg 00:00:44 If there's not a sign saying you can't do it, you can. That's right.

Ed 00:00:48 Agreed. And I am Ed, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 26 years ago, fell in love with hearing foreigners order food a little bit spicy and waiting for the cataclysm to come. So I never left cataclysm.

Greg 00:01:05 What a word to use.

Ed 00:01:07 Well, it's like, you know, okay, if it's your friend at your own table, then you can, like, warn them.

Ed 00:01:11 But, you know, sometimes I hear a foreigner. Like, usually they you can tell they they learned the word like neo noir, like pet pet meow or pet nino. So they're, they're they're speaking like basic Thai, but you can tell they just arrived and you just know it's it's it's going to be way too out for them that that a little a little bit spicy doesn't cut it.

Greg 00:01:34 It's like asking Mike Tyson to punch you in the kidneys, but not as hard as he normally does.

Ed 00:01:37 Yeah, just lightly.

Greg 00:01:38 Lightly a light punch.

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Greg 00:02:46 That's right. And as always, if you have a comment to show, idea or just want to say hi, head to Bangkok Podcast. Click the little microphone button on the bottom right to leave us a voicemail, and we will play that on the show. All right. On this episode, we are going to discuss food specifically. Food in Bangkok. Even more specifically, what food we like to eat when we're not eating a Thai food or b Western comfort food.

Greg 00:03:11 Now, obviously, Bangkok is known for its swell street food scene and grazing lifestyle, although that's far less easy to find now than it used to be, to be honest. But I think we can all agree that we are generally spoiled for food options in Bangkok. But when it comes to food, other than the street stalls selling sometime and the hamburger and pizza joints that satisfy our grease craving Western tastebuds. What do we eat? Where do we go? What are some of our favorite spots to stretch our culinary legs? Now add like we were just discussing a few minutes ago, this is not going to be a particularly deep or, cerebral show. We're just going to talk about food. But it is an interesting take on this. In Bangkok is known as a street food capital. And yeah, most of that is Thai food.

Ed 00:03:55 But there's a lot of other options here.

Greg 00:03:58 There's a lot of other options. And again, that's not a mystery either, but you and I were just going to discuss.

Greg 00:04:03 We're not eating Thai food and we're not getting pizza.

Ed 00:04:07 Right.

Greg 00:04:07 Right. A fix of our comfort food from what we grew up with. What else do we eat and where do we go? What are some of our favorites? So that's what we're going to rap about tonight.

Ed 00:04:15 Yeah, I think it actually is. I'm not sure it's terrible, but to me this is kind of an interesting question. We've both been here like 25 years. So the question is what do foreigners eat who have been here a long time? So we're way beyond like the initial fascination with Thai food. I've had several, people visiting, who, while they're here, I'll say something like, hey, I know a great Mexican place. And they'll say, I didn't come to town to eat Mexican, you know, which I get, you know, whatever they're, you know, if they're only here, like ten days or whatever they want to really get into, like, local food, but we're way beyond that.

Ed 00:04:53 You know, way, way, way beyond that. So the question is, after Decades. If you're a foreigner who grew up on Western food, like, how much Thai food do we actually eat? And if we're not eating Thai food or pizza or burgers, like, what is it that we actually eat? So I think this is a little bit of an interesting topic. So I think you and I differ also like our eating habits are different.

Greg 00:05:18 Yeah. And despite my portly, silhouette that I throw on the wall, I actually don't eat a lot of food. which.

Ed 00:05:26 Is what I mean. You don't eat a lot of food. Come out.

Greg 00:05:28 Dude, I for for years, for the past four years, I have never had I never have breakfast. And I have a small lunch with friends. And then dinner is usually pretty, pretty easy. there's no restrictions or anything, but that's it. And I don't snack a lot. I don't have a lot of junk food in the house.

Greg 00:05:48 I don't drink sugar sodas.

Ed 00:05:50 So you're not a food. So you're not a foodie. You're you're not into, like, we got to check out this new restaurant. We got to go here.

Greg 00:05:55 No, not at all. Not at all. I mean, my social life is dead now that I have a kid and drive a car to work, and I don't want to go out once I get. Once I get home after work, I'm like, I'm not going out again. So.

Ed 00:06:05 Well, obviously you eat okay, you obviously eat something. So here's let's start with the basics, right? All the food you eat, what percent of it is Thai food.

Greg 00:06:15 Ooh, that's a good question. No, no. Let me caveat what I just said by saying that of course I do go out to restaurants and eat with friends. There's birthdays and events like that, but not a lot. And when I do, I enjoy myself. But, I think for the percentage of Thai food, man, this is a good question to trip me up with.

Greg 00:06:32 Probably 50%, maybe even less.

Ed 00:06:36 Oh, half your food is Thai. Oh, that's not bad. I thought you were going to say something less than that because you. You told me you don't eat that much Thai food. So if half your food is Thai, that's not bad.

Greg 00:06:46 I'm going to say for 40 on 40, maybe, maybe 50. But I cook a lot of food at home, a lot of vegetables.

Ed 00:06:52 But you don't. Okay, but when you cook vegetables at home, you don't. I mean, I guess it could be Thai, but, like, you're just. You're just stir frying vegetables. You're not making, like, a Thai dish.

Greg 00:07:00 No. So I don't eat a lot of Thai food. And every. Every.

Ed 00:07:03 Wait a minute. But you said half your food is Thai. That's a lot. So. So when you eat Thai food, what do you eat or where do you eat it?

Greg 00:07:10 usually we go to, like, lunch at work where there's little cafes and stuff like that around the cook you play, you know, some time or Labo or Kapow or whatever you want.

Greg 00:07:20 So I, I eat that most lunches. Oh, okay. Is Thai style. Not all, but but a chunk but for dinner? No. Mostly just home cooked food.

Ed 00:07:29 Okay. And if you, Well, let me let me let me answer that question before we move on. What about you? So I think I eat more Thai food than that. So probably usually two meals a day are usually Thai. And for me, after 25 years, Thai food is kind of the automatic food I don't think about. Whereas when I first came here, and for a long time, I looked at Thai food as something special. Like, I really looked forward to going to like these Thai restaurants and doing this and exploring Thai food, and I do that sometimes, but it's usually when people are visiting, like, I recently had a buddy in town and so I had to like, you know, Google, like best Thai restaurants on Sukhumvit and like figure out, like, you know, some of those, you know.

Ed 00:08:12 whereas to me now Thai food is, when I'm not thinking, and so, just like you, my lunch near my university is usually just, it's basically like a vegetable. like fried rice is what I eat almost every day for lunch. you know, Thai style. And then, I like pod siu, and that's it depends if I have time. But that's kind of my quick breakfast. If I run into Foodland and go to two. I'll just get pods to you. And sometimes I do that when I come home from work as well. So just like a plate of noodles and a plate of rice, but cooked Thai style, I. I just eat that a lot, you know, it's just my, my staple, I guess you would call it. And so now for me, It's foreign food that is kind of something special. Like it usually costs a little bit more. Yeah, right. So. So Thai food is my just not thinking like, go to regular, regular day, regular morning food.

Greg 00:09:12 Got it. And let me ask you this. When you get Thai food, do you stick with your favorites or do you look at the menu and go like, oh, I haven't had that before. I'll try that.

Ed 00:09:20 Dude, I'm a I'm a I think it's sad, but I'm a I'm a creature of habit. Like, I just, I, you know, my, I mean, in actually in many aspects of my life when there's just something that I that works for me, I just do it forever. And I mean, he.

Greg 00:09:34 He.

Ed 00:09:35 I've been teased about this by for by many people, where, you know, even like restaurants there are restaurants in Bangkok by going to for 20 years and and I, I don't literally every time get the same thing, but 95% of nine teams, 19 times out of 20, I'm just like Moon Dome, you know, moon Dome like normal. And they just they just give me the same thing. It's Just unfortunately, so often, you know.

Ed 00:10:00 For example, I have one friend who's really into going to new restaurants and I now I appreciate it. So I kind of need someone else to, like, poke and prod me. Dude, let's check out this and then I'll go. So I'm not I'm not anti like doing new stuff but I need some. Like sometimes you're like, hey, we're going to go meet this patron at this craft beer place and I've never heard of it. And I'll be like, right, there's a craft beer place like behind Ikes, you know, like that, you know, and so I'm, I don't know why I can't do it myself. Like, for some reason, I'm not capable of just going out on these adventures.

Greg 00:10:34 I don't do it myself either. I need I need a reason or patron. And usually, even if it was a friend, I'd be like, if, like if you called me, I'd be like, I don't know, maybe, maybe not. But for for patrons, I'll usually make an excuse and I like to go somewhere new, but I'm the same way with my Thai food.

Greg 00:10:50 I think there's probably ten dishes that I just sort of rotate through. For me, it's 3 or 4.

Ed 00:10:55 Yeah, I don't even have that much variety. Probably three, 3 or 4 dishes. I see it over and over again, but.

Greg 00:11:00 I love ten. In the past 20 years. And then when I want to dance it up a little bit, I've got like 3 or 4 that are like special. Oh, I haven't had this one in a few months. I'll try this one.

Ed 00:11:08 Right, right, right. so the question like, really, what our show is really about is if we're not eating that, what are we eating? You know, and so if we're not eating Thai food, if we're not, like, grabbing pizza, then what do we eat? And we have said this many times, Bangkok is a great international food city, high quality for reasonable prices, maybe number one in the world if you factor in the quality and the price. So I get it.

Ed 00:11:36 If you're a tourist, you know you might not be into eating Mexican in Bangkok, I get it, but the truth is, you're missing out on some goddamn good Mexican food if you do that. Yeah, you know, you don't have to. You don't have to. I personally don't think you have to eat Thai food every single meal just because you're in Thailand. You know, part of Bangkok. Part of Bangkok's charm is that it's cosmopolitan. Like. Like this is when you're in Bangkok. You are not in Thailand. If you want to go to Thailand, like drive outside of Bangkok. That is Thailand.

Greg 00:12:06 You know what? I just realized that what's funny, and it does exactly back up. The point you just made was that the joke is, you know, when on TV or something like that, like, oh, I lived in China for five years. Oh. Did you like Chinese food? Yeah. Although they're they just call it food. Right, right, right. That's the old joke.

Greg 00:12:22 But you know, what I just realized is that in Thailand and Bangkok, when we're going out, we still have Thai food as, like a category, for sure. Like where you want to go first. Oh, let's get Thai food tonight. For sure.

Ed 00:12:33 For sure. It's because there's so much, international cuisine and it's so damn good. so whatever you want to go first. So if you're not eating Thai or international comfort food, what do you do?

Greg 00:12:46 Yeah, we each picked picked our favorite three cuisines that our entire comfort. I'm going to say something that I've come to really love over the past little while. And that's Burmese food.

Ed 00:12:55 dude, when, you mentioned that, I got to give you props. I've definitely had Burmese food. I just had, Burmese the last time our friend Kelly was in town. Shout out. Shout out to Kelly. She is one of those people. That is an event. She's an adventurer who checks out new neighborhoods and new, new restaurants and stuff.

Ed 00:13:15 And we went to it just a tiny, like, little street back soi Burmese place. That was really good. So I do like Burmese, but I gotta admit, I. I eat it twice a year. Something like that.

Greg 00:13:28 Really? Okay. Yeah. So up near my office, there's a there's a good sized Burmese community, and they've got some good restaurants. And we cycle. We cycle between like Burmese, Thai and Chinese restaurants. Oh, cool. Up near my office. But there's a tiny little hole in the wall place. It's run by the local. I think it's run by the students who live up there, actually. but man, it's just the tea leaf salad, the the ginger salad, the Shan noodles, the garlic noodles. Like I said, it's just. It's so, so tasty. It's not overly spicy. It's it's not overly, like, oily or greasy. Couple dishes are, but it's just really, really savory and delicious.

Ed 00:14:09 Yeah, well, it's on my list to eat more every time I have it, I like it.

Ed 00:14:13 And then I don't go back for six months, so my bad. So I got to give you props for for being into Burmese food.

Greg 00:14:19 Yeah. And it's also a guy. One of the guys in my office is Burmese two, and he eats at this restaurant, so that's like a solid thumbs up.

Ed 00:14:25 There you go. There you go. Well, well, mine also are not going to be in any particular order. but I eat a lot of Lebanese. I don't know what to call it, because a lot of Mediterranean slash Arab slash Israeli food is very similar, but I eat a lot of, Lebanese food. And here's the interesting thing. When I when I lived back in Ohio, there was a Lebanese place near where I live that I really liked. it was like one of my regular things. So I was quite familiar with falafel and hummus and totally taboo and stuff. But I got to say, when I went to, Lebanese restaurants here in Bangkok, it's better here. Like, really? Like.

Ed 00:15:07 Yeah. Like it. It's not bad in the suburbs of Cleveland. It's not bad, but but damn, it's like I just I like when I first went to Lebanese food here, I just like I just love it. And so now there's 3 or 4 different places that I know. And it's not always like per se, Lebanese. Sometimes it's quote unquote Israeli, but it's, you know, it's again, it's not that different. and it's also very vegetarian friendly. And I just think Bangkok has fantastic Middle-Eastern food. Again, whatever you want to call it, let's just call it Middle Eastern. Bangkok has fantastic Middle Eastern food, and if you happen to want to avoid meat, it's also very vegetarian friendly.

Greg 00:15:46 Still, one of my all time favorite areas to wander around for. Dinner is down at soi three, one 2 or 3 one. Well, So many. Every restaurant there is awesome.

Ed 00:15:55 Well, I mean, it's actually very friendly to meat eaters as well. So it's one of the advantages sometimes when I have a big group of people, I suggest Middle Eastern food because it's it's very meat friendly, you know, with, with like the lamb and stuff like that.

Ed 00:16:09 But it's also it's also very vegetarian friendly.

Greg 00:16:12 Right, right. Well, one other thing that I try to eat often, is something that my son also really, really likes, which is good, but Japanese food. Oh, great. Easy to find healthy Japanese community in Thailand and Bangkok.

Ed 00:16:27 There's a crazy number of Japanese restaurants. I mean, I mean hundreds, you know, my buddy who lives on Tong Lor, who, who is a foodie and goes to restaurants, I think in his phone he has something like 120 Japanese restaurants. It just in like the tong or Akamai, like that whole area around there. It's like little Japan over there.

Greg 00:16:46 It is.

Ed 00:16:46 Yeah, but I mean, there's hundreds.

Greg 00:16:49 Now, I, I will say that I think it's hard to be Japanese food outside of Japan because that's just something about it. It's just so authentic and cool and delicious. Asahi in Japan tastes better than Asahi Beer anywhere else, I'm sure in my experience. But I will say that.

Greg 00:17:07 I mean, I want to shout out one restaurant that I go to a lot and this is on Sukhumvit 39, and it's a ramen restaurant called Bankura.

Ed 00:17:13 Oh, cool.

Greg 00:17:15 and man, it is just I don't know what it is, but it's it's so good. The broth is so thick and the, the one thing that I love and I keep going back for this is on the table. They have a garlic press with like, fat garlic bulbs in a, in a bowl on the table.

Ed 00:17:30 Oh very cool.

Greg 00:17:31 Yeah. So you can press fresh garlic and I don't know man.

Ed 00:17:34 But how do you spell at them. Check. Can you check it out right now.

Greg 00:17:37 Bankura.

Ed 00:17:39 Oh wow. Looks like they have different. Looks like they have different branches.

Greg 00:17:42 They probably do. But that's Sigma 3139 is the one that I know the best. Oh, sweet. And Yeah, just awesome, but great. Great. California rolls, great sushi, Sashimi. And the one thing I love about Japanese food in in Thailand is that it seems to be resistant to the fads.

Greg 00:18:00 And maybe this applies to lots of other food too. But, you know, pizza and hamburgers and all these other restaurants, like, they always have these like Thai style, like you'll have like a green curry pizza or a cheese.

Ed 00:18:12 Right. Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.

Greg 00:18:13 Experiment. Mad scientists. But, you know, Japanese food and probably a lot of other foods, too. They are admirably pure. They resist all these trendy little things.

Ed 00:18:23 That's not a Japanese thing. They're very into authentic. Original. Yeah.

Greg 00:18:27 Any Japanese food in Bangkok, I think is, like you said, it's probably pretty. Pretty authentic.

Ed 00:18:32 It's probably the best Japanese food outside of Japan. there's so many Japanese here. it's funny you mentioned that place on on 39, so I don't know that place, but I'm going to give a shout out to a place called Masu machi Masu machi, which is also on soi 39. It's just a sushi bar, but I'm going to give them a shout out because they have killer vegetarian sushi.

Ed 00:18:56 so, I do, so I don't eat it enough. So Japanese food is not in my top three, but I do like, Masu maki.

Greg 00:19:04 Oh, absolutely. I'm looking at a map, and I see it there. Okay.

Ed 00:19:06 Yeah, I'm 39 for sure. All right. what else do I eat? So I eat Lebanese food. and again, this is not an order. I eat a lot of Italian food. And again, this comes from, where I grew up. I grew up on the east side of Cleveland, and I. And I'm Catholic. Or when I, when I was younger, I was Catholic, and I just grew up with Italian Americans. Like, those were all my buddies growing up or Italian-American. And, I fell in love with pasta. Like eating. Like eating at my friend's houses, like killer pasta. And, I gotta say, Bangkok has some really good Italian food. I think it's great. and, so. And it's also Italian also happens to be pretty vegetarian friendly since I eat cheese.

Ed 00:19:53 like if you don't eat cheese like Italian is going to be a problem. Yeah. No doubt. But I still eat cheese, so it's very easy to do pasta, you know, just without the meat or without the fish. And, I do, I, I, I just have it a lot. and, there's even a, believe it or not, there's a vegetarian Italian place that I went to in the year 2000. So I'll give a shout out to Govinda. Govinda. Govinda.

Greg 00:20:22 Oh, I've heard that name.

Ed 00:20:24 Govinda on Soi 22. It's nothing super special, but I've been going there for 26 years straight. and it's just solid. And it's a it's Italian vegetarian food. so it has an Indian theme. That's where the vegetarian stuff comes from. But it is Italian food.

Greg 00:20:44 Interesting. I love Italian food. And the joke here is that you and I have been here so long. You know, back in the day, when we first got here, 25 years ago, international food was basically pizza.

Greg 00:20:55 There are a couple sushi restaurants here and there, but I wouldn't call them terribly authentic. There was nothing crazy. No one was pushing boundaries, so it was pretty, pretty staid.

Ed 00:21:05 I don't know. I mean, that might be. It's hard to say. I mean, in 2000, Bangkok was already an international city. We were just young and poor.

Greg 00:21:13 Okay, you know.

Ed 00:21:13 What.

Greg 00:21:14 I'm saying? Hard to argue with that.

Ed 00:21:15 You know what I mean? You know what I mean. In 2000 and 2001, I'm sure there was some killer foreign food here, but I agree, like, it's just exploded.

Greg 00:21:24 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man. Like, it wasn't six months ago. They had the the 50 top restaurants in the world, and six of them were in Bangkok.

Ed 00:21:32 That's right.

Greg 00:21:33 Yeah. And I happened to stop at Opium Bar the other night, which was at the top of Potong restaurant in Chinatown.

Ed 00:21:40 I thought you said you don't have a social life. Dude, you're a player.

Ed 00:21:42 You're a player.

Greg 00:21:43 It was. It was a work thing. but, you know, Chef Pam is the top female chef in the world, and that's where she is.

Ed 00:21:50 So that's what I'm saying, man. That's what this is like. The best eating city in the world. Yeah, yeah, no doubt about it.

Greg 00:21:57 Yeah. So for my third one, I mean, it's nothing crazy, but Indian food, man.

Ed 00:22:03 Well, dude, I'm going to say the same thing so we can just kind of we can just kind of go out raving.

Greg 00:22:07 We'll finish on the same topic.

Ed 00:22:08 We're just going to go out raving about the Indian food in Bangkok. In general, it's awesome. But the other cool thing about it is there's a great variety of Indian food. I mean, as most people know, India is a is an insanely huge regional, cuisine. So there's just a lot of variation. And there's tons of Indian people in Bangkok also historically. So I just don't mean like Indian tourists.

Ed 00:22:32 I mean, Bangkok has old Indian communities, so there's just a rich culture. So if you're into if you're into northern Indian food, southern Indian food, Bangla food, like whatever your angle is, you can find it in Bangkok.

Greg 00:22:47 And I gotta say, man, I think Indian food, the benchmark for excellence is kind of flipped from other places. So I think the more out of the way the dingy or the smaller and the more hole in the wall. This place is so funny, the better the food is going to be. So right around the corner for me. there's a hole in the wall place.

Ed 00:23:09 Oh, I've been there.

Greg 00:23:10 Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's just called Indian food. And it's it's. And it actually is funny. When they first opened up, the sign said Indian food ain't so funny. But then they changed it after a while. But, you know, it's it's so good and it's just a tiny little place. And I've seen in the kitchen, I don't want to see in the kitchen the second time.

Greg 00:23:29 Yeah. You know, you're right. But, you know, it's funny. A couple years ago I was at the, you know, name drop here. I was at the Canadian ambassador's house for some dinner or something. And I was sitting next to an Indian woman who was with the Indian Chamber of Commerce or something, and we were talking about Indian food. And I said, oh, I love this place on on the Khan. And she was like, oh, I know that place. I don't it's not very good.

Ed 00:23:49 Oh, funny.

Greg 00:23:50 I sort of got offended. I was like.

Ed 00:23:51 Yeah, you're.

Greg 00:23:51 Right. Well, who the hell are you to tell me what I don't like? Like. No, I like that food. And that's what I'm gonna stick with. I think it's great.

Ed 00:23:57 That's right, that's right. Well, I mean, especially, like when, when people are talking about their own cuisine, they can be very, like, very picky, you know, like, very precise about it.

Greg 00:24:08 And another place that I went to, I remember a few years ago and actually my wife was there and she's not a huge, non Thai food eater like most Thais or not, but she and she's not a massive Indian food fan, but she still talks about this place. And actually the other day she just brought it up. I don't even know where it was. My friend Ray brought me to it, Ray and Kevin, and it's sort of like underneath the Sirat Expressway off of Manhasset Road down by Charing Krung. It's like impossible to find.

Ed 00:24:36 Oh, shit.

Greg 00:24:37 And it's just a tiny little dingy place. But, man, they have the best food. It was so good. So I think Indian places flip the script. When you go to go to a sushi place, you want a nice, clean, well-lit place, right? Indian food. My advice is, the smaller, the weirder looking, the better.

Ed 00:24:52 Well, it's funny, I get I get carryout to my house, Indian food a lot, and it's funny.

Ed 00:24:58 I was ordering from a place for years, but I never I never went there. I never even knew what it looked like. I just found it on grab. And then, I happened to be in the neighborhood, and I walked down this, soi. And it was exactly like you said, like I've been ordering from there for years, and it's just a tiny, shitty hole in the wall, right? It looks like a family, you know? It's got, like, kids running around it. It looks like an Indian lady's kitchen.

Greg 00:25:25 Exactly.

Ed 00:25:26 I've been ordering from them for years. I thought it was like a like a proper restaurant. It is a restaurant, but it's like barely. It's basically a family. It's like a it's like a ladies kitchen, like down a side. Soi.

Greg 00:25:38 That's awesome. That's probably the best Indian food in the area. Yeah.

Ed 00:25:42 Well, I gotta say, I mean, I, I agree with you, but I have been to some of those, more famous Indian places.

Ed 00:25:49 what's the what's that? What's it called, A wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Mahal is great. Like wrong Mahal is expensive. It's like on every tourist map. It's like. It's like the. It's been voted the best Indian restaurant, at least in the past. But, actually, there were, there was a window in Thailand where I was eating meat. I came here as a vegetarian. I went back to eating meat for like ten years, and then I went back to being vegetarian. But I went to wrong mahal in my meat eating days. Dude, it. I almost died. Like. Like I almost had a I almost went into a coma. I went into a coma, dude, after eating at that place. So, But you're right. I would say cheap Indian food is way better than you think it would be.

Greg 00:26:34 Yes, yes, that's a very good way to put it. Totally. Yeah.

Ed 00:26:37 All righty. So, we're not, you know, this show.

Ed 00:26:39 We're not dissing Thai food. Like I would say, I never really answered the question. I would say I'm more like a one half to two thirds Thai. So you seem to be like a one third to one half Thai food guy, So I'm a little bit more. Probably two meals a day is usually Thai, but man, Italian, Indian, Lebanese. I mean, it's not the only other stuff I eat, but those are my go to. So I think we're in we're in food heaven.

Greg 00:27:07 We are. We're spoiled, we're lucky. And I think, yeah, a lot of people in the West would be like, oh, you live in Thailand. The Thai food is so good. It's my favorite food. It is, you know, they're they're.

Ed 00:27:15 Right.

Greg 00:27:16 They're.

Ed 00:27:16 Right.

Greg 00:27:16 Not wrong. You're not wrong. But man, you can't beat a good samosa from the hole in the wall place next to next to the tire store.

Ed 00:27:23 I'm with you, man. I'm with you 100, 100%.

Ed 00:27:25 100%.

Greg 00:27:27 Yeah. All right, let's get into some love to live with where one of us picks a particular aspect of living in Bangkok, which we discussed to decide if it's something that we love about living here, loathe about living here, or have come to accept, is something that we just have to learn to live with, no matter how we feel about it. And editor this week it's your turn on the hot seat. But quickly before you start. We got an interesting comment this afternoon from from Chris on on discord. And he said, has there ever been a true loathe for love, loathe, or live with? They have to change it to love or live with.

Ed 00:27:57 Well, that's a good point. it's a good point. I think we have had some lows, but we there tends to be a lot of live with just because, like, we're in a situation that like, we've adapted to it, right?

Greg 00:28:11 Yeah, we've had some definite hard lows. But my my answer actually, I said the problem is that it's supposed to encourage discussion and it's pointless to pick something that's objectively love or objectively loathe.

Greg 00:28:22 Like we wouldn't pick going to Chang Watson to to get your work permit. Like, do you live that? Obviously it's going to be like, yeah, or mango sticky rice because obviously you're going to love that. So there's no discussion there. So we have to try and pick something that's in the middle that will cause us to.

Ed 00:28:35 Talk, you know, like taxi drivers that won't go where you want to go. That's a loathe. Like it's just so. You're right. There's just nothing. No one's going to go. Well, I kind of like that when the guy, you know, I.

Greg 00:28:45 Love paying more to get lost.

Ed 00:28:47 but it's a good point, though. We should throw in. Okay, but I'll. take this to heart. We should throw in some. It's. It's okay to be a little bit, obviously. And you and I do disagree sometimes. So there are some things that one of us might loathe. And you might be like, well, it's not that bad.

Greg 00:29:01 So Big Lebowski, not a fan.

Ed 00:29:04 Shocking, shocking. You're not a fan of Big Lebowski.

Greg 00:29:07 All right. Would you love those a little bit okay.

Ed 00:29:09 This is a little bit specific. And I almost let the cat out of the bag on the bonus show, but I decided to save it for this. I love or live with. And, this has to do with, how do I summarize it? Okay. It has to do with the Thai government's habit of basically having a lot of holidays and especially kind of ad hoc, oh, we're going to make a national holiday out of this. And like, this has been driving me crazy this semester at my job. And, you know, obviously everyone who works a job, you have a schedule, you have a calendar. But I gotta say, if you're at a school, if you're at a university, like, the calendar really matters. Like, I have a syllabus. I have a certain amount of material I have to cover.

Ed 00:29:57 I have x number of hours. I have to teach in order to get paid. And so this year I, you know, I bet on my university 17 years, this has been the worst semester ever for like holidays and breaks and like oh wow, weird and cancellations. So basically because of the floods that high government just declared, oh, this day is going to be a holiday. And that means like there's like no classes. I'm like, oh, University shut down. Right. and then this week to bring it to a to make my point, this week there's an IMF world Bank summit in Bangkok, and practically half the city is shut down. It's the strangest thing ever. Like, my entire university is has no classes at all in person because of the IMF thing.

Greg 00:30:45 And the other side of the city.

Ed 00:30:47 I know there's not even a meeting at my university. It's like. What? And they just closed. They. Okay. We're not closing. So I had to teach online.

Ed 00:30:53 And I hate teaching to like webcams. I hate it all because of the IMF thing. And they just say some like lame excuse, like, oh, some officers from the university are going to this thing, or there's going to be bad traffic because this is a big international meeting and students will have a tough time getting to university. It's unbelievable.

Greg 00:31:12 Dude, I got to work this morning in record time. There's no traffic.

Ed 00:31:16 It's the limit. Okay. So essentially it's it's it's I guess it's kind of a combined question. One issue is just the fact that there's just a lot of holidays. And then the other thing is this ad hoc, like, oh, we have to shut down like, oh, like there's a Covid comeback. I guess we have to like, shut. Okay, everyone has to work for home. It's this, I don't know, it's this weird proclivity to, like, declare holidays and shut things down. Like, that's the best way I can. You can probably.

Ed 00:31:47 You can probably tell what my opinion is going to be on this.

Greg 00:31:50 Well, this is a very good example of the thing I just said, the comment from Chris. So I love it. I mean, I'm more power to me, but I see your point of view because when I was teaching, I was surprised at how finely sliced those hours are. Like, you've got 60 hours and you need all of them. Well, they.

Ed 00:32:08 They declare a holiday. Like if someone sneezes, it drives me crazy. And it's so funny because it's so funny when I, when I hear myself saying this. Because at no time in my life have I ever been a workaholic, no one who's ever known me has confused me for a workaholic.

Greg 00:32:25 Like, put down the pencil, come out and have fun.

Ed 00:32:27 Yeah, no, I am, I am just I'm not that guy. Like, you know, you know, I had long hair in high school. I'm like a chill, like, relaxed dude.

Ed 00:32:35 Like, I like most of my friends, like, I. Okay, my summer job was like being a lifeguard. Like sitting there, like twirling my whistle. Like, while my buddies were, like, working, like, quote unquote.

Greg 00:32:46 Real cream on your nose.

Ed 00:32:48 That's right. You know. but it just it just drives me crazy. All these freaking holidays. So I again, these words sound weird coming out of my mouth, but I loathe these freaking holidays. Like, Jesus Christ, can we, like, stick to a schedule? Like, you know, I it's like, I want to. Okay, like, two weeks off a year, like. But I feel like in the ties schedule, there's about two months of holidays. That's in Thailand. There's about two months of days off. If you add all the pretend like last minute. Oh, we better shut down like the whole city. You know, someone important is coming.

Greg 00:33:22 I love him because it doesn't really affect my job.

Greg 00:33:25 And also my job is something where like if I need to pick up a few hours at home, it's pretty easy to do.

Ed 00:33:29 So I'm a.

Greg 00:33:31 Love. Bring them on. Don't, don't don't bother me at all.

Ed 00:33:33 It's a coincidence that we haven't satisfied that guy Chris. But that's a genuine load for me.

Greg 00:33:39 Genuine love. Bring him on more holidays, please.

Ed 00:33:41 Okay, a final thanks. You're wrong. By the way, a final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm fuzzy feeling knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. Where Bangkok podcast on social media Bangkok podcast. Com on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages. Unless, of course, you're a PR agent who pitches clients who have no connection to Bangkok.

Greg 00:34:15 That's right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube, send us a voicemail through our website, and we'll feature that on the show.

Greg 00:34:20 Find me on blue Sky. I'm BK Greg. Thank you for listening everyone, and see you back here next week for sure.