A Culinary Cabaret*

I am in Thailand, at the beach in Hua Hin, which is on the western side of the Gulf of Thailand. It’s quite gorgeous here, with beautiful beaches and shady palm trees. The highlight of my time in Hua Hin has not been, however, my time spent on the beach, but my time spent at restaurants. In fact, most of my time in Thailand in general revolves around eating. My mother makes plans to meet a friend for lunch, and since traffic is so bad in Bangkok, we leave two hours before she arranged to meet her. Once we’re all met up, we eat a spectacular lunch, and, since we don’t have time to go home before our dinner appointment, we shop around until its time for yet another meal. Even our time in Hua Hin, which is purely our own (no lunches or dinners with friends), has been based around food. What should we do for lunch? Where shall we go for dinner? Do you want to go get mangoes and sticky rice?

I don’t mind making food the focal point of our trip. Thailand is, after all, known for its exquisite cuisine, and it would be a shame to let a little thing like my caloric intake get in the way of eating as much of my favorite foods as possible. And at Hua Hin, all my favorite things seem to be right here, in one town. Well, all my favorite sea food, at least. I adamantly refuse to eat sea food in the United States. Call me a food snob, but what little sea food I have eaten Stateside never, ever, compares to what is available in Thailand. One might say, “Well, you are from Ohio,” but I have sampled lobster, crab, etc, in states that are not completely landlocked. And my verdict remains the same: Thailand has the best sea food. Period.

Last night, we went to a small restaurant right on the pier, with seating out over the water. As it got dark, we could see the green lights of the squid boats as well as the highly lit naval destroyers that guard the King’s summer palace (he happens to be there right now, which explains the presence of the destroyers). Our order closely resembled what we’d been eating every night: spicy steamed squid, deep fried fish (no breading though, which makes it a million times better than fried fish in the States), mussels, and 2 kilos of crab. I’m fairly certain all this came right out of the ocean we were sitting on, and it all tasted great. Our waiter even made fun of us for ordering so much crab, but we ate all of it and wiped that smile off his face.

I comfort myself with the fact that sea food doesn’t have that many calories, and if this isn’t true, please don’t tell me. Besides, I’m only in Hua Hin, only in Thailand, once a year, so I might as well indulge.

* I should confess that the title for this post came from the song “Be Our Guest,” from Beauty and the Beast. I’d hate to take credit for creativity that I do not in fact possess.