We were such rookies. It didn’t take much to get us off our game. After all, I suppose it was just a Thai version of a Korean BBQ, but I gots to tell yaz…. we sucked. All it took was a language failure and something not usual, which was the place that were planning to go to was closed for a holiday and we went to an all you can eat buffet.

Do we seat ourselves? Where do with sit? Do we commit to stay? Luckily, as we just wandered in, and a nice young fellow took care of us. Once seated he showed us a menu with only three pictures and no words. But I cut in and said (in Thai) I’d like a beer with two glasses with ice. He said “Chang or Leo, “Diane said “Chang”. Way to go Diane! She knows her Thai beer brands.

So back to the menu with 3 pics and no words. They semi-looked like 3 pagodas. The one on the right looked like it could cook meat. At this point I’m lost. To all my experienced Korean BBQ peeps…. I’m sorry! Dang it I’m just lost, so I picked the one that looked semi recognizable.  No English was ever spoken, it was obvious he only spoke Thai, though later he said ‘follow me’

He said, ‘one’? referring to the 3 pagodas. We seemed confused, but I doubled down ‘one’. With a slight roll of the eyes, he was off. Ok, beer ordered plus a pagoda … he motioned us to follow… oh for f sake… it was like going off to the principal’s office. He showed us a room full of raw meats and vegetables…. So ‘self serve’, I’m beginning to catch on. We grabbed some shrimp, and then a plastic thingy of beef slices and a bucket of vegetables.

When we returned to the table, we had a bucket of hot coals and a thingy to put over the top of it. But fortunately, a large Chang beer, unopened and no glasses. I was confused with the beer situation. It was imperative so we could survive that night. Luckily our ‘waiter’ was catching on to our skill at eating food and and drinking liquid then said his only words in English for the nite.. “Follow me” . Cool ‘ I will follow’ we went to the corner of the restaurant dedicated to plastic cups, ice, and as I learned later from a skilled 8 year old ‘…Ice cream.

 Plastic glasses filled with Ice,, I return to the table, poured some beer and assume I should put the thingy on the fire thingy… but ‘our guy’ jumped in and accomplished it. Diane and I struggled for 45 minutes and were able to each consume 20 calories every 12 minutes. We were so lame the manager came over and motioned she’d have the coals ‘re-upped’. At the this point the waiter and I were beginning to find comradery and he laughed along with us as we failed over and over at trying to feed ourselves.

In the end, we really needed at least 2 types of grills, and the one I picked was most… not agreeable to cooking food. As I looked around, I wanted the grill looking one and the soup making one. Note: The attached photo I did not take. It was a stock photo of what I should have done. A ‘real’ pic of our table would be NSFW 🙂

We were laughing out loud and making fun of ourselves, the two farangs in the corner… failing.

It was truly fun and delicious. Since we were using our chop sticks to move around food on the grill and eating with them.I suspect food safety was not followed, but I suspect also that we will not die. We will get better at this. In order to get enough calories in us I sheepishly grabbed a small plate of French fries.

We vowed to return and walk in like a couple of Texans into a rodeo and show ‘em how folks from Seattle rock a table grill. Hopefully our waiter will have the night off so no one will know