Sorry, that one no have

Posted by admin on July 7th, 2007 filed in tourist tips, Living here

You don’t have to be in Chiang Mai long to discover that restaurants often run out of things or don’t have them. It gets frustrating when every fourth meal you order is ‘no have today’ until you realise that menus here are simply a list of dishes they can make rather than, definitely have.

Such is life in Thailand, you simply accept that nothing is perfect and opt for choice number two or even three. Mai pen rai. Perhaps its because locals have rather predicatable taste and will follow the crowd, which means that 2 out of every 3 dishes ever ordered in a Thailand restaurant will invariably be Tom Yum Goong. It is to Thais what Roast beef dinner is to the English or Swiss Steak dinners are to Americans.  Guide to Chiang mai restaurants.

The restaurant business here takes on a whole new meaning. Priorities are different. The cook and recipes are important (naturally) and Thais will have a far more subtle and fussy judgement on Thai food than we will, proclaiming a certain hole in wall ‘aroy’ (tasty) and packing it out while a nice looking professional place with hygienic kitchens and smart waitresses will be ‘mai aroy’ and shunned. A popular restaurant will have the upmost attention to detail on music (usually a soft minstrel in the corner), décor (lots of antique rustic furniture and plants with endless water features of impossibly impractical design) and waitresses (beer company promo ladies in skin tight mini dresses or whisky hostesses in smart tunics). Then there are the menus, which are usually hand painted customised works of art commissioned from design students. But when it comes to provisioning or actual kitchen management they are hopeless.

Being an experienced restaurantuer here is the last thing considered when opening up an eating place in Chiang Mai. They’ll copy foreign menus and charge foreign prices bt not have a clue about bringing the food out in the correct order. Rice will be plonked on the table and left to go cold 20 minutes before the food arrives. Starters arrive after or with the main course and, if you aren’t doing it the Thai way and sharing all the dishes, expect some people to receive their food when others are long finished.

Such is the ways of eating in Thailand. You can’t blame them, for there is no formal restaurant training, expectations from the public are forgiving even in posh places and the Thai approach meals in an altogether more relaxed and patient manner. Unfortunately more and more of the clientele are flush foriegners and the restarant owners just don’t get it, even with the simplist of things.

The biggest problem, as I mentioned above, is running out of things. For sure the places are cheap so don’t expect them to cover all sorts of fresh ingredients that might not last and go to waste. It’s a shame this doesn’t improve however as the price increases. I guess it happens to me more than most because I always favour the unique but less popular items as a change from the usual spicy choices. It’s so disappointing to come across something rare on a menu and then be told it’s not available.

Of course, waitresses here are no more than people who ferry orders to the kitchen and food back to the tables, they’re idle little cherubs who make no effort to find out what specials are available (for that you can look at the specials board at the entrance) or what is out of stock. There is little they can tell you about the dishes they are serving, if they are vegetarian, contain msg and so on. So, inevitably they take your order and return a few mintues later with a message from the cook that ‘sorry that one no have today’, which means mai pen rai order something else. Chances are they won’t have it the next day for it wouldn’t have registered with anyone to go off shopping for missing things.

Then there is the classic, which has happened twice to me with thunderous reaction, where they take an order then return a full 20 minutes later just as your guests are getting their meal, to inform you that your order is not available today. Why 20 minutes you ask? Well, I later figured out it’s because they send someone out to the market to find the missing ingredients only to return 20 minutes later without success, so you’re asked to order something else which will take an additional 20 minutes to order mai pen rai.

Now, in most restaurants around the world, you would walk out at this point in disgust. Not here, that would be rude and unfair, you simply smile in the best Thai way, share some of your guests food and wait patiently for the extra dish to arrive by which time you’ve lost your apetite. It would never occur to them that this is unsatisfactory.

And if you thought that was disorganised, try asking for the bill. It always astonishes me that often they take longer to tally up the bill than to prepare the food. More waiting, with nothing to do but stare at the table. Mai pen rai. Eventually they arrive with a series of slips each with an individual round of orders scribble on them and even then only the owner or proprietor retains the authority to deal with the bill, so if she’s busy everyone waits until eventually she shows up, ignors all the slips, looks at all the empty dishes, queries what you had, pulls out her trusty calculator and then scribbles an arbitrary figure on the wad of notes, circling it in finality. Usually it’s wrong but still cheap so you pay and wait another 15 minutes because they have no change.

Eating here is all about the food, friends and atmosphere, the rest is all trivial no matter how time consuming, disorganised or unprofessional.  Guide to Thai etiquette