Rasseru

As some of you know, I am presently in cold and wet Farawayland . . . It is really heart warming to read something like this, reminding me why I moved to the Land of Smiles

Unless I am badly mistaken, Priceless, I believe that now is about the time many people awake and rise from their beds in your faraway land. Perhaps you are dragging yourself bleary-eyed from slumberland even as I write this note to you. Since you enjoyed at least some of the earlier parts of this topic, I thought I would tell you that today, as I looked at Doi Suthep, her head shrouded in clouds, I could have sworn that I saw hurry-home drops on her cheeks. They could have been meant only for you, so on behalf of Doi Suthep, as well as the rest of us, please do hurry home.

This is so perfect! I can recite here my favourite poem of all time. It's called Crow Tyrannosaurus and reading it always makes a good day even better:

Creation quaked voices --

It was a cortege

Of mourning and lament

Crow could hear and he looked around fearfully.

The swift's body fled past

Pulsating

With insects

And their anguish, all it had eaten.

The cat's body writhed

Gagging

A tunnel

Of incoming death-struggles, sorrow on sorrow.

And the dog was a bulging filterbag

Of all the deaths it had gulped for flesh and the bones.

It could not digest their screeching finales.

Its shapeless cry was a blort of all those voices.

Even man he was a walking

Abattoir

Of innocents --

His brain incinerating their outcry.

Crow thought "Alas

Alas ought I

To stop eating

And try to become the light?"

But his eye saw a grub. And his head, trapsprung, stabbed.

And he listened

And he heard

Weeping

Grubs grubs He stabbed he stabbed

Weeping

Weeping

Weeping he walked and stabbed

Thus came the eye's

roundness

the ear's

deafness.

Oh, well, there are worse things in life than being taught a little humility! ' Although, for the life of me, I cannot think now what those worse things might be.

Yes, not having a cappuccino at all

Yes! Thank you, sbk! I was so distracted for a moment there, that I lost all perspective.

Puts me in mind of the cappuccinoes I'm going to go make now ...

Enjoy your cappuccini As far as I'm concerned, my coffee machine is still on strike

Cappuccini, cappuccinos!! Now let's not make Razzzzzarooo feel too humiliated by his lack of spelling ability. I had instant.

I envy you your instant spelling ability. I'm trying my hardest to think that the day has been made even better by the glee I have induced in you over my sad error. In the thought that it might enhance your joy, I will quote here from my own private message replying to yours of earlier this morning, in which you first hooped and hawed over my deeply embarrassing screwup: 'Thank you for that correction. You will not be surprised, I think, to learn that I puzzled over the formation of that plural, which was not given in the dictionary I consulted. I decide to wing it, and fall flat. Oh, well, there are worse things in life than being taught a little humility! ' Although, for the life of me, I cannot think now what those worse things might be.

Enjoy your cappuccini

Thank you. I was trying, yet again, to write in proper English, but fell badly short, as our friend Mr Bill has pointed out.

I'm with you, M Hulot, and thanks for the images! I just woke up, after nine - count 'em, nine! - hours of beautiful, solid sleep, to the most gorgeous of mornings. Nearly the same spectacular range of colours in the clouds as yesterday, but far fewer of them, and the broad swathes of blue are delicious. In the bright sunlight, the swollen muddy Ping looks like chocolate. Puts me in mind of the cappuccinoes I'm going to go make now . . . Yay! New day!

The day that started so beautifully ended beautifully too. Delicious Italian dinner with fabulous wine, shared pleasantly with three people very close to me and a fourth person brought by two of the others (their grownup son), whom I met for the first time, all of which began after a downpour began and continued until well after the downpour finished, making possible two-wheeled travel in both directions in mostly dry conditions. Yippee!

Well, I'm very happy I started this topic. One reason is, it has been a pleasure (really) following eek and Tywais through their wandering chat about about birds. Oh, those old goalposts just keep moving . . .

What a beautiful day it is today in Chiangmai. The sky is full of clouds, ranging from white to deep grey, with very occasional breaks through to the blue beyond. It's bright, cool, fresh and quiet. Quite delightful.

Or at least, so I think.

What do you all think about it?

Everything I always do, including get around by scooter, but with a raincoat in the open air.

Where is Camedara please?

I assume you mean Comedara. If you go east over the Nakhonping Bridge and turn right at the intersection with traffic lights, you will find it on the right side of the road about fifty or sixty meters from the intersection.

Comedara is one of my favourites.

I am glad the event was held where it was, and not at the U.S. consulate. I hope the same is true next year.

If I might expand this topic slightly (with no intention of hijacking it, and apologies if it is perceived that way), I would appreciate hearing any recommendations for doctors to see here in Chiangmai about pain in one's joints, which I have started experiencing in the last few months.

Welcome to Chiangmai, Doppa. I'm still sitting on Kata Beach, and loving it, but heading back to Chiangmai (which I also love) today.

Please note that under our forum rules, which have everything to do with the very strict Thai libel laws, the naming and shaming of persons or companies is not allowed on the open forum. So keep the name of the restaurant out of the discussion.

That's very odd. I have seen any number of topics in which restaurants and other places have been negatively criticised, and this is the first time I have seen a name of one of them removed. In any case, I trust that there would be nothing wrong with my asking PostmanPat to share the name of the restaurant with me in a private message, and so I hereby ask you, PostmanPat, to do so. Thanks.

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Oxon. I will give it a try. And fear not, I am sure that one of these days you will hit on the not-so-elusive formula for attracting outrageous comments to a food topic and having it be brought again and again to the top of the list . . .

And I'm happy with that because it was planned, known and agreed in advance by all parties. The implications of the earlier post are that Thai agents and Thai wives combine to plot these things without the knowledge of the farang husband.

Like you, I doubt whether that happens.

You read this opening and (surely?) can't help but feel that what follows will be a string of damning negatives. Other than the comment that "the orange juice came from a carton" (oh, the horror ).......... there aren't any . . .

That is simply not true, Steve2UK. Oneman went on, in the middle of some of the 'non-negatives' you quoted, to make this point:

.

. . . But it is nothing special.

Nothing you can't get at about 50 other restaurants in Chiangmai at the same hour of the day.

Certainly nothing to merit the gushing review in the OP on this thread.

It may not be quite strong enough to qualify as a 'damning negative' of the kind you were expecting, but it is an important point, and was the core point that Oneman was writing to make, I think. I thought his review was quite fairly presented, and I appreciate his posting it.

Having said that, Oneman made what I think was a mistake in going to this restaurant for breakfast. If I were interested in a restaurant based on the reputation of its principal chef, I would certainly not go there in the morning, at least not unless I knew for certain that the chef was in the kitchen at that time. I would expect the principal chef of a restaurant to be responsible for its dinners and, perhaps, lunches, but not to be there first thing in the morning making breakfasts as well.

I appreciate Oneman's report on his experience, but this man has the final word on what he likes, and this man still intends to visit and check it out for himself one of these days.

In the meantime, he would still very much like to know, with the help of Annabel or anyone else, if what is served there as coq au vin really is.

. . . I can also recommend his Coq au Vin....very, very good !!! . . .

Is it real coq au vin, made with a tough old rooster who has been cooked for hours and hours to make him soft and tender and tasty? I was recently shamed, on this very forum, over this very issue. After having raved about the coq au vin at another restaurant in town, I later learned, to my chagrin, and from a real Frenchman on top of that - meaning he would know better than the colonial peasant type I was forced to see that I in fact was! - that what I had been raving about was something quite different, something that, for lack of a better term, I have taken to calling 'hen au vin' and that, as you may guess from that awkward term, is made, not from a rooster (I am tempted to use the French term here, but it would, I am afraid, begin to sound a little salacious) but a hen (don't have enough knowledge even to make a choice between using the English and French words), and a young and tender one at that. This dish talked the talk of coq au vin, and fooled me, but it did not walk the walk, as it were.

So, Khun Annabel, do you know and will you share?

(I should perhaps mention that I have every intention of going to check out the restaurant soon, regardless of what your answer is, but I am curious.)

One thing is for sure : in the future I will only buy books at Gecko Books.

Shouldn't be a problem at all, as that is pretty nearly all one can do there.

Just curious, is "serine" an alternative spelling for "serene"?

No, it's a typo. My curiosity now, does 'serenading' a person give that person 'serenity'?

. . . And from the times I've met you, I must admit you do not look like a scorpion. . .

In my earlier days, going way back to before I ever met you, I suppose I must have borne a slightly closer resemblance than I do now, carrying, as I then did, some twenty fewer kilograms on my frame! (On the other hand, I did have hair on my head then, which would somewhat detract, I think, from whatever other points of resemblance there might have been.)

I think, Khun Nienke, you are misreading what I took to be nothing more than some amusing playfulness about the fact that these were the only dishes actually described by Khun Annabel in her review.

Rasseru, why do you get upset about something that wasn’t addressed at you?

I haven't eaten there yet either. I don't know enough myself to value Khun Annabel's opinions about food, but I liked her enthusiasm and I do value your opinions about people (even though, or perhaps precisely because, you value dogs above humans). And with that, one last

Rasseru, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzze!

It’s not the first time that you mention that. I do remember quite clearly when and under what circumstances you said it the first time.

Are you a scorpion, btw?

Ruuuuffff! Ruff! Ruff! . . . .

My goodness, Nienke, and there I was trying to be nice! What on earth happened? Let's see, beginning at the beginning, no, I was not upset, really, not at all. I was just making an honest comment. Next, I'm not sure what the 'pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzze' is about. I may have mentioned it before, and as you say you remember when I did and so on, I'm ready to believe I did. But I don't remember. Was it something that upset you then? Now? Wasn't meant to be, and if it came across that way, I'm sorry. Actually, I meant it as a positive thing, a good thing. I mean, I know I did this time. Since I have no memory of the earlier time that you remember, I have no idea what my intention was then (but it is hard for me to think that it was bad). Finally, no, I am not a scorpion, not in the ordinary sense of the word that I know (but then you know that, so I guess you must be using the word in some way I don't know).

. . . I don't understand what business it is of Joe Blow forum reader to get all resentful about something that should not bother them one way or another.

Can anyone explain that?

I think Joe Blow is only rarely, if ever, involved, and that the answer lies elsewhere in your analysis.