TallGuyJohninBKK

You want to pick air purifiers for starters based on the size of the living area/areas you need to filter the air for... An enclosed room is gonna be self contained and probably work with a single consumer type unit. But if you have a large open plan living area without a lot of segregated spaces, then multiple units are the likely path.... The standard room size units here can be bought pretty affordably, particularly the Sharp, Hatari, Toshiba and Xiaomi models... But if you start trying to shop for like a whole house very large capacity single purifier, you're gonna be shelling out big baht, AFAIK.

This is ours.. paid around 3300b for it originally here.. Sized for a room up to about 18-20 square meters, I believe.

I have a similar model from Sharp. And it's been performing like a trooper in our main bedroom the past couple years. Sharp HEPA replacement filters are available in BKK from a local Sharp affiliated supplier. The HEPA filters are supposed to last a year or so. But I put a layer of Honeywell pre-filter material inside the back of my Sharp unit between the HEPA filter and the units own back cover prefilter. And although I have to clean both prefilters every month or so, as a result of the prefilters, the current core HEPA filter is now going well into year 2.

Ouch! That makes the RL versions from Maine seem like a bargain! BTW, I did have the vague feeling that somewhere along its coast Thailand had a lobster industry... But I don't think those are a big item among the locals, especially at those prices!

Interesting... RL online in the U.S. for Los Angeles is selling their whole live Maine lobster dinner for almost $40 U.S. (not including local sales tax and tip) The (presumably, though they don't give you any weights on the lobster here) same dinner here is priced at 1,350b before tax and tip, which equates to about $41 U.S.

Were the starter freebie biscuits unlimited at the RL in KL, or just like a single opening basket? PS - You might think given that the Thailand branch's entrees primarily are 1100 to 1600 baht ++ range, that they could be a bit more generous with their biscuits! ???? PPS - It looks like the standard practice at the US branches is to provide TWO biscuits for free with each entree, and then pay for extra after that. So Thailand's being a bit more stingy! From the RL US website:

Kinda half right and half wrong... Here at the Thailand outlet, they provide ONE biscuit for free with each dinner... So we got those, one apiece. But I also ordered a basket of an additional 4 for us to snack on while we were waiting for our meals. So, AFAICT, the deal there was... If we had just sat down and ordered our dinners only, they wouldn't have provided any biscuits to the table upfront. But they would have brought one with each dinner when they served the dinners... Oddly, they have sets that you can order to go... But in the restaurant, other than the freebies, they only sell them individually at 35b a pop.

As I noted in my review above, I referred to RL as a "common man's" seafood chain, which I think is suitable... That notwitstanding, their US Angus ribeye steak was excellent... and their lobster was a treat from the U.S. that I've missed for more than a decade.... I guess I should ask...if anyone knows... is there any kind of Thailand bred lobster industry? If so, how do they taste, and how are they priced? I generally don't eat Thai seafood period, so I've never gone down that road. PS - You may recall, Taco Bell of all places got tons of reviews and writeups when one of the Thai hi-so families launched their first Taco Bell outlets here.... It based on that "taste from home" novelty factor, not whether such places have earned Michelin stars... ????

Tops, at least the more upscale Food Hall versions, also have lately been selling Coles brand 100% natural peanut butter 375g jars from Australia for around 140-150 baht. Nothing but 100% organic peanuts. I've been using it lately, and it's quite good, though does requiring some initial stirring to blend the surface peanut oil with the solids. Prior to that choice, spurred by a breakdown of my home electric food processor, I had been buying 40-45b 500g bags of raw peeled peanuts from Foodland or Lotus supermarkets, baking them in the oven at home, and then using my food processor to grind them into homemade peanut butter... also excellent.

In general, I believe doctors and such generally advise against exclusively drinking distilled water, because as you noted, all minerals are removed in the distilling process... And to the contrary, the human body is used to and expects some mineral level in its water. I boil bottles of Singha brand water in my electric water boiler at home, because I need it boiled/sterilized for a medical purpose, and the Singha water brand -- unlike others here -- leaves no noticeable mineral residue in my water boiler... so presumably its very low on <deleted> (total dissolved solids).

Ouch! And VAT too... I hadn't noticed that.... Thanks for the tipoff... TBH, drinks are NOT their strong suit there.... They could and should do better.

Thailand, specifically in BKK, does have water filtration plants, that begin to clean up water taken from natural sources like the very polluted Chao Phraya River and elsewhere. The problem is what happens after that, as in order to get to you, the water must travel thru a network of old and sometimes leaky underground pipes that allow for comtamination, and then often go into rooftop storage tanks that may not be particularly clean, and then thru house/condo/apartment pipes before finally making it to your faucet. The tap water in BKK is said to be safe to drink, unlike most other places in Thailand. But I don't think many people here do drink the tap water, and instead opt for bottled water or vending machine water, both of which can have their own problems here. Specifically, the operators of the water vending machines have a documented history here of often not properly cleaning and maintaining them with changed filters, meaning the output can be substandard. And some of the refillable large-size bottle water sellers also have a history of putting tap water into their bottles and/or using dirty used bottles.... AFAIK, the supermarket sold 1.5 liter filtered water bottles sold from established major suppliers like Singha, Nestle, Chang, etc are generally clean and safe to drink.

There's a lot of pollution in the air, and AFAIK, when it rains, the rain comes down including elements of that pollution.

fyi, particularly to Americans and those who have lived or stayed there, the popular "common man's" lobster and seafood chain restaurant called Red Lobster has landed in Bangkok, with a new branch opened last fall in the newly rebuilt and reopened Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, a short distance from Asoke BTS, and located at the QSNCC stop on the MRT Blue line. Something I didn't know until I sat down to write this, the Red Lobster chain, although headquartered in Florida and founded in 1968, is no longer American owned and in fact was bought out by a group of investors led by Thai seafood conglomerate Thai Union Group back around 2020, and thus the whole chain is now largely Thai owned! There's a shocker! The chain had about 700 total locations in a recent count, largely in the U.S. but also in various other countries. https://www.thaiunion.com/en/newsroom/press-release/1204/thai-union-investor-group-led-by-international-restaurant-executives-and-red-lobster-management-acquire-red-lobster https://www.facebook.com/redlobsterthailand/ https://coconuts.co/bangkok/food-drink/red-lobster-now-in-bangkok-to-clog-what-remains-of-your-arteries/ The wife and I went there for Valentine's Day dinner the other night, and had a quite pleasant, but expensive, dining experience. They serve whole lobsters imported from the U.S. or a two-lobster tail plate with potato and small salad for around 1,500b++. I had the two lobster tail dinner, while the wife had their imported U.S. Angus Beef Ribeye Steak that was priced at 1450b++. I hadn't eaten any lobster, I think, since I moved to Thailand more than a decade ago, so I enjoyed the taste of something I often used to enjoy long ago dipped in melted butter. And, I tasted a bit of the wife's grilled ribeye steak, and it was GOOD!!! As she noted to me while scarfing it down, very tender and easy to eat, unlike some of the locally sold Thai beef varieties. The bill for the two of us, including some drinks, came to about 4100b, so not something I/we would do every week, but a pleasant special treat. The staff and service was first-rate, including the senior servers who spoke good English. And they had a two for one happy hour on their alcohol and non-alcohol drinks while we were there, though their drinks menu was pretty limited, and unfortunately I believe lacking any imported beers, which seems a strange choice for the restaurant. Frankly, even on Valentine's Day, with most local restaurants packed, the Red Lobster wasn't busy at all when we were there, probably owing largely to their prices. I'm wondering how they're going to remain open after first launching last fall, given that while the QSNCC may have convention type events periodically with international clientele, they're not having them every day. And the whole huge center was pretty empty and unused on the night we were there. I know there's a couple of other lobster-oriented restaurants now open in BKK, including a place called Lobster Lab with a couple branches: https://bk.asia-city.com/restaurants/bangkok-restaurant-reviews/lobster-lab-sala-daeng And another place in Gaysorn Plaza across from Central World -- Burger and Lobster: https://www.burgerandlobster.com/locations/bangkok/gaysorn-village/ Burger and Lobster's lobster prices are even higher than those at Red Lobster, and I'm not sure where they're sourcing their lobsters from. At any rate, here was our check from the night: And here are their menu photos for our two dinner items, which are accurate depictions of what they actually serve: Though keep in mind, to add 17% to their menu prices because of the added 10% service charge and 7% VAT.

These days, I'm eating my burgers via home delivery... and my two favorite places at the moment are... 1. Easy Burger with locations in both OnNut and now Phrom Phong. Dunno what it is, but the ground beef from Easy Burger tastes first-rate to me, and I love their Spicy Fries, topped with sliced jalapenos, banana peppers and cheese sauce. 2. Prime Burger, with the original location at Phrom Phong, and I believe I heard they opened other locations including a new branch in the food court at Central World. Easy Burgers start around 200b for a single beef patty burger solo, and I wanna say Prime Burgers are more expensive starting at around 260b. I tried and wasn't excited by Beast and Butter lately. But was really impressed and pleased with a more expensive, and larger size burger I tried once via Grab from a place called Cast Iron Burgerhaus in the Phahonyothin area.

Ya, AFAIK, NYSSB has been closed for a long while, presumably a victim of the pandemic killing the tourist trade. When they were open pre COVID, they had some quite good, but also pretty expensive, burgers that I often enjoyed.

That's why I generally won't eat any Thai or China sourced seafood.... As Spidermanmike alluded above, with China, you have no idea what you're getting, what they've done to it, or how it's been adulterated. With Thailand, you've got local Pangasius and mass farm grown salmon raised in polluted pens that have been stuffed with antibiotics, fish feed made from fish sh**, and who knows what else, along with a documented past history of the locals adding orange food coloring to their salmon. With fish and seafood especially, you need/want to be able to trust the supply chain. And I just don't here, when it comes to supermarket sold seafood.

I think the local SE Asian pangasius is worse.... by a long distance.

I think there's one or more Au Bon Pain shops in HH???

In BKK, I've lately come across a place on Grab called "Monty's By Roast" -- Roast being the name of a local restaurant -- that has VERY good bagels by my taste. They offer about a half dozen different varieties, including Sesame, Original, Cheddar Cheese and even Chocolate. The individual bagels run 60b apiece. But they also sell bags of 5 for 250b, and I'll typically buy one bag per week of those. I've had the supposed bagels from the local bakeries at Tops and Villa, and don't care for those at all. I've also ordered various versions from Au Bon Pain shops in the past, and liked those quite a bit... though their bagels via Grab run 70 - 80b apiece, with 80b being their price for a very tasty Double Cheddar Jalapeno bagel, along with 85b for a plain bagel with their cream cheese add-on.

Technically, their website says you can only install their app and register for their service if you're in the U.S. or Canada, though a VPN might solve that issue. "TextNow is currently only available to be downloaded and used within the United States and Canada. If you are outside of North America, you will not be able to register for an account through the app or on our website." https://help.textnow.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042529194-Is-TextNow-Available-In-My-Country- Apart from that, there were two past issues with their free service, as opposed to one of their paid tiers, when I used them some years back: 1. They'd tend to cancel your TN phone number for inactivity if you didn't use it to make a call or send an SMS pretty much every month. As a result, they offer a paid Lock in Number tier, which I believe is about $5 A YEAR, whereby they won't spike your number for inactivity: "Purchasing the Lock In Number subscription will allow you to keep your number no matter how much you use it. You will not lose your number due to inactivity and it provides support for receiving verification codes." https://help.textnow.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500003971461 And, alluded to in the last sentence of their support info above, they also at one point restricted their phone numbers ability to receive bank SMS short codes, once again, to customers who were paying for their service. Why do I have to pay for verification codes? "Our mission is to provide everyone with an affordable way to communicate. Because we have access to a limited inventory of phone numbers, we recycle inactive numbers tied to our free WiFi service. If your number is released due to inactivity, you may have issues accessing online accounts tied to that number. By buying Lock In Number (or any of our other subscriptions listed above) you are ensuring that your number will stay on your account even if you don't use it every day." I had this in my TextNow folder on my PC from 2021:

Exactly the same for me... Ting has better mobile data rates and easier data access for when you're actually back in the U.S., vs. the legacy prepaid T-Mobile plan, which is really focused more on limited calling, limited SMS, and wifi calling. Once you have Ting account setup with a U.S. address (upon signup) and establish a monthly billing by some U.S. payment source, the U.S. address is pretty much irrelevant after that. They pretty much don't postal mail anything to you... unless you need a new SIM card at some point in the future.

Every day in the U.S., about 450 people are dying from COVID and another 3500+ are being hospitalized, per the U.S. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html COVID for 2022 was likely to remain one of the top causes of death in the U.S., along with cancer and heart disease. COVID is not such a minor deal for many folks. Per the WHO in their Feb. 15 COVID world update: "Globally, over 6.7 million new cases and over 64 000 deaths were reported in the last 28 days (16 January to 12 February 2023), a decrease of 92% and 47%, respectively, compared to the previous 28 days. As of 12 February 2023, over 755 million confirmed cases and over 6.8 million deaths have been reported globally." https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update-on-covid-19---15-february-2023

You're the man! ???? Appreciate your contribution.

I'm pretty sure I recall other members reporting that they were able to use Mint Mobile numbers just fine in Thailand... though I think that was AFTER doing the initial account setup in the U.S.