Thanksgiving In Chiang Mai

[swain]

Where are the good thanksgiving style buffets happening? I naturally assumed that this would already be a thread here. I rely on this site too much to give me a picture of whats going on in town.

So where are you going...? what are you eating...? and how much are you paying?

Just looking for your standard thanksgiving fare.. turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing...etc...

Thanks

[swain]

The Amari Rincome Hotel has this going on--- but 750 seems a bit spendy

They have turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie --buffet lunch at Baht 450. and dinner at Baht 750.

Edited November 22, 2007 by swain

[PeaceBlondie]

There was a thread, but they get buried quickly. A bit too late now.

[swain]

There was a thread, but they get buried quickly. A bit too late now.

Hmm not for me... want to go to dinner in the next two hours. Also I did a search, didnt seem to find it.. if you have the local on that ... Thanks in advance

[swain]

The Four Seasons is having a Thanksgiving dinner of sorts. But I have to guess thats out of my price range.

Sounds very hi-so. Menu below:

Aromatic Herbs Timbale

Porcini Mushrooms and Taleggio Cheese Sauce

***

Butternut Pumpkin Soup

Goat’s Cheese Bugie Ravioli, Sun-Dried Strawberry

Grilled Mahi Mahi Tail

Fresh Pea’s Tartar, Asparagus Sauce and Crushed Potatoes

or

Roasted Butter Ball Turkey and Traditional Stuffing

Sautéed Sweet Potatoes, Cranberry Sauce, Pan Gravy

Chocolate and Pecan Nut Pie

Vanilla Ice Cream and Strawberry Sauce

Coffee or Tea

Chocolate Pralines

[mild7even]

Where are the good thanksgiving style buffets happening? I naturally assumed that this would already be a thread here. I rely on this site too much to give me a picture of whats going on in town.

So where are you going...? what are you eating...? and how much are you paying?

Just looking for your standard thanksgiving fare.. turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing...etc...

Thanks

Had the T-Giving lunch (not buffet) at Bake and Bite this early afternoon. They have a buffet for dinner that costs 420 baht. At lunch time however, they had no more reservations available for early evening, but did have something open at 8:30 p.m. You might still have a shot--sorry, I don't have the number off hand. Might try a search.

I might add that the food was excellent!

Good luck...

[jimmym40]

Just had a lunch thanksgiving meal in CM. Sorry, don't know the name or the price. It's a restaurant right in back of Panthip Plaza, right on the corner of that back road that you use to park underground in Panthip. A friend treated so don't know what the cost was, I "think" it was in the range of 500 baht for the meal which included soft drink, a turkey meal and desert.

The meal was okay and it filled me up. Desert was great, choice of pumpkin, pecan, or ? (I forgot).

It's the restaurant that was closed for remodelling and just opened back up today at noon. A new menu, small but some great items on it.

Check it out sometime.

[tigerbeer]

Just had a lunch thanksgiving meal in CM. Sorry, don't know the name or the price. It's a restaurant right in back of Panthip Plaza, right on the corner of that back road that you use to park underground in Panthip. A friend treated so don't know what the cost was, I "think" it was in the range of 500 baht for the meal which included soft drink, a turkey meal and desert.

The meal was okay and it filled me up. Desert was great, choice of pumpkin, pecan, or ? (I forgot).

It's the restaurant that was closed for remodelling and just opened back up today at noon. A new menu, small but some great items on it.

Check it out sometime.

The Sojos?

[Ulysses G.]

Just had a lunch thanksgiving meal in CM. Sorry, don't know the name or the price. It's a restaurant right in back of Panthip Plaza, right on the corner of that back road that you use to park underground in Panthip. A friend treated so don't know what the cost was, I "think" it was in the range of 500 baht for the meal which included soft drink, a turkey meal and desert.

The meal was okay and it filled me up. Desert was great, choice of pumpkin, pecan, or ? (I forgot).

It's the restaurant that was closed for remodelling and just opened back up today at noon. A new menu, small but some great items on it.

Check it out sometime.

The Sojos?

Sojos is correct.

Glad that it's open again!

I got a Bake and Bite Thanksgiving Dinner delivered for 320 and it was GREAT!

[p1p]

This may be apocryphal, but I wonder how many know the genuine origin of Thanksgiving:

According to a host of web sites, (Google for the "Origin of Thanksgiving"), the story is as follows:

The True Origin of Thanksgiving.

In mid-winter 1620 the English ship Mayflower landed on the North American coast(at Plymouth Rock) delivering 102 Puritan exiles. The original Native people "Indians") of this stretch of shoreline had already been killed off in great numbers. In 1614 a British expedition had landed there. When they left they took 24 Indians as slaves and left smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhea behind. That plague swept the so called "tribes of New England",destroyed some villages totally.

The Puritans landed and built their colony called "the Plymouth Plantation" near the desired ruins of the Indian village of Pawtuxet. They ate from abandoned cornfields grown wild. Historical accounts tell us that only one Pawtuxet named Squanto had survived. He had spent the last years as a slave to the English and Spanish in Europe. The Pilgrim crop failed miserably, but the agricultural expertise of Squanto produced 20 acres of corn, without which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. Squanto spoke the colonists' language and taught them how to plant corn and how to catch fish. Squanto also helped the colonists negotiate a peace treaty with the nearby Wampanoag tribe, led by the chief Massasoit.

These were very lucky breaks for the colonists. Thanks to the good will of the Wampanoag, the Puritans not only survived their first year but had an alliance with the Wampanoags that would give them almost two decades of peace. In celebration of their good fortune, the colony's governor, William Bradford, declared a three-day feast after the first harvest of 1621. It later became known as "Thanksgiving", but the Pilgrims never called it that.

The "Indians" who attended were not even invited. The pilgrims only invited Chief Massasoit and it was Massasoit who then invited ninety or more of his "Indian" brothers and sisters to the affair to the chagrin of the indignant Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served, no prayers were offered and the "Indians" were not invited back for any other such meals. The Pilgrims did however consume a good deal of brew on that day. In fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of ale a day which they preferred even to water.

The peace that produced the Thanksgiving Feast of 1621 meant that the Puritans would have fifteen years to established a firm foothold on the coast. Until 1629 there were no more than 300 Puritans in New England, scattered in small and isolated settlements. But their survival inspired a wave of Puritan invasion that soon established growing Massachusetts towns north of Plymouth; Boston and Salem. For ten years, boat loads of new settlers came.

As the Europeans' numbers increased, they proved not nearly as generous as the Wampanoags. On arrival, the Puritans discussed "who legally owns all this land? "Massachusetts Governor Wintrop declared the "Indians" had not "subdued" the land, and therefore all uncultivated lands should, according to English Common Law, be considered "public domain." This meant they belonged to the king. In short, colonists decided they did not need to consult the "Indians". When they seized the new lands, they only had to consult the representative of the crown (meaning the local governor).

The Puritans embraced a line from Psalms 2:8, "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heather for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of he earth for thy possession."

Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local Indigenous People ("Indians"). A company of Pilgrims led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local chief. Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He beheaded an Indian named Wituwamat and brought the head to Plymouth where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years.

In about 1636, a force of colonists trapped some seven hundred Pequot Indians near the mouth of the Mystic River. English Captain John Mason attacked the Indian camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken.

"To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching the same, and the stench was horrible, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice to the great delight of the Pilgrims, and they gave praise thereof to God."

The Puritan fathers believed they were the Chosen People of an Infinite God and that this justified anything they did. They were Calvinists who believed that the vast majority of humanity was predestined to damnation.

During this period a day of thanksgiving was also proclaimed in the churches of Manhattan. The European colonists declared thanksgiving days to celebrate mass murder more often than they did for reverence, harvest or friendship.

In 1641 the Dutch governor Kieft of Manhattan offered the first "scalp bounty". His government paid money for the scalp of each "Indian" brought to him. A couple of years later, Kieft ordered the massacre of the Wappingers, a "friendly tribe". Eighty were killed and their severed heads were kicked like soccer balls down the streets of Manhattan. One captive was castrated, skinned alive and forced at points to eat his own flesh while the Dutch governor watched and laughed. Then Kieft hired the notorious Underhill who had commanded in the Pequot War to carry out a similar massacre near Stamford, Connecticut. The village was set on fire, and 500 "Indian" residents were put to the sword.

In their victory, the settlers launched an all out genocide plot against the remaining Native people. The Massachusetts government, following what appeared to be the order of the day, offered twenty shillings bounty for every "Indian" scalp, and forty shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery. Soldiers were allowed to enslave and rape any "Indian" woman or enslave any "Indian" child under 14 they could kidnap. The "Praying Indians" who had converted to Christianity and fought on the side of the European troops were accused of shooting into the treetops during battles with "hostiles." They were enslaved or killed. Other "peaceful Indians" of Dartmouth and Dover were invited to negotiate or seek refuge at trading posts and were sold onto slave ships. Colonial law further gave permission to "kill savages ("Indians") on sight at will."

Any goodwill that may have existed was certainly now gone and by 1675 Massachusetts and the surrounding colonies were in a full scale war with the great chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Phillip" by the White man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyles and culture of his people as European laws and values engulfed them. The syphilis, gonorrhoea, smallpox and all types of "white man" diseases took their toll. Forced ultimately into humiliating submission by the power of a distant king, Metacomet struck out with raids on several isolated frontier towns. The expedient use of the so-called "Praying Indians" (natives converted to their version of Christianity), ultimately defeated the great "Indian" nation, just half a century after the arrival of the European.

When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and assassinated Metacomet, his body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The great "Indian" chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth where it was set upon a poke on Thanksgiving Day, 1767. Metacomet's nine-year-old son was destined for execution, the Puritan reasoning being that the offspring of the "Devil" must pay for the sins of their father. He was instead shipped to the Caribbean to serve his life in slavery.

In the midst of the Holocaust/Genocide of the Red Man and woman, Governor Dudley declared in 1704 a "General Thanksgiving" not to celebrate the brotherhood of man, but for: [God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favours... In defeating and disappointing.... the expeditions of the Enemy [indians] against us, And the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our hands...

[JuniorExPat]

Much appreciated p1p - I get so confused with all these minor colonial festivals.

JxP

Edit - bl00dy h377, I should have read your post properly before posting such a trite remark. I always thought Thanksgiving was a "bigger and better" Harvest Festival!

Edited November 22, 2007 by JuniorExPat

[Ulysses G.]

That was back when we were Brits and pretty typical behavior!

Edited November 22, 2007 by Ulysses G.

[PeaceBlondie]

Thanks to p1p for posting a slightly biased (but largely accurate) account of the British treatment of the natives. Students of the Protestant Reformation in England would take note that the first Pilgrims were separatists, not Puritans of the Church of England. That distinction was soon lost when the American churches merged, eventually becoming the Congregationalists.

"Harvest festival" does describe the original celebration(s). I believe it was not a common national holiday for many decades. Turkey and cornbread stuffing, gravy, cranberry, pumpkin pie, pecan pie (down south), etc., have become the traditional food. Always on the fourth (not always the last) Thursday of November (earlier in Canada).

I'm having kaow phat gai for my thanksgiving dinner!

[realthaideal]

Well P1P..... what to say to the truth other than that it hurts. 400 years ago and since, many cultures have been up to some bad behaviors, so I wouldn't want to construe this to reflect on the majority of Americans in general, especially given that so many of us are children of other countries recently arrived in the US. That said, it is the dirty underbelly of this now festive occasion that is really a beautiful thing that we do in The States. Beyond that I'd add that the American culture which is often self absorbed in advancement and getting bigger, better, more-of-something, actually starts its seasonal turn inward to reflect on themselves with this holiday. It is a nice time there and many people do perform acts of charity and other goodwill gestures at this time. And giving thanks is something we could all stand to do consciously from time to time. I appreciate the history in one respect, but also appreciate what a nice thing has come out of the original dirty origins. What it has come to mean is definitely a good thing. And it has well taken its seat with other global cultures' annual harvest meals and celebrations.

And the food! The food! Food brings ppl together.

And historically, you glanced over the food part. I heard alot about the food as a kid. All that sticks now is that they consumed -yes- great quantities of ale, and also pies of all sorts - as anyone of Eng origin might very well be expected to do. The one that always freaks kids out in modern day is that they ate eel pies. Don't know of any Americans who eat eel other than Jap unagi with their sushi... so eel pies is like weird, exotic, old timer food that makes most people wanna gag.

.....Me ? I'd try it. Once. Probably with ketchup.

[Ulysses G.]

Thanks to p1p for posting a slightly biased (but largely accurate) account of the British treatment of the natives.

The British used to strap civilians to cannons in India before lighting the fuse too.

Edited November 23, 2007 by Ulysses G.

[JuniorExPat]

Thanks to p1p for posting a slightly biased (but largely accurate) account of the British treatment of the natives.

The British used to strap civilians to cannons in India before lighting the fuse too.

Ahh - now those were the days.

JxP

[chanchao]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting that P1p.. Not a very happy read, but an enlightening one.

[Ricardo]

Much appreciated p1p - I get so confused with all these minor colonial festivals.

JxP

Given their famous expanding waist-lines, my own too - for that matter, should we really call US_Citizens minor colonials, or can they now safely be promoted to the category of major colonials ?

I know, I'll just get my coat ...

[Ricardo]

Thanks to p1p for posting a slightly biased (but largely accurate) account of the British treatment of the natives.

The British used to strap civilians to cannons in India before lighting the fuse too.

Ahh - now those were the days.

JxP

I believe that this was mainly in those parts - where our gunboats couldn't readily reach - due to a shortage of rivers/seas ?

And lunch at the Amari-Rincome was excellent, burp.

[Ulysses G.]

[i was just going to wonder why UG hasn't metioned that place across the river in between Nawarat Bridge and the Iron Bridge, the name currently escapes me,

I had to work too late to go to the Duke's, but me and the boys will be there for Christmas!

[mogoso]

[i was just going to wonder why UG hasn't metioned that place across the river in between Nawarat Bridge and the Iron Bridge, the name currently escapes me,

I had to work too late to go to the Duke's, but me and the boys will be there for Christmas!

Sorry we couldn't have Thanksgiving in CM We will or rather my wife will celebrate Valentines day in CM. I'll be there but I'm in the traditional male position of paying for celebration

We did have our traditional Thanksgiving of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmellows on top, string beans sauted with garlic pieces, som tom, kapow gai kai dow, and some kind of moo dish.( I don't eat moo so don't care what it was) I washed down my meal with a couple bottles of beer chang. Fairly traditional with a nod to my wifes culture

[JoshMyPickle]

It's the restaurant that was closed for remodelling and just opened back up today at noon. A new menu, small but some great items on it.

Check it out sometime.

The Sojos?

...small menu, eh?

they better still have southern-style biscuits dammit.

and maybe they /finally/ found a decent recipe for sausage gravy--the old mix was raunchy.

[Ulysses G.]

It's the restaurant that was closed for remodelling and just opened back up today at noon. A new menu, small but some great items on it.

Check it out sometime.

The Sojos?

...small menu, eh?

they better still have southern-style biscuits dammit.

and maybe they /finally/ found a decent recipe for sausage gravy--the old mix was raunchy.

A small lousy menu.

The biscuits are gone. Everything I liked there is gone.

No reason to go there anymore!