Photos by MJ Klein & Hui-chen. Warning, FOOD PHOTOS!
With a Saturday party under our belt, we couldn’t resist the invitation to continue on Sunday!
We showed up and these guys were across the street drinking and singing Thai songs. This is always a good sign!
This was what we found on the gas grill when we arrived.
Chicken wings, grilled Thai style.
In the meantime, you see our good friend Sang Som Royal Thai rum on the table, along with my new mixer, CC Lemon. The guitars were going in full force and we were starting to make some real noise.
That’s A-gu on the far right. He’s the drummer for Fong Band. Other guys started to show up. Notice the Taiwan Beer cans.
We put on some of our hamburgers. They were a source of much concern and almost superstition. Our host was just about to line the grate with foil but I stopped him just in time. We wanted the meant fat to drip down off the meat. Foil would have make them soak in fat. Not a good idea.
After this photo was taken, something really weird happened. One guy put all the other meat into a pan, and then walked away with it. We never saw that guy again but apparently we went off with the meat somewhere and stuffed himself. So it was good that we happened to bring our stuff to make burgers.
Hui-chen is preparing them, under less-than-ideal conditions. I was drinking and playing guitar while this went on behind me.
Here are some finished burgers. We didn’t have enough buns for all of them so the last few were made with ordinary bread.
Now, this was the fun part. These guys are always pushing me to eat Thai food and drink whatever they’re drinking. This time it was my turn. I insisted that they try our burgers and I wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. At first there was a lot of resistance to the idea of eating a foreign hamburger, but I remined them that I eat Thai and Taiwanese food, so they should try something new. Here we can see that some discussion is going on about the contents of the burger.
I gotta tell you, this turned out a lot funnier than I ever imagined! Take a look at the gentleman on the right. Look how he is holding the burger. Apparently he has never eaten a sandwich in his life! I tried to explain this concept to the people who produced this video but my comment has fallen on deaf ears apparently. This is proof positive that Thai people don’t normally eat sandwiches, folks.
I think he dropped more on the ground than he got in his mouth! I had to show him how to handle it with 2 hands, not how he’s holding it here. It was just too funny!
We went back to playing guitar and singing Thai songs. At one point, one of the guys asked A-gu why I knew so many Thai songs. It’s because of my association with the band of course.
As people were walking by, suddenly the realization that there was a white man playing electric guitar dawned on them. It was all too funny watching reactions of passersby.
All too soon, it got to be too late and people had to go to sleep as tomorrow was a work day. We had a good time and a few laughs over some food and rum. Not a bad way to spend an evening here in Hukou.
Thanks for reading!
MJ. Great post and I had to laugh at a few things. The way you described the guy trying to eat the burger made me laugh as I have seen the exact same thing here.
Also the guy disappearing with the food that was on the grill when you arrived was another. The amount of times I have been to the village and taken food with us, start cooking and then people, who I have never seen before drop in and help themselves.
But again I have also been the recipient of a lot of food. For some reason Thais think that you must always be hungry being a farang and you get feed well when you drop in at houses. I always end up woth bags of fruit, potatoes, corn and so on when I venture to the village.
Looked like a fun night.
Bruntys last blog post..Monks bless a house and a birthday girl, Thailand.
Brunty » i linked to a Vimeo video where 2 people did a video review on a place that made “Thai sandwiches.” i told them that this food doesn’t exist. no one responded and i think it’s because they don’t believe me. our on-the-ground experience in Thailand would prove our point that in general Thais are not accustomed to eating sandwiches. Hui-chen was incredulous!
yeah that guy taking the food away was weird. we were invited to a “BBQ” (“kao ro” in Chinese) and except for the food we brought there was nothing else to “kao” (grill). so i do wonder what happened. i’m sure of one thing – i will never know! if we hadn’t had the burger meat ready to go we probably would have been on our way to the store!
i too have been to one of those Thai grill parties where people come out of the woodwork. i’ve been treated to more food than i could possibly eat at those events (search “khonkaen” on our blog). talk about fun!
thanks Brunty.