No Substitutions
In honor of our friend Kelley being in town to visit for the weekend, Saturday night several of the friends gathered at "flaccid" Bangkok City restaurant (as distinguished from "Make-It-Hard" Bangkok City, so named because of a sign* bearing that particular phrase posted in the stall of the women's restroom at the Bangkok City downtown, and because the restaurants are not the same, it's at least one way to keep them straight when talking about them. The non-make-it-hard Bangkok City's name is a bit more protean in nature, since there was never anything in writing to establish an authoritative title compared to its turgid namesake, but references to this one usually involve lack of stiffness in one manner or another).
Realizing with some regret I'd run across yet another dish I should no longer eat, I tried to think of a non-land-animal alternative to Volcano Chicken or Moo Sarm Rose (breaded and crispy fried chicken or pork, respectively, with a really tasty spicy pepper and herb puree spooned on top of it), when I decided that the crispy squid would work quite nicely, being approximately the same preparation and texture and all. I felt a little self-conscious asking, but since a message on the menu mentioned that they could make any dish in a vegetarian manner, I figured that substituting seafood for land-meat would be an equally acceptable request, in terms of the trouble involved (especially if my other friend Matt's explanation is correct regarding the Thai Theraveda Buddhist vegetarian vs. seafood rationalization — namely, that eating seafood isn't necessarily a violent karma-threatening act, since once the fish is out of the water he sort of dies on his own — never mind the fact that a cow nonchalantly tossed into the Gulf of Thailand would probably die on her own, too, but I guess that's different; plus, that line of reasoning doesn't help my argument any).
Regardless, the following exchange ensued.
Waitress: And for you?
Matt: I have a question for you.
Waitress: Sure.
Matt: I don't eat chicken or pork. Would it be possible to prepare the volcano sauce on the crispy squid instead?
Waitress: Volcano sauce? As from the volcano chicken?
Matt: Yes.
Waitress: On the crispy squid?
Matt: Yes, please. Can you do that?
Waitress: [thinks quite intensely for about 8 full seconds] No.
Matt:
Waitress:
Matt:
Waitress:
Matt: No?
Waitress: No.
Matt: Um, okay, then. Back to the menu, I guess.
I ended up ordering the crispy squid anyway, with its default sweet chili garlic sauce, and it was great, as most things at the restaurant generally are, but the situation has been bugging me all weekend. I keep trying to get into that waitress's head and wondering what the rationale was. In roughly descending order of plausibility, here are my theories:
The volcano sauce, because it's homemade, is more expensive and troublesome than the sweet chili garlic sauce (which probably comes out of a bottle — you can buy big bottles of it at the Asian market, anyway), and she didn't want to get into an argument about adding an extra dollar or two to the cost of the entree.
The waitress wasn't sure she could easily explain the request to the [presumably Thai] cooks in the kitchen, and decided it wasn't worth the effort.
The waitress considered me a strange white guy with a poor sense of food pairing who, by way of my request, had defiled the very nature of the dishes in question (in roughly the same way that many Americans would freak out if a Frenchman or Belgian requested mayonnaise for his fries, I suppose).
It had been a really rough night for her, and she wasn't in the mood to take any more grief from anyone, especially aforementioned white guy who had nefarious plans for her squid.
Only truly vegetarian-oriented substitutions are permitted. It's Volcano Tofu or nothing, bucko. (Geez, that sounds nasty, by the way, and I'm even at least a moderate fan of tofu).
The atomic makeup of squid and volcano sauce, unbeknownst to the scientists of the Western world, comprise anti-particles which violently annihilate on contact, hence the mysterious inexplicable disappearance of several beloved Thai restaurants across the globe each year.
"Volcano Squid" may actually read as a considerably vulgar term for the female anatomy when translated into Thai, and the suggestion that I'd like for her to let me eat it was just more than this poor girl could handle from someone she barely knew.
I don't know. It was still a very strange experience. Any other theories are welcome.
* In case you're curious, the sign presumably was an English-as-a-second-language instruction that the stall door often sticks and that more force was necessary to open it than would have been expected. If the sign had been sighted instead at the Bangkok Inn, another local Thai eatery, it would have been truly classic, but "Make It Hard, Bangkok City" still has a great ring to it, not to mention its already noted resolution of the local Bangkok City name conflict.
Realizing with some regret I'd run across yet another dish I should no longer eat, I tried to think of a non-land-animal alternative to Volcano Chicken or Moo Sarm Rose (breaded and crispy fried chicken or pork, respectively, with a really tasty spicy pepper and herb puree spooned on top of it), when I decided that the crispy squid would work quite nicely, being approximately the same preparation and texture and all. I felt a little self-conscious asking, but since a message on the menu mentioned that they could make any dish in a vegetarian manner, I figured that substituting seafood for land-meat would be an equally acceptable request, in terms of the trouble involved (especially if my other friend Matt's explanation is correct regarding the Thai Theraveda Buddhist vegetarian vs. seafood rationalization — namely, that eating seafood isn't necessarily a violent karma-threatening act, since once the fish is out of the water he sort of dies on his own — never mind the fact that a cow nonchalantly tossed into the Gulf of Thailand would probably die on her own, too, but I guess that's different; plus, that line of reasoning doesn't help my argument any).
Regardless, the following exchange ensued.
Waitress: And for you?
Matt: I have a question for you.
Waitress: Sure.
Matt: I don't eat chicken or pork. Would it be possible to prepare the volcano sauce on the crispy squid instead?
Waitress: Volcano sauce? As from the volcano chicken?
Matt: Yes.
Waitress: On the crispy squid?
Matt: Yes, please. Can you do that?
Waitress: [thinks quite intensely for about 8 full seconds] No.
Matt:
Waitress:
Matt:
Waitress:
Matt: No?
Waitress: No.
Matt: Um, okay, then. Back to the menu, I guess.
I ended up ordering the crispy squid anyway, with its default sweet chili garlic sauce, and it was great, as most things at the restaurant generally are, but the situation has been bugging me all weekend. I keep trying to get into that waitress's head and wondering what the rationale was. In roughly descending order of plausibility, here are my theories:
I don't know. It was still a very strange experience. Any other theories are welcome.
* In case you're curious, the sign presumably was an English-as-a-second-language instruction that the stall door often sticks and that more force was necessary to open it than would have been expected. If the sign had been sighted instead at the Bangkok Inn, another local Thai eatery, it would have been truly classic, but "Make It Hard, Bangkok City" still has a great ring to it, not to mention its already noted resolution of the local Bangkok City name conflict.