ChiFlyer

Well I remember when a message topic such as this would have prompted different questions from myself other than the ones I am about to ask. Getting older is a bitch, but also a blessing at times. Who knows. Anyway -> In early May the Mrs and myself are making a few days trip up to Bangkok from the overall Bang Lamung area. The purpose of the trip is for her to have an interview at the US Embassy to obtain a visa so that she can accompany me on a trip to the US in September. On paper she is a lock, but visas at the US Embassy are a mystery box. That topic belongs in a different thread than this one. What I am asking about is that come hell or high water what are some suggestions for some side trips and restaurants. It has been decades since I spent much time in Bangkok. We are staying at the Chatrium Riverside, which is on the Chao Phraya near the Spahan Taksin Sky Train stop. The hotel has river boat ferries that will take one to various locations and connections. I have stayed there several time before and it is a very good moderately priced hotel with a good buffet breakfast option. I opted for a suite with a river view (not all that much more expensive) to set a positive mood for the Mrs and her interview. https://www.chatrium.com/chatriumriversidebangkok?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gmb-chatriumhotelriversidebangkok The Mrs has never seen Wat Po or the Royal Palace. These are relatively close together and I figure this will be a good day trip. I have never been to Asiatique, which is not that far from the hotel. I am thinking we can go there one night to sample the food stalls. Anyone been there? I am also looking for some restaurant suggestions in the general area. Isan Thai food suggestions would be most appreciated, but some decent Farang places would be good as well. I checked for the places that I liked a decade of so back and most have gone out of business, or Google is blocking them from searches. I am really becoming suspicious of Google.

Garlic Lime Pork Tenderloin Reboot of sorts. I changed the side dish for this recipe to Garlic Roasted Potatoes. https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/garlic-roasted-potatoes-recipe-1913067 I had made this potato side dish a few months back for the first time to serve with Roast Duck for Xmas. I made a note that this potato side dish might go well with this Pork Tenderloin recipe. Well, I got one right. We had no guests for this evening so I cut everything back by 50%. The Mrs graded me at the vaunted 1++ for this prep. A few pics. The Pork Tenderloin The Garlic Potatoes Plated I probably left the spuds in the oven 5 minutes too long causing some of the garlic to burn. No problem, just scrape the blackened stuff off. It does taste bitter, if one does not do this. A few pics.

Sweet and Sour Pork I tried a new dish (for me) tonight. https://pupswithchopsticks.com/sweet-and-sour-pork/ This turned out better than I was expecting for a first try. The Mrs. liked it better than I did. I saw several things in the recipe that I decided to change. I reduced the ingredients by 50% in most cases. Too much food for 2 people. The recipe calls for doing some prep and then starting the one hour long marinade. I started with the marinade and did most of the prep while the one hour marinade was taking place. Both the marinade and sauce call for 2 TBSP of soy sauce. I changed both to 1 TBSP soy sauce and 1 TBSP fish sauce. I added 1 TBSP of Sambal Oelek to the sauce for a little zing. I used Isan honey instead of sugar. I used Corn Starch instead of the recommended Potato Starch. I do not keep the later on hand and did not want to start when only one recipe that I use is calling for it. Although it probably sounds like I was dissatisfied with the author's recipe, I will say she did a lot of things right. I regard it as a good base for my methods. The use of fresh Pineapple is spot on. The two step batter method works nicely. The two step deep frying method also works well. Anyway we both like this dish and I have added it to my rotation. Some pics

Rimpa Lapin - Na Jomtien https://www.facebook.com/rimpalapinpattaya?_rdc=1&_rdr The Mrs had been opposed to trying this place, but did a 180 on that for date night this week. It turned out that the previous time she was there was a packed night during high season. We gave it a try tonight and we were both pleased with both the food and the service. A couple of words of warning. The entrance road from Sukhumvit is currently in terrible shape due to construction. Take it very slow through here or risk losing an oil pan. The stairway down to the lower seating is a bit steep and older more wobbly legs might want to avoid them. The food and service were both very good. The bill including a bottle of wine was close to 2000. Some view shots. I had fried pieces of Grouper in a Sweet and Sour Chili Sauce. Very tasty. The Mrs ordered a fried Pork Knuckle and it was surprisingly good. We will repeat, after the entrance road work is done. We will also make a reservation next time to sit a little higher up.

Pig Butchering Scams https://mashable.com/video/john-oliver-pig-butchering-online-scam John Oliver's main segment on the most recent episode of his "Last Week Tonight" show focused on an escalating scam known as "Pig Butchering". I was stunned by the reported numbers related to this scam especially considering that a large percentage of the victims probably do not report this due to being ashamed of being fooled in this manner. I also did not know that IT persons are being recruited and then forced into scam labor camps that they can not escape from. Thailand is a popular recruiting destination with the then captured person placed in a Myanmar forced labor scam camp. The prisoners work 16 hours a day making scam calls etc. or are beaten. It got me to thinking that I may well have been the target of one such scam. A very pretty GLD trader out of Hong Kong accidentally called me by mistake. hmmm. She tried like hell slowly over time to get me to open a GLD trading account. Something about the situation did not seem quite right. After a few months of me saying "not my thing" she got po'd and left me alone. She did send me a few enticing pics to keep the conversation going. Or some guy posing as her did. Nice pics anyway. oh btw, she (maybe he) tried to reestablish contact today after about 6 months. I may try and work her/him for more information that I can hand off to some kind of governmental authority, though I have no idea who that might be. Maybe at a minimum I could get a few more enticing pics. 🙂 I would post said pics here, but they were not all that great. I have been told that Hong Kong is fairly dishonest with regard to various agents falsely using customer's funds.

Back in the days that occurred in dinosaur ages before back in the days, my friends and I would gather on Saturday Nights to watch Belushi and others do their skits on SNL. We would drink, smoke, and a little more at times. An exceptionally good time was had by all. Over the years, IMO, SNL has become a lesser watch. Still I download it most weekends, just to see what they are saying. This last weekend's episode SNL S49E12 had me laughing my ass off for the first time in decades. The much fabled opening skit was only ok. The rest of the show was spot on. This is interesting in that the host was Shane Gillis who had been previously fired from the show for what were interpreted as anti-Asian, homophobic, and other remarks was the host. Gillis busted through his previous label in an almost Lenny Bruce (my icon) style. Available on IPT.

Good move on the merge.

Interesting. IMDB of 8.4. There is a Korean TV series with the same name that has an IMDB of 6.9. I am guessing that the Korean one is a reboot. I have added the American one to my "to watch" list. At 7 seasons and 156 episodes this should fill up one of my watch tracks. Also, I have absolutely no interest in applying for the job of professional cat herder, but we here at 24x7 have a couple of different threads with varying focuses on video entertainment. Just saying.

We are planning a trip to the US from BKK in September, providing we can get a visa for the Mrs. I travel Business Class these days. I can afford it, barely. My old bones need this at this time in my life. Anyway, looking out at September the Qatar Business Class prices to/from ORD are comparatively very attractive. Anyone flown Business with them?

Navalny was a great man with incredible courage. I am saddened by his passing. 😞 I am also saddened by the imprisonment of Maria Ressa in the Philippines. She is another journalist who has spoken out about an authoritarian self-appointed demagogue (Duterte). Duterte is no longer president of the PI due to length of service laws, but he has had his lackeys and family members elected to those posts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Ressa

Widely believed to be murder. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/alexei-navalny-video-day-before-death-raises-alarms/ar-BB1inBRe

Rats The guy who had long term rented the large quadruple house property across the street moved out. Rumor has it that he fled because his gambling operation was drawing scrutiny. His property was taken over by the neighborhood soi cats. The cats were making an unholy racket with their sex screams. The association moved the cats out. This provided an opportunity for rodents to get a foot hold. The Mrs noticed some signs of rat activity out near our pool. We were going to put out rat poison, but did not want to kill a bunch or birds etc. Plus poisoned rats will likely sneak off somewhere to die in hiding. The smell could get quite nasty. We went to HomePro today and purchased some sticky pads. The rats get their feet stuck on the pad and then you can bop one in the head to kill them. She nailed 5 of the buggers on night 1. She is an Isan farm girl and has been combating vermin all of her life. Actually up North her brother traps the buggers and keeps them in a pen feeding them table scraps. Every so often he boxes then up and takes then into town for sale. He gets 250 per rat. Rat, particularly rat meat sausages, are a popular food source in some areas of Isan. Here is a pic of her first condemned prisoner. Maybe we should bring the pervert cats back. 🙂

For me - the key to learning any language is continual repetition unless one has some kind of intrinsic language ability. I certainly do not. It took me 5 years to become decent at Spanish and I had a patient native speaker girl friend during those 5 years. I also took 4 years of Spanish at the local JC and read books on the train into downtown Chicago from the burbs where I lived. Being retired in Thailand now with myself reaching the end of the early part of the year US activities (tax season, FBAR, etc.), I am in need of a new hobby. I am thinking about taking another run (5th time now?) at getting better at pasathai. Game plan to start is to use Google Translate to hear the sounds of the expressions that I already know. -> (Teim h̄ı̂ tĕm). From there drill vocabulary making sure to hear the phonetics properly. From there practice with the Mrs and possibly take a course.

I am about half way through S04 of "For All Mankind". IMDB 8.1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(TV_series) Usually, I do not care for alternative history shows, but this one is really well done.

Yes, I do use a pressure cooker and use it several times a month. I bought an Instant Pot through Lazada. This pot is manufactured in the US, so it is not wired for 220. They send it to the UK to be made 220 compatible and then send that on to Thailand. It was kind of pricey at about 12,000 as I recall. On the other hand I am very happy with it and do use it frequently. It has multiple settings so that it can be used as a steamer, pressure cooker, slow cooker, saute pan etc. I use it most frequently to make soups and also chicken stock. https://www.google.com/search?q=instant+pot&sca_esv=40ad471a4e6b196f&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u#spd=16157608380652506747 With regard to beans, I use canned beans. It was believed for a long time by many people that cooking your beans from scratch with dry beans was a better way to go. ATK and some others did some studies that concluded canned beans (depending on the product) was a better way to go. I can not post a link for the ATK review as one has to subscribe (pay money) to use their site these days. It did not use to be that way. I seldom follow their show anymore because of things like this. The ATK recommended product for canned beans in the US was Goya. Goya is not available in Thailand, but Bush is at VM and IMO it is a close second. The other problem with Goya for me personally is that the CEO makes pro-DaRump statements. They had an add of Invanka posing with a can. https://www.businessinsider.com/ivanka-trump-roasted-for-photo-promoting-goya-black-beans-2020-7 I am of the opinion that dry beans are just not worth the effort.

Here is the Swifty recap of the game. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/11/entertainment/taylor-swift-super-bowl-kelce/index.html

Not to mention Swifty Power. 🙂

Cajun Shrimp and Sausage Pasta - Addendum I made this dish again tonight. I decided to lightly brown (a little over 5 minutes) the Andouille Sausage before adding to the sauce as is done in Alton Brown's Shrimp Gumbo recipe. This improved the overall flavor IMO. I would show pics of tonight's preparation, but they look quite similar to the pics in the earlier post.

From my twenties after breaking up with my college sweetheart. Actually she tossed my rotten ass out. I was hurt. I had not been a perfect boyfriend. This song helped.

Chicken Salad Sometimes something rather simple turns out as tasting really good. I had a Chicken-Avocado Sandwich in my lineup, but wasn't all that happy with it. I searched around for Chicken Salad alternatives and decided to try this recipe. https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a54787/best-chicken-salad-sandwich-recipe/ I followed the recipe exactly as stated for the salad portion as this was a first try. I decided it to serve it over a bed of lettuce as opposed to on a baguette. I have enough carbs in my diet. This worked out really well and the Mrs liked it as well. The chicken poaching step has endless options (Garlic, spices, ...). There are a lot of things one can do to pimp up the salad portion of the recipe as well. I have already decided to sprinkle in some raisins next time. Also there is a spice missing that I can not quite put my finger on. I will have to do a little more reading about Chicken Salad recipes. A pic. The slice of cranberry walnut Sourdough Bread was obtained via Lazada. I thought it was quite good, but the Mrs did not care for that option, even though she very much liked the Chicken Salad.

Jerk Chicken revision #3. I continue to experiment and adjust my attempts at making a Jerk Chicken dinner that I am happy with. I made another such attempt tonight. I found the results to be an improvement, but the process still needs more work. I tossed the recipe that I had been using and tried the following: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/jamaican-jerk-chicken I liked the results better, but it seemed to be missing a few things. After reading a few other Jerk Chicken recipes, I decided the next attempt would be this recipe again but I would add 1 tsp of ground cloves and a small amount of a sweetener (probably 1 TBSP Isan Honey). I may also cut back on the Allspice a little as it is dominating the taste more than I would like. Had some success with finding a better hot chilli to use in Thailand as Scotch Bonnet etc. are not available. I picked up a small packet of "Orange Cayenne" at the Little Walk VM. Spot on for what I was looking for. I would categorize this chilli as being somewhere in-between jalapeno and habanero. The Mrs used a couple in her Som Tom and really liked the taste as well. I did the chicken in the oven at 190 C for 30 minutes and temped it. Spot on at about 175 F. As usual I used chicken thighs as they are very forgiving with regard to not becoming over cooked. A well prepared Jerk Chicken should be done on the grill or at least finished on the grill in order to crisp the skins. Because I was experimenting for taste, I decided not to do this. Also grilling outside in Thailand, given the rising temperatures at this time of year, is becoming unpleasant. If and when I get to the point that I am satisfied with the taste of the Jerk marinade, I will move to finishing the chicken on a grill. Some pics of the current effort, which despite my being a curmudgeon about it, was pretty decent. The Mrs and I did like the taste of the marinade. More later, but not for a while.

A Stephen Colbert interview with Christopher Nolan (writer and director of "Oppenheimer"). Interesting I thought.

The Mothers with Edie and Flo -> "Happy Together" The song popped into my head tonight.

For fans of the excellent US news documentary show "Frontline", the new season S42 began on January 23rd. Two episodes have been released so far in 2024.

My granddaughter turned 7 yesterday. Due to the time difference I do not get to communicate a lot with her or her brother. Still I am sent a few pics and try to get over for a visit from Thailand to the US every few years. At approaching 75 that is about all the long distance travel that I can afford, needing Business Class these days. Still the event brings a few songs to mind.