Lunch is so 2012

We have tried doing the lunch thing in so many ways and I’m finally narrowing down which ways don’t work and other better ways that may eventually be where we’ll focus our attention.

One of my attempts early on was to cook some sort of meal at “home”.  We do have a microwave, a two-burner electric range and a refrigerator.  We also have a few pots and a bunch of plates and utensils.  So I thought, I’ll just go to the grocery store which we have in the building and buy a few things to cook ourselves a lunch.

Bad idea.  When you start from scratch, you have nothing.  So I needed to buy a little salt, except that no one sells “a little” salt.  I needed some oil, same story.  You get the point.  I just bought some eggs, some vegetables and, you guessed it, some noodles.  That should be simple, right? 

Well, the pot for the egg was not the Teflon type so half of it stayed on the pot.  I was able to boil water, so the veggies and the noodles were OK.  Seasoning-wise wanting, but at least edible.

I set up the table with a couple of bowls, spoons and chopsticks.  Looked nice but very bland and unappealing.

Today was my second attempt at having a “home meal”.  B agreed to come home for lunch at about 12:30PM.  So, around 12:00 I get up from my desk and rushed downstairs to the shopping mall attached to the hotel.  They do have a number of restaurants in addition to a Thai food court.  This particular food court is more for the local population, not the fancy type of the other malls, but just various Thai food from each vendor.  That food court is a little bit more of a challenge to me as I usually have to go based on the pictures the descriptions are exclusively targeting the locals and not so much the expats in the area.

So, I went looking for the restaurants instead.  But, what would B want for lunch today?  Don’t know, I’ll guess.  The first one was a Chinese Restaurant, not the ready-made Chinese as back home but more of a formal sit-down kind of restaurant.  I looked at the menu outside and decided to go for it.  Ordered a Chinese broccoli, a curry king-prawn dish and an some white rice to go.  Please wait 15 minutes.  So, I’m thinking, it’s almost 12:30PM, I ordered only one main dish.  How about if that wouldn’t be enough for two.  I walk out of the Chinese restaurant and find a Japanese not too far a walk from the first one.  They advertised some “Take Away” lunches, so I thought, let’s take some sushi/sashimi to go along with the Chinese.  Why not?  Sirs, it’s going to be a 20 minute wait.  OK, that’s cutting into my lunch time.

I head back to the Chinese, by this time it was almost ready.  I waited, paid and took it to the room.  I set up the plates and set up the meals ready to go in case B got home before I returned with the Japanese food.  Rush out again, find the Japanese restaurant.   Wait another 5 minutes, pay and rush home to set up the remaining food on the table.

As I’m putting the last chopstick on the table, and panting as a mad man that just saw a ghost, just then B opens the door.  Catching my breath, I do the “Sawadee Krap” with my “praying posture” to greet her, and she walks in to see the nice spread on the table.

It was a good meal, even though I ended up mixing a couple of cultures (Chinese & Japanese) along the way.  We had a good time.  We even ended up eating with our hands as we had to clean up those long king prawns before eating them.   A mess but we enjoyed it.

After we were done, we still had to clean up after ourselves.  The cleaning person doesn’t come until tomorrow so I can’t leave all those dishes just sitting there.  So, clean up and tidy up some.

Good lunch?  Yes.  Cheap? Not really as I ended up getting more than we needed.  Worth it?  Not at all, especially when you include the stress of getting it here and the cleaning afterwards.

So, in conclusion, neither of the ways that I have tried to have a “home meal” have worked.   Tomorrow we’re back to the usual hang outs and maybe we’ll take time to visit yet another Food Court at a Mall nearby.  Eating at home is so 2012.