The Cook

Now that we changed hotel we have to have diner in the hotels restaurant were each evening there is only one menu (1 entry, 3 main courses and 1 desert): the dishes are not that good and are expensive. The Otin Taai hotel is lost in the middle of nowhere so we have no chance of finding another restaurant in the area. Luckily we discovered that the restaurant where we are having all our lunches stays open till 8PM and does take away. At the end of the work day before the driver takes us back to our hotel we go get our diner. Last Thursday as I didn’t want to eat a fried dish (most of the dishes are fried here) I asked if it was possible to the chicken boiled instead of fried.



I laughed hard when the waitress said that it was not possible, she didn’t understand what I wanted. I then explained what I wanted to one waitress who really understood English. She was surprised by my request so I told her that I could show her if she didn’t know how to do it. I was in the kitchen showing everyone in there how to proceed. They only had pans and woks which is normal as they fry almost anything. I grabbed a wok and put it on the burner, the waitress took some water from a bucket to pour in the wok but I stopped her to ask where the water was coming from. It was rain water which is quite commonly used around here, I told her to fill half of the wok with the water then to add the chicken only when the water would be very hot. It was quite a show for the other waitresses and their friends who happened to be passing by. It really looked like the women had never boiled anything before. When the chicken was cooked they put it in a Tupperware for transport added some rice and a spoon. I thanked them for the chicken and the waitress who speaks good English replied that she thanked me for teaching her how to boil the chicken.



In this restaurant you really have to be careful which word you use to order something. For example if I order some french fries I will get fried rice because I should have ordered chips to actually get my fries. When I order 2 slices of bread they will think I order two sandwiches and I will get one with butter and another with cabbage.
On Friday when we came to get our diner one of the waitresses asked me if I was coming the following week because she wanted me to show her something to cook. I will see how I can change the restaurants menu so that there is more choice.