Speaking Thai to order Thai spicy at restaurants, and speaking various Chinese languages to get ‘a properly painful massage’, are my most important cultural things that keep me happy as an immigrant.
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I was telling someone the other day that I probably burned off my capsaicin receptors since I was 7, but one time (I remember this specifically) I went to a Isaan restaurant in Isaan and ordered Isaan spicy (I find Bangkok food too sweet and not spicy). The best way I can describe that is, it was the heat equivalent of a brain freeze. My brain was on fire. My tongue was not (I don’t really.. taste spice anymore. It’s just a flavor)
It was amazing and I want to do it again
That was the only thing I’ve found spicy in the last 20 years
In LA, Lacha Somtum comes close, and there is a Lao spot (Lao Garden) in Berkeley that does that
Oh, that sounds lovely, @skinnylatte! Adding that to my notes.
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I was telling someone the other day that I probably burned off my capsaicin receptors since I was 7, but one time (I remember this specifically) I went to a Isaan restaurant in Isaan and ordered Isaan spicy (I find Bangkok food too sweet and not spicy). The best way I can describe that is, it was the heat equivalent of a brain freeze. My brain was on fire. My tongue was not (I don’t really.. taste spice anymore. It’s just a flavor)
It was amazing and I want to do it again
That was the only thing I’ve found spicy in the last 20 years
In LA, Lacha Somtum comes close, and there is a Lao spot (Lao Garden) in Berkeley that does that
@skinnylatte god I'm not even into spice like that and Lacha Somtum's blue crab salad was one of the best meals I've had in a long time. Like, the perfect level of spice.
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I was telling someone the other day that I probably burned off my capsaicin receptors since I was 7, but one time (I remember this specifically) I went to a Isaan restaurant in Isaan and ordered Isaan spicy (I find Bangkok food too sweet and not spicy). The best way I can describe that is, it was the heat equivalent of a brain freeze. My brain was on fire. My tongue was not (I don’t really.. taste spice anymore. It’s just a flavor)
It was amazing and I want to do it again
That was the only thing I’ve found spicy in the last 20 years
In LA, Lacha Somtum comes close, and there is a Lao spot (Lao Garden) in Berkeley that does that
@skinnylatte I know you've spent a lot of time in Indonesia. You've never had Sundanese food? It's way hotter than anything I had living 20 years in Thailand. Took some Thai managers to a Sundanese restaurant in Jakarta and made them cry.
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@skinnylatte I know you've spent a lot of time in Indonesia. You've never had Sundanese food? It's way hotter than anything I had living 20 years in Thailand. Took some Thai managers to a Sundanese restaurant in Jakarta and made them cry.
@michaeljoseph I find Sundanese food very bland
Only East Java works for me
But I also grew up eating sambals with various Indonesian chillies so it just hits different
For Thai, I only find northeastern and deep south Thai spicy
Central Thai food is confusing and sweet to me
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Speaking Thai to order Thai spicy at restaurants, and speaking various Chinese languages to get ‘a properly painful massage’, are my most important cultural things that keep me happy as an immigrant. No spicy food, no painful massage, I might as well go home
Yeah. I remember a Korean place that included “traditional” as the highest heat level and would not give me, white boy, traditional hot on my first visit. I needed to pass the “hot” test first. I’m sure that asking in Korean would have saved me that extra step to the good stuff. It sucks being monolingual sometimes (a lot of the time).
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I was telling someone the other day that I probably burned off my capsaicin receptors since I was 7, but one time (I remember this specifically) I went to a Isaan restaurant in Isaan and ordered Isaan spicy (I find Bangkok food too sweet and not spicy). The best way I can describe that is, it was the heat equivalent of a brain freeze. My brain was on fire. My tongue was not (I don’t really.. taste spice anymore. It’s just a flavor)
It was amazing and I want to do it again
That was the only thing I’ve found spicy in the last 20 years
In LA, Lacha Somtum comes close, and there is a Lao spot (Lao Garden) in Berkeley that does that
@skinnylatte that sounds absolutely glorious
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Speaking Thai to order Thai spicy at restaurants, and speaking various Chinese languages to get ‘a properly painful massage’, are my most important cultural things that keep me happy as an immigrant. No spicy food, no painful massage, I might as well go home
As a white guy, I had to build up some customer reputation with a couple of Thai restaurants to get something "Thai spicy" .
I do not order things that way at a new restaurant, as I have to dial in their "white guy spice discount."
There is plenty of stuff too hot for me out there, I want a good burn, not gasping for milk.
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I was telling someone the other day that I probably burned off my capsaicin receptors since I was 7, but one time (I remember this specifically) I went to a Isaan restaurant in Isaan and ordered Isaan spicy (I find Bangkok food too sweet and not spicy). The best way I can describe that is, it was the heat equivalent of a brain freeze. My brain was on fire. My tongue was not (I don’t really.. taste spice anymore. It’s just a flavor)
It was amazing and I want to do it again
That was the only thing I’ve found spicy in the last 20 years
In LA, Lacha Somtum comes close, and there is a Lao spot (Lao Garden) in Berkeley that does that
@skinnylatte Thanks for the reminder that I should get some Lao takeout soon!
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I was telling someone the other day that I probably burned off my capsaicin receptors since I was 7, but one time (I remember this specifically) I went to a Isaan restaurant in Isaan and ordered Isaan spicy (I find Bangkok food too sweet and not spicy). The best way I can describe that is, it was the heat equivalent of a brain freeze. My brain was on fire. My tongue was not (I don’t really.. taste spice anymore. It’s just a flavor)
It was amazing and I want to do it again
That was the only thing I’ve found spicy in the last 20 years
In LA, Lacha Somtum comes close, and there is a Lao spot (Lao Garden) in Berkeley that does that
Tried a new acupuncture spot in downtown Oakland.
My take on acupuncture: most people doing it don’t know what they’re doing.
But for muscular pain, etc, I do enjoy dry needling and acupuncture. And I try to go to sifus who graduated from the top schools in China that I know for this stuff. The sifu was like, speak Cantonese? Mandarin? I said Mandarin
I asked him if he knew Teochew / Chiu Chow, he said a bunch of random food things, then haha not really
Next question: how are you with pressure? I said, I’ve been known to be a person who enjoys it
He said OH THANK GOD I don’t have to do baby steps then
When he was done (it was very good) he said, you should get an award for ‘most likely to try every TCM modality and suffer and enjoy it and come back for more’
I was like
Yep
Honestly that’s the only way I still have a body
To be clear I wouldn’t do a lot of TCM services in places that don’t have a large local Chinese population. I think the potential for quackery and poor training is just too high (because of lack of access to good training and schools, and large overlap with ‘new age’ quackery performed by non native practitioners)
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As a white guy, I had to build up some customer reputation with a couple of Thai restaurants to get something "Thai spicy" .
I do not order things that way at a new restaurant, as I have to dial in their "white guy spice discount."
There is plenty of stuff too hot for me out there, I want a good burn, not gasping for milk.
@pseudonym @skinnylatte used to successfully order from the one local place "actually extra spicy, not white people extra spicy". Until it really upset the gig delivery driver.
Then took a few months to get them to believe I still meant it with "Thai Spicy", for some reason. -
As a white guy, I had to build up some customer reputation with a couple of Thai restaurants to get something "Thai spicy" .
I do not order things that way at a new restaurant, as I have to dial in their "white guy spice discount."
There is plenty of stuff too hot for me out there, I want a good burn, not gasping for milk.
@skinnylatte @pseudonym just go phet-phet when you order.
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