After enjoying the previous two weekends in Bangkok, I left school Friday with a mind to have a nice quiet, stay at home kind of weekend. I had agreed to meet my new Thai friend, Thanawat (nickname: Sam), for dinner, and then would retire early to bed. Or so I thought. When I arrived at Sam’s apartment, he informed me that he wanted to take me to a nice restaurant near Bangkok with a live entertainment show! Count me in!
I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect when we arrived at the restaurant. It’s a giant building on the side of the main drive to Bangkok, a familiar sight from taking the bus there and back the last few weekends. The place is called: Holland Beer. I’d only seen it from the outside and wondered as to the name. My best guess was that they served Heineken, which is actually widely available throughout Thailand anyway. Well it turns out they actually serve three different types of Holland-imported beers, and none of them Heineken. They also serve bratwurst, in addition to a normal Thai menu. The inside of the building and the friendly, ever present wait staff feels like a giant version of Texas Roadhouse—seriously, I kept checking the table for peanuts! At the end of rows and rows of tables is a big stage for the performers.
The food: delicious! We ate a couple of my favorite Thai dishes: shrimp salad with cashew nuts, and red curry with ostrich and pineapple!
The show: interesting, and I have to say, pretty entertaining and overall, pretty darn good. The costumes changes were particularly entertaining, switching between traditional Thai outfits to funny lady boy costumes, and then switching again to modern fashion. The song list was composed of traditional Thai songs that strike the cultural chord, mixed with modern Thai rock, mixed with dance music, with an occasional Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga song sprinkled in (both artists are huge in Thailand!). As it seems to be a signature of the Thai performing arts, there were a few lady boy songs.
Sam described the show to me as like a Broadway musical, and then I later heard his friend (who joined us there) comment something about “Thai musicals.” I couldn’t really follow a consistent story line thread, but that may have been the whole not understanding Thai language thing. Or, the show might have been a variety show, with no start to finish story, but a bunch of songs unrelated to one another. Either way, and even without understanding the language, I really enjoyed the show and the food, and it was a lot of fun to hang out with some Thais. Sam and I will be having dinner every week (probably not at Holland Beer every time) so I can help perfect his English and he can teach me Thai, and so we can be buddies J
He is a very nice guy and speaks English very well already; he was even so gracious as to deny my attempts to help pay for the dinner, which was not cheap by Thai standards. Next meal is on me!
One final tidbit: check out this Thai singer rocking the red, white, and blue!
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