Food Pornographers

I expected a good review from Northern Thai: word of mouth, a scant helping of bad reviews (i.e., a slew of good ones). It’s been around the block, and I heard it closed down years ago, so I had nothing but warm, fuzzy feelings when I heard it never did. I expected a good day; and by my own witty banter with friends and constant ogling of cute girls at the table across from mine, it more or less was. Maybe, just maybe, I’m nitpicking; but what would one expect from a critical food theorist? There is always room for improvement. Food is art after all. Art, skill, finesse; and if one has a good head on their shoulders, with enough passion and personal criticism they can make a hell of a dish, and only try harder every other time. So why talk like this? Patience, young masters; patience. That too, in time.

We had arrived around 11:30 in the morning, a good source telling us that that’s when the place opened. The sign said so, too; conveniently, the door was locked. My fears were only confirmed, Northern Thai was closed for good. Its being open was nothing more than some delicious urban legend. Or so I thought.

I’d been forced to read a good number of Sherlock Holmes in my day, so I figured I could, in the least, apply what I’ve learned from Holmes-boy’s redundant, coke-addicted meanderings (see what I did there?). I thought: I work at a Thai place, Northern Thai is a Thai place. Our sign says 11:30, sometimes we open at 12; Northern Thai’s sign says 11:30, it’s 12 but not opened yet. Maybe, just maybe, my friends and I could go to a bookstore, read dirty, smutty sex books and come back in a cool half-hour.

Cool it was, and I mean that with no positive appropriation. The place was cold. And the traipsing teenager that sat us was a treat too. I love a good proletarian malaise. I won’t bother to tell you about our trip back when the open sign was nice and lit, and the front door nice and locked . . . and our nice teenage waiter, not hurrying on the inside, but slowing trudging through the dining room, to the kitchen, to the dining room and back to the kitchen again; I’m positive he saw us through the window. Our eyes met. It wasn’t love, but it could have been. That’s how serious I am when I say he saw us waiting outside in the cold.

Yes, yes. We were eventually let in and apologized to for the wait. All was forgiven. Hey, it’s tough being a teenager who’s never done a lick of real work in their real life. But enough about the service, I made sure the poor kid worked hard for his money when I sent him back after three times of menu indecision.

	Feeling pithy, peering over plastic plants.

The space felt alright. Not contemporary; plastic trees, beaded tapestries, old pictures- all played to the portrait of what an exotic Thailand would look like for those who’ve never been there. Usual. It did have the feeling of being a little outdated though for whatever reason. Unfortunately, the equation isn’t as simple as warm colours and gold in a dining room to make it a successful Thai themed dining space. Maybe it’s because it was cold.
If there was something that caught my eye it was the plating. Oblong shapes painted with a beautiful indigo blue. Not all tableware was like this however. It was more or less sporadic, sadly. Good kitchenware could have contributed a great deal to the physical food itself, not to say it wasn’t good. It was.

I ordered a soya noodle beef dish, which ran me nothing more than ten dollars. It consisted of the basics, and the odd ingredient I never expected in any Asian dish, like cauliflower. The flavour was reminiscent of a frequent sweet soy sauce based Chinese dish; something found almost anywhere, which is good if you’re adverse to unique flavours. The dish wasn’t bad as a result, though it certainly was safe, and I’m never sure that’s a good decision for dining out. It should be, in my own opinion, an adventure- apply whatever connotation you feel fit. Sometimes I like to wear pithy hats and pretend I’m some British colonizer forcing my Whiteness on those around me, peering through plastic dining room trees, searching for the exotic, searching for brutes, all from the comfort of my own homeland, of course. Because if I don’t- if you don’t- you’re only going to be tricked by whatever culturally specific dining room convinces you that where you are is how it is back where the restaurant “comes from.” Sadly, you’re never REALLY getting a unique dining experience even when you’re a tourist. If I could name the flavours of the dish I would guess at star anise, black soy sauce, sugar and oyster sauce; but, I’ll never really know. For ten dollars however, I won’t continue to complain. The portioning was alright, and it managed to fill me up a little. The rest I owe to the free tea (a saving grace for any Asian eatery) and dessert. But mostly to the tea.

Spicy tofu.

For dessert I ordered a nostalgic mango with sticky rice, expecting it to, like the photo on the menu, come with a nice cup of (preferably) warm coconut milk. Unfortunately, I was misinformed. What I got was a sparse plate, complete with half a mango, cubed awkwardly, not quite ripe, giving it a sweet, light citrus flavour I personally enjoyed, (my company told me it was something they didn’t really enjoy, the mango tasting unripe, and my liking it probably being a result of working in a Thai kitchen for so long) and a scant cup of sticky rice smothered in honey and sprinkled with sesame seeds. All for a lousy 4.95. Creative. Or so far removed and having nothing to do with the real pleasures of eating than pornography does sex. Yes, it was a poor, performative attempt at food pornography. Dressed up to be something it wasn’t. I would have preferred bigger portions. Forget what it looks like in a mom and pop’s shop. The attempts of big restaurants to dress food up works because it’s about three things: rare ingredients, looks, and whatever status it affords the person eating it.

Mango with sticky rice (and honey)- ghetto fab.

Northern Thai should be food for the every man. It should never be divorced from its nutritive state and taste qualities. If anything, the visual should be second, because when that restaurant snobbery permeates beyond trendy restaurants and trickles down to the mom and pop’s shops and there comes a cheap attempt by plating to make the food seem like something it’s not, it loses its humility and quality for the eater who is, more or less, an every man. I’m blue collar, didn’t my request for free tea tip you off? That attempt at food sophistication is no better than a snuff film. It kills it; there is nothing more there than the democratization of food. Sticky rice has quality, but it isn’t sophisticated, and when you try to make it so, you just make foodies like me kinda angry. I mean, rice and honey? C’mon. That’s for children in the ghetto. Don’t believe me? Two words: Alicia Keys. When I pay 4.95 for one cup of shitty rice, the least you can do is give me some damn coconut milk on the side like the picture said. I didn’t ask to enter a realm where people divorce food from its qualities and surface appearance becomes all-important.* Maybe I’m too well fed and took it on myself to know too much about food. Aw, ignorance is bliss, especially when it can be used to seduce. At least places like this can still work for the guy trying to impress that girl who is totally and utterly clueless (RIP Brittany). But now I’m being way too harsh. There were other menu options, and the menu was rather diverse, albeit similar in selection to other places. Hey, whatever sells, baby.

For the some odd 15 dollars I payed for a meal, it wasn’t half bad; and why does Northern Thai have so much good feedback? Because it plays to familiar, popular consumer tastes. It’s safe, and thus, it succeeds. It’s average at best, but better than bad. And that might lead it to redemption.


Northern Thai
95 Queen Street South,
Kitchener,ON N2G 1W1
(519) 745-4451

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Song

Sirrah. I wish I were a stay at home mom. A stay at home mom who could blog to her heart's content, take amateur photos of her pets, tell you what they're doing today, what I watched on the View, what I thought about it, and what I'm baking while watching it. A man can dream. Alas, I'm too busy teaching Korean kids, writing about Japanese Obentos, baking biscotti for professors, not getting good grades by baking biscottis for professors. It's a close second. But, here I am. Don't worry dear readers, I haven't forgotten about you. I never will. I think about you everyday even when I disappear into the depths of Academic abyss for a month. Consider these entries a test of my love.

I tutor a Korean kid (he's my age; we're kids in spirit) named Song. Like other Korean kids, he has an unhealthy affinity for video games (don't we all?). Song's a sweetheart- is what I gather from the stories he tells me. He collects as many greeting cards as he can for his girlfriend back in Korea and sends them to her as often as he can, so much so that he's been running out of resources and I, so selflessly (foolishly), recruited myself to join his effort, scaling the city to look for as many campy greeting cards as I can find. Hey, this is a trial of love.

I tell Song all the time that what he does for his girlfriend is probably the sweetest thing in the world; that, generally, all the things he does for his girlfriend are the sweetest things in the world. He once bought a rose for every day he liked her. Jinkies.

I've told Song that guys here don't do said things- at least, not as much. And that if they do, women aren't too responsive. Song says men here are macho- that's why. But in Korea, they're not. 'Could of fooled me. I've never been to Korea, but I've watched Old Boy enough times to assume otherwise. That's how I learn things- through media. I don't consider it junk, I consider it ethnographic research; equipment for living, if you will. But I digress, as I so often do . . .

So, the story goes that one day on the island of Jeju-do, Song and his Girlfriend (hereon referred to as 여자 친구) went to a café- I like to imagine specifically oriented towards lovers- where those in love hang their love letters on some sexually charged wall. That was a little harsh. Wall is good here. That being said, Song and 여자 친구 wrote a love letter together, put it in an envelope, wrote in characters too large for the envelope and hung it on the wall- I like to imagine like on a laundry line.

And so, one Friday, while tutoring Song, mmm, about Shakespeare, let’s say, he felt the necessary urge to tell me that he had, out of the blue, received an e-mail from his sister and uncle along with a picture of that very letter he wrote, the characters on the envelope being so large that they couldn’t help but attract whatever eye curious enough to gaze upon it. Not only a café popular amongst lovers, but sisters and uncles as well. Anyway, Song couldn’t hear the end of it, and I didn’t want to hear the end of it, his family still berating him to this very day (lovingly, I’m sure), and me still berating him for that very photo. Magical.

There’s something about food and spaces. Wonderful things happen when we sit down to eat; not only are we nourished physically, but emotionally as well. The lines are blurred very easily between the satisfaction of being fed and the satisfaction of being, in the case of Song and여자 친구, loved- emotionally appealed let’s say. Barthes would probably have something to say about it; Baudrillard too, although I reckon he’d turn it into something consumer-fetish related and ruin the good time we’re having analyzing this whole thing.

Let’s consider the café. Let’s consider the café and love. Let’s consider the café, coffee and love. The café is a place where people go to socialize, yes; but why over coffee? An item that would otherwise wake you up and give you more energy than you actually need in a space you go to relax seems counter-intuitive. But that’s just it, dear readers. It’s not about the coffee, it’s about what it means. The coffee is nothing more than a conduit for something else. An alibi for the hidden intentions of two lovers who go out to drink it. They need a place to be together and the café is the reason. They need a thing to engage in together and the coffee is the fee. Yes, the coffee may be nourishing, but it stands in place for the mediation that goes on between two people. They may buy the coffee, but they may not even drink it, too busy writing love letters. Indeed, it is only a cover for something else that is going on. The cup of coffee is nothing more than a distraction for nosey viewers, like the boy who buys vast amounts of chewing gum to cover the box of condoms he intends to check out. Did I ruin it? I am pretty macho.

Indeed, if there were no such thing as love (and dating ritual, for that matter) the café may cease to exist. Or so I like to imagine. So next time Will Hunting tells you that coffee is arbitrary, you tell him otherwise. That coffee isn’t arbitrary; that it’s, as Song so genuinely taught us, 恋の試練 .

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