It turns out that my Instagrammer acquaintance is well known in Bangkok’s food scene. Last night she invited a few of us over to the place where she is staying for a Thai meal. So I went to the market for fruit, met up with Vida Loca (who arrived at our meetup point late and drunk) and walked over to the house. This was just by the excellent taqueria and the punch-in-the-face tlayuda so was easy to find. Behind an anonymous black gate across the street from a very cool looking mezcalaria was a very large space, quiet and green, a sort of family compound. She was staying in the house of a friend who also lived in the compound, a painter, and his chef partner or friend. Both of them were also there, as were others I had met at the spanish school – the mezcal maker and the traveller, the latter of whom was there with her mother, a tall English woman (who turned out to be from Hampstead) who was unusual for an Englishwoman in being fluent in several languages, with the tips of her hair dyed blue and purple.
The Instagrammer was a gracious hostess, of course, and made a delicious meal of a light summer saland, massaman and beef with holy basil, with a Noma-esque infusion of habanero brought from Denmark by the mezcal maker. To follow were the mangoes I had brought and tea of lemongrass, pandan, galangal and ginger. The chef brought an absolutely superb chocolate tart with a juniper and lime sorbet.
It was a pleasant evening and, happily, neither ended too late nor was it entirely focused around alcohol as I had slightly feared. Vida Loca, unfortunately, was indeed very drunk and on a sort of high so was dominated the conversation and irritated quite a few people, but I think just managed to stay on this side of not ruining the evening, largely because she was very funny and is quite a nice person. She went off a few times on America, on the nipples of the mermaid on the Starbucks logo, and a few other things I now forget. A few days earlier she had told me it was an eclipse so a time of madness; last night she said it was the start of the month of Shiva so a time of doing whatever one wanted. Indeed, I thought.