RANG NAM STYLE

The Chatrium in general is cool and chic [big rooms, superb buffets, stable internet] but there's just too much of that and it's too far from city noise it is becoming insanely sedate sometimes, so I looked forward to a week at Picnic Hotel along Rang Nam right in Central Bangkok where the streets give way to to the smell and colors of cooking food [grilled, fried, boiled] every night as people jostled either to the BTS Victory Monument Station or to the Payathai Station of the Airport Rail Link while I sat down in a random Thai deli for my fave spicy pork neck salad with Chang beer, really hot but disappointingly bland.

And there were street beer bars too at Brick Lane with a Thai band and sexy promo girls enticing passing pedestrian to drink pitchers of Chang beer, which Oskar and me did while waiting for Jo, two pitchers in fact, before deciding on dinner at an airconditioned glass panelled restaurant also along Rang Nam where the the spicy Thai seafood salad is above standard especially after fusing in a liberal dose of Parmesan cheese to cut the spice, then back to that random deli of the first night for the third night, an all male group which is very un-Oxfam but Oskar justified as Men-tor-ship where we got surprised with a really great egg omelette, a delectable plate of morning glory [kangkong], delicate steamed fish and more, which taught me a lesson not to judge a deli by its spicy pork neck salad, so I ordered spicy minced catfish salad in another random deli for the fourth night [wrong decision, am not sure if what I was eating is actually catfish] and of course spicy pork neck salad and fried chicken wings [good choices]. 

This is Rang Nam style and I like my cozy hotel room with a window opening up to a green park [ala-Central Park in New York milieu] although the internet service really sucks and generally, the hotel food [breakfast and lunch] is below par.

I like pork, a lot in fact, and five days of halal food elevated a craving in such a way that I took my dysfunctional small bike to a ride to La Loma [I was thinking of the Dangwa flower market before the chain started acting up again] to a street corner eatery [that's what it's called in the Philippines] for a lechon breakfast at Mila's 6 hours after touching down in Manila, dry and insipid but good enough to whet my desire for pork, before taking the bus home to Bacal 2 where I indulged Scottish Rites brothers in a fellowship of pork cracklings [chicharon] and grilled intestines [isaw] that required a 31-kilometer bike ride with Kuya Paeng the next day before refilling burned calories with a Japanese buffet at Tempura in Cabanatuan City, an unintended but welcome celebration of the pansit [yakisoba, sukiyaki ramen] which this blog is co-titled but neglected for some time now, before taking the bus back to Manila for the next day's early morning flight to Jakarta.

I don't feel good coming and leaving so quick but perhaps discovering what will be Kemang Style will compensate for that, somewhat.