Dining out in Mancha Khiri

The English Department teachers took Becca and me out for lunch one day. Conjure up all you know about Thai food: the peanut sauce & flat noodles of Pad Thai, the sharp lemon grass taste of Tom Yum soup, the rich creaminess of coconut milk with green or red curry spices, the firey bite of papaya salad, the minty freshness of spring rolls. Now cast all those flavors, aromas and visuals to your culinary sensory side pocket; our lunch represented nothing of the sort above. Of the many dishes that made a debut on our lunch table were beef spleen cubed & boiled with fresh cilantro; strips of cow udder fried on a bed of lettuce; parboiled beef tripe with raw diced yellow onions & spring onions & red chili peppers; fried squid with curried crab eggs & sliced green onions; boiled-until-coagulated beef BLOOD cubed with ground beef, green onions & Thai eggplant, and somewhere amongst all of those savory organ delectables was the cow's moo.