Market Friday: visiting my old favourite restaurant.

At long last, I had the opportunity to visit an old time favourite restaurant in Silom road. I haven’t been there for ages, since before the long lockdown. So, it’s very nice that my old friends suggested that we had our meeting at this old restaurant which I had temporarily forgot about its existence. This would be our first meeting after three years! How time flew by so quickly while we all got much older too.

We used to enjoy lunch here frequently in the good old days as the food was excellent and the cakes were quite amazing at cheap prices. This place used to be a residence of one of the oldest council to the previous king (King Rama lX). In the old days, the kitchens of royalties and members of royal households would be filled with all the best cooks and their staff. Each palace or masion would usually have their own famous recipes for main dishes and Thai desserts.

Later on, after the overthrow of the monarchy in Siam. Most royal household staff became suddenly unemployed some without any skills had to become prostitutes. Some who could cook would find jobs in restaurants. Some royal households without much wealth had to invent ways of earning some income to support their old staff. So, this restaurant was a result of the ending of a very highly cultured phase in Siam.

The setting of the restaurant was in the garden and the new building by the narrow road. Part of the garden had been turned into a big car park while the old wooden house was still the residence of some descendants of the old prince. I liked to walk around the garden to observe the old trees and atmosphere around the wooden house which was a private area.

Then, I would enter the main building to survey all the cakes to decide which I would have after the meal. The prices of these cakes were about half of what we would usually pay in a shopping mall. These cakes were always freshly made each day so they were always very popular with customers. I was surprised that the coffee there has improved a lot; i haven’t a really nice cup of cappuccino for a long time. Most popular household names coffee shops in malls have so greatly disappointed me lately that I had stopped having coffee in shopping malls.

My old friends were a bit late which gave me ample time to walk around the place and taking some photos. They arrived with their youngest son whom I haven’t met for years. I had missed hos childhood while he was growing up. But he could still recognise me as I used to babysit him as a small kid. He turned out to be a fine youngster with nice personality. My old friends had known me for years so I used to had dinners at their house in the suburbs quite regularly.

But their businesses had expanded and their workload had made them too busy to enjoy the okd simple way of life. However, they had become very weakthy and comfortable. I was glad to see them again and had a frank conversation about things in our lives. People who become very wealthy have become quite diplomatic in their social interaction as they had to guard their true opinions. So, they were quite glad to have our discussions freely without having to self-censored.

The food was very delicious and we all diged in as they arrived, so I didn’t take any photos of the food. We had vegetarian PadThai, fried tofu, chinese fried vegetable cakes, stir fried mixed vegetables, and papaya sour-hot soup with brown rice. I haven’t seen my friends eating so fast like that before! And they told me that they weren’t hungry. The food was too yummy to eat slowly! I couldn’t have the chance to try some of the entrees. It might be because I was talking too much.

But I did enjoy my chocolate cake and hot cappuccino. We discussed about geopolitical situation which might affect our country in the near future. I expressed my dismay about our PM who seemed to be too eager to follow the WEF in every aspect. I warned my friends about the use of blockchain in all businesses in the future. Many would be caught by surprise and would go under unexpectedly. I did warn them about the limitations of bank deposit protection which has been enacted this year. I found it puzzling that they weren’t aware of that law. So, this year would be perfect for bankers to collapse the banking system and make enormous profits.

We enjoyed having delicious lunch under the big old tree. A garden turtle came to say ‘hello’ but the lady took him back to his quarter in the private garden. It was a very good lunch meeting with old friends. They knew I didn’t change much as my opinions were still stark and unpolished. But I had infact become much more reserved, sometimes the truth could be too painful to handle. I knew they were quite shaken by my opions about the need to prepare for a collapse of the financial systems. They still carried on with their optimistic outlook for the future of our country.

Some of highly educated and wealthy people would put their money elsewhere to aviod taxation and out of authority’s long arms. Several politicians had their money stashed away on free tax islands, in special trusts. Some put their money in Singaporian banks or swiss banks. Now my friends would have to contemplate oh how to preserve their wealth this year. I just hoped that things wouldn’t turn out badly. But the PM’ s project of taking a big loan to finance his digital money for distributing to all people gave me a bad feeling of complete failure. I pray that this project would not take off so we didn’t have to carry the burden of serving the damage and interest rates.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.

#marketfriday created by @dswigle