BBQ Like You’ve Never Had It Before

We took 50 people to Thai BBQ a few weeks ago for a Friday night event.  Students, teachers, and TLC staff spent time together having fun, eating, and getting to know each other.  WHAT FUN!  But let me tell you about Thai BBQ.

Thai BBQ is … intense.  The short story is that you sit and eat for three hours.

The longer explanation is that you sit around a table with a grill in the middle like this:

You put water around the outside and on the top you cook meat.  The bottom portion looks like this, except it is made of concrete:

At the restaurant, there are men that carry around large bowls of burning coals (with tongs, of course) to put in the bottom half of the grill.

Then, you go up to the buffet tables that are filled with all kinds of meat – pork, shrimp, octopus, squid, chicken, parts of pigs that you would not normally find on the menu in America, hot dogs, sausages, chicken livers, etc etc etc – and all sorts of vegetables – leafy greens found in Thailand, mushrooms, and sprouts – and even noodles for the broth.  Then you can get sauces for all that food.  There are also tables and tables of donuts and cream-filled cakes, a station for gyoza (Chinese-style potstickers), ice cream, sushi, fruit and more fruit, and I forget what else!

When you fill your plates and come back to your table, you cook your food on the grill.  Meats go on top (preceded by strips of fat to grease up the grill) and the vegetables and noodles boil in the water around the edges.

While you enjoy your meal, there is also a loud performer or two singing Thai songs on the stage.

All in all, you walk away with a full stomach and ringing ears, smelling of grilled pork, and hopefully with a lot of good pictures!  It was such a fun evening!

Special thanks to the team of teachers from Evangel University who are teaching two courses for us and funded the event!

M, Fifi, and Run

Wan, Merry, Amm, and Jeab

Liz and Georgie

Aun, Aun (yep there are 2), Fom, Kai, Prin, Ton

Georgie, me, Pim, Pear