Spicy Food

When people find out that my wife is Cambodian, invariably they always ask me two questions: "Does she cook Cambodian food" and "Exactly what is Cambodian food?", to which I usually reply "Cambodia is located between Thailand and Vietnam so the food you would eat in a Thai or Vietnamese restaurants in Canada are similar, if not the same, as Cambodian food." Now that I'm in Thailand I can say that I have no Idea what authentic Cambodian food is like but Thai food is crazy spicy. I don't just mean "white people" spicy, I mean too hot for my wife spicy. This is the girl that puts 3 scotch bonnet peppers in a single bowl of soup! Well last night we went to a high end Thai restaurant probably had only ever served a a hand full of white people. The waitress was wearing a Heineken dress which would have been small on Sophie and we were overlooking an outdoor shopping mall that was bustling with families enjoying a national holiday by going out for dinner. I started things off with my own personal pitcher of Heineken (what can I say, I'm a sucker for advertising in the form of a short dress), and we had a few appetizer which were innocent enough in that they were deep fried with a bit of a sweet sauce. Sophie was passed out in her seat because her body was still on a non-Bangkok time zone (not sure which one) and the rest of us were peacefully munching away, oblivious of events to come. Then the main dishes started to come out. To be fair, we did order things from the "spicy" page of the menu and others that didn't have the word "spicy" in it. But when we started eating, it became very clear that not all the dishes we ordered were clearly marked with a "spicy" designator. The first dish, which was a version of the vermicelli salad we love so much, had so many red peppers that I was dying after one bite. Mom even started to die and that was supposed to be a bland dish! After that, everything became a blur, I was dying from hot peppers, excessive hiccups and excessive beer. Nick had been tricked into eating some hot food and was trying anything to get his mouth to stop burning. Juliette and mom were laughing at us and Sophie slept through the entire thing. When we were almost done, a final dish came. It was the spicy shrimp with lime juice. Mom wouldn't touch it because the shrimp was raw (I guess they figured between the hot peppers and the lime, no parasites could survive). I had 2 or three shrimps then threw in the towel. Shortly after we paid the bill of approx $60 CDN (quite high by Thai standards) and went to a gelato place before calling it quits. As painful as it was, it was a night to remember that the kids will talk about for days or until our next mini adventure.