Restaurant Ruen Mallika: to lick your fingers!
You eat with cutlery, with a knife and fork or with a spoon, depending on the dish you are eating. Some things are "allowed" to touch by hand, such as a chicken leg or the bone of a pork chop that needs to be gnawed off, but many people think that's not neat if you do that in a restaurant.
I myself have eaten without cutlery in Indonesia, China, Egypt and Nigeria, for example, but those are primitive countries, aren't they? Times are changing, however, and the English Debretts Guide, considered the last bastion of dining etiquette, has recently made a nod to the use of hands. Even in a restaurant with the statement that table manners "are no longer bound by a ridiculously outdated code of conduct".
Perb Mue
That last statement certainly applies to a Thai restaurant in Bangkok where the art of eating with the fingers has been brought back to life. Perb Mue or finger eating has long been considered a violation of table manners in Thailand, but at the Ruen Mallika restaurant, you are actively encouraged to use your fingers. Just like in the days when “perb mue” was an essential part of traditional culture. Thais ate with their fingers until the reign of King Mongkut (Rama IV). Using the fingers is now acceptable again, eating with the hands is an art.
Instruction
Chayapol the owner says “Young people, expats and tourists are not used to finger eating so we provide pre-instruction through a short video in three languages – Thai, English and Japanese – and our staff are also happy to help. to help"
“Perb mue traditionally involved using just the thumb, index and middle finger, but eating with five fingers was also considered polite. It is important that you never pick up more food than you can fit neatly into your mouth,” adds Chayaphol.
The restaurant
Ruen Mallika is located in Soi Sethi, Sukhumvit 22 in a teak villa. It is estimated to have been built 180 years ago in the period of Rama II. It is an ideal place to enjoy a classic dining experience in traditional Thai surroundings. The waiting staff are also dressed in classic Thai fashion. Guests can choose to sit in the garden surrounding the villa or relax against triangular cushions at low tables in the house.
Menu Perb Mue
The perb mue menu is offered for a minimum of two people and costs 1,500 Baht per person. For the composition, the guest chooses from more than 100 Thai dishes two starters, soup, a curry dish, nam prik and a spicy salad, two choices of meat (chicken, pork or beef), a dish of fish, stir-fried vegetables and a dessert. Steamed rice, sticky rice or noodles are served with it. With a napkin and a coconut filled with water, tea leaves and a slice of lemon, guests can wash their fingers between courses.
The meals
It goes too far to mention all possible dishes, but I will mention a few:
- “Chun cheu boossaba”: a mix of butterfly pea, primrose, sesbania, damask rose and hibuscus, lightly fried until this floral cocktail is crispy.
- “Miang krathong thong”: a spicy snack wrapped in crispy puff pastry.
- “Khai Toon”: steamed egg topped with minced pork and shrimp.
- “Tom kha pla salid”: a sweet and sour coconut soup (spoon is used here) with tamarind leaves and topped with crispy dried fish.
- “Guang lueng”: a sweet and sour soup from the south, with bamboo shoots and shrimps.
- “Nam prik kapi”: a bowl of various vegetables with a whole fried mackerel.
- “Yum Cha-om”: a spicy seafood salad on a bed of crispy fried cha-om leaves.
- “Gai hor bai toei”: fried chicken wrapped in a pandan leaf.
- “Kha moo kob'”: fried pork leg with fish curry sauce.
- “Pla kapong lui suan pholamai”: fried sea bass with a spicy fruit salad.
And many other traditional Thai dishes, which can all be eaten with your fingers.
Finally
The restaurant is open daily from noon to 23:00 PM. Call (02) 663 3211 or visit www.RuenMallika.com.
Enjoy!
Source: An article in The Sunday Nation
It is apparently not easy for many people to eat with their fingers. You can shape rice nicely into a ball and slide it into your mouth with the thumb from the index and middle finger.
I have already seen people who took a handful of rice and tried to make it disappear in the mouth with the flat of their hand… with all the consequences: rice fell to the floor and the face was smeared.
My girlfriend apologizes whenever she wants to eat her food by hand (especially Isaan dishes, which you wrap in a cabbage leaf).. I don't care… if she enjoys it…
In India I went out for dinner with friends in a restaurant where the food was served on a banana leaf. They were amazed that I could eat with my fingers...and loved it.
In Japan, too, some dishes are eaten with the fingers… the most famous: Sushi. Now almost everyone eats with chopsticks, but the true way is with the fingers.
Most Arabic dishes are also eaten with the fingers.
There must be a bowl of water or at least the possibility to wash your hands before and after eating.
So it's not that crazy at all. I'll say it again: we always think that our way of eating with knife and fork is the benchmark. However, most of the world eats in a different way….
What if I order a Tom Yum Kung, for example, and the tip of the shrimp still needs to be removed? Is that also an encouragement to fish it in the soup with my fingers, or should they actually have those dots removed, or should I try that with my spoon, or am I supposed to just chew it well and eat it up? food and am I just a white whining Piet?
Country's wisdom, country's honour, but I have my reservations, due to hygiene, as we know, the Thai use the left hand to clean themselves after going to the toilet, but I have noticed that the hands are simply rinsed in the available bowl of water .
And soap is hardly ever involved, and not even present there, so when food is involved, where sometimes two hands have to be used, (one is not always possible). So have my reservations about this, or am I seeing this is .
We are going to Bangkok again in a few weeks – first half of November next – for a few days.
Traditionally, when we are there, we always take the opportunity to visit restaurants that we have not been to before. The choice is endless, so we never have to worry that we've had them all.
Ruen Malliki was unknown to me. So I don't rule out that this will be one of the restaurants to visit next month. Thanks for the tip.
You only eat with the “fingers” with your right hand. I assume that you wash your hands before eating and that you also wash your hands well after going to the toilet. Henk B, you've probably never eaten with your hands either. The food, as I have written before and that also applies to fransamsterdam, is prepared in such a way that you can eat it with your fingers. Even if there is a chicken leg, you can eat it with your right hand. Even if you only want a piece of meat. Trust me, I've done it plenty of times in the past. Hence it is not so easy as many imagine. There is a way of eating… then you are not doing anything wrong.
The 'cutlery' of my Thai in-laws is often the right hand. All together on a rug on the floor, a pan with (glutinous) rice in the middle, lots of vegetables (leaves) and usually fish and/or fried pork and sometimes chicken. Everything looks clean and hands are washed beforehand. But I can not! Just eating while sitting on the floor is almost impossible for me, but I can't get a bite to eat when I see that everyone is sitting with his / her hand in the same pan. They eat with taste and you can hear that. To be able to eat myself, the solution is simple, before the others start, the food is scooped on a plate for me and I eat it sitting at a table, with normal cutlery. In the beginning they looked a bit strange about this, although they hardly showed it out of politeness, but they soon experienced it as normal.