21 replies to this topic

[Laddie]

I have been seeing the same Thai guy for almost 6 months now and have developed one big probelm. He refuses to eat anything but Thai food with a preference for very spicy Issan style places. I can eat that style of food occasionally but not as a steady diet. There are no places that I can find that serve decent farang food and authentic Issan food at the same table and I really don't like eating dinner alone. It's reached the point where we each head off to dinner alone unless I can find another farang to join me for dinner.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get this guy, who is almost 30, to open up his horizons and at least try to start enjoying some good farang food too ?

[Gaybutton]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get this guy, who is almost 30, to open up his horizons and at least try to start enjoying some good farang food too ?

You have encountered one of the most difficult problems to resolve with a Thai boyfriend. You say he's nearly 30, so he's as unlikely to change his ways now as you are to change yours.

There is one solution if you are in Pattaya. It's not a great one, but it's the only thing I can think of to do. He goes to wherever he gets his food and gets it take-out. You order your food through either Door-2-Door or WOW. Then you eat together at home.

[DollyLamma]

You don't make clear from your post if you guys are living together. In my experience, some Thai guys use that excuse of not liking farang food as a convenient excuse to get away and enjoy some free time on their own or with his thai friends. I have known a lot of farangs who are so possessive of their young boyfriends that the kid has got to invent excuses to get away and have some time on his own.

If you guys are not living together, this food thing may also be a way for this guy to be telling you that he likes the short-time sex and the money it gets him, but he doesn't see himself as your full-time companion. Not all Thai boys want to live 24/7 with an older farang. My impression is that it might be easier for you to find a new boyfriend with a curious appetite than get this horse to drink the water you want him to.

[A friend]

If by 'boyfriend' you mean 'paid escort', just ask him to sit with you and keep you company in the restaurant. If you do not support him financially, learn to eat alone. Free sex should be more than enough compensation.

[pong]

agree with all above, but if its genuine, then try to eat at one of the many foodcourts, where they offer a choice of anything: like the 3d/2nd floor of that big shopping plaza, or even the Tesco/Carrefour etc. Maybe it may even show you some never-thought of other thai specials. BTWl; you also did not make it clear if our place was farang/western food only or would offer more - at least in Pattaya about any normal restaurant also offers thai-style meals for the ''ladies''.

[JimLA]

Find a new companion. This guy is either a control-freak, who wants to dictate the terms of your relationship, including eating only foods he likes, or he is interested only in sex-for-money. You are obviously looking for companionship of the kind he doesn't provide. There are lots of better pebbles on the Thai beach. Find a new one.

[francois]

I have been seeing the same Thai guy for almost 6 months now and have developed one big probelm. He refuses to eat anything but Thai food with a preference for very spicy Issan style places. horizons and at least try to start enjoying some good farang food too ?

All Thais I know like steak. So, maybe try that, they like it rare.

[UncleSam]

All Thais I know like steak. So, maybe try that, they like it rare.

Actually, my experience is that Thais like steak because it's usually the most expensive thing on the English menu they can't read.

Hehehe.....

[loeploh]

I know a lot of Thai's who do not eat steak..

Budist don't like to eat meat from animals who work for them..)

[Gene]

Budist don't like to eat meat from animals who work for them..)

That must be the reason so few Thai guys like to smoke farangs.

[francois]

I know a lot of Thai's who do not eat steak..

Budist don't like to eat meat from animals who work for them..)

Beef cattle don't work for people, they just die for people to eat them.

[Khun Jon]

My Thai boyfriend of seven years also doesn't like eating Farang food and I'm vegetarian so eating together in Thailand can sometimes be a problem.

However we've found there is often a "middle way" in many Thai restaurants. He'll have a fried egg on a bed of rice for example and add all the spice he likes and some prawns while I can have the same but without the "accessories". I can sometimes get some salad to go with mine which he won't touch.

He will eat some Farang desserts and rather too many dounuts so we do sometimes eat in Western style places in the evening after a earlier meal at a Thai place. We both compromise and it's no problem.

A few years ago before a trip to the UK became impossible he had assured me that he was going to eat Farang food as I explained to him that he'd starve otherwise. Unfortunately the trip never happened so I don't know how well he would have coped.

[Bob]

The only response I can think to the original post (my boyfriend won't eat falang food) is: So?

To describe it as a "big problem" seems puzzling to me. Why would anyone want to compel or even encourage anybody else to eat "falang" food? Plus there are tons of restaurants all over Thailand that serve both Thai and western food.

My bf of about 7 years lives in Chiangmai and he rarely eats "falang" food but, so far, I don't recall once that being even a minor problem. I can always find something on the menu I'm willing to eat. I can't and won't eat the real spicy foods (and am not about to "open up my horizons" to try to learn how to eat that stuff) but, like I said, I've never found a restaurant in Thailand that didn't have food acceptable to westerners.

[bedbugy]

question for laddie
why move to thailand if you don't like the food

[Taxi driver]

question for laddie - why move to thailand if you don't like the food

He didn't say he didn't like Thai food. He said he did not like a constant diet of Issan food. I don't blame him. If you have ever tried Issan food, you know that only Thai squirrels could look forward to eating it every day of the year.

As for eating at restaurants to please both tastes, I have never seen a single restaurant in Thailand in over 12 years that had decent farang and Issan dishes on the same menu. I'm talking real Issan food now, the kind that makes your nose drip while you're eating it and reminds you as it passes out of your system the next morning.

As far as I am concerned, any boy living off my income should be prepared to meet me half way on eating out. It's obvious that some of these old farangs who say they don't mind catering to their young Thai boy's eating tastes all the time are wrapped too tightly around some little boy's pinkie. I don't come to Thailand to limit my enjoyment of good food and dining to the 6th grade imagination of some displaced rice farmer.

[mauRICE]

How can people say they are in a relationship when they can't even enjoy the most basic tenets of human relationships: sharing and enjoying a meal together? What about music tastes? Reading selections? Sport? TV shows? Humour? Sharing of doubts, feelings and frustrations? But that's just me...

I'm a rice eater and love spicy food but my olfactory nerves don't take too kindly to the many preserved dishes of Isaarn cooking.

Thankfully, most of my companions have been from central and south Thailand and I have found them to be more adventurous in their culinary tastes and in attempting new things generally. Poor but less baan nok in outlook. When having Thai, we usually go for khao raat gaeng (rice with gravy on the side or on top), fish or chicken on the side and steamed/fried vegetables with a chilli dip. Delicious and inexpensive.

I'm talking real Issan food now, the kind that makes your nose drip while you're eating it and reminds you as it passes out of your system the next morning.

As far as I am concerned, any boy living off my income should be prepared to meet me half way on eating out. It's obvious that some of these old farangs who say they don't mind catering to their young Thai boy's eating tastes all the time are wrapped too tightly around some little boy's pinkie. I don't come to Thailand to limit my enjoyment of good food and dining to the 6th grade imagination of some displaced rice farmer.

A witty and apt description. I bet the jai dii crowd had a fit reading it and had to hop over to the nearest ATM for a bit of rental love therapy.

[BORG]

I don't come to Thailand to limit my enjoyment of good food and dining to the 6th grade imagination of some displaced rice farmer.

There's a lot of truth in that statement, as harsh as it may seem at first blush. Most Thai guys who work in Pattaya have very little exposure to education or travel and it's up to farangs who are interested in more than one hour of sex to help expand the narrow and provincial world in which these young guys live. Expanding their appreciation for all kinds of food is part of that process.

[Gaybutton]

Expanding their appreciation for all kinds of food is part of that process.

I probably haven't changed all that much since I was a kid. I got myself into real trouble once when my mother asked the age-old question, "How do you know you won't like it if you don't try it?" My answer was, "Because you cooked it." My back end still hurts after my father's arms got tired of using the belt . . .

But now I do try new foods, even if I'm certain I won't like them. Often I am pleasantly surprised. There are many Thai foods I'm sure I would enjoy if it wasn't for all the hot peppers. I just can't eat that. It burns my mouth and I also can't taste anything else for about twenty minutes. The "next morning" problem was already mentioned above. But I do try the foods I've never had as long as they are not too heavily spiced.

I often meet Thai boys who do like farang food or are at least willing to try. If they won't give it a try, I don't make an issue of it. Most farang restaurants do have a Thai menu available and they are perfectly satisfied. It seems to be quite rare to meet a Thai boy who even a Thai menu won't satisfy. I think it is unreasonable for the Thai boy to insist on eating only his own favorite foods without consideration for his farang boyfriend when he knows the menu has nothing to offer that the farang will like.

That leaves Laddie with some choices: My door-2-door idea above can work. Some of the other ideas posted here can also work. But assuming Laddie is the one paying, then it seems to me that he should get to go to the places he likes once in a while, without the boyfriend complaining or refusing to come along. The Thai word for "compromise" is roughly pronounced "raawm chaawm."

[mauRICE]

There's a lot of truth in that statement, as harsh as it may seem at first blush. Most Thai guys who work in Pattaya have very little exposure to education or travel and it's up to farangs who are interested in more than one hour of sex to help expand the narrow and provincial world in which these young guys live. Expanding their appreciation for all kinds of food is part of that process.

Agreed, provided the boy is amenable to being exposed to culinary styles other than his own. The OP is not talking about a one-hour off but his boyfriend. If after six months, a year or seven years a boy is not willing to meet his farang bf half-way as Taxi Driver put it - which is not an unreasonable expectation by any standards - then there is very little one can do about it. Some of these boys are stubborn, having had the superiority of Thai culture and cuisine drummed into their heads since they were little and anything foreign is inferior. You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn.

[mauRICE]

I probably haven't changed all that much since I was a kid. I got myself into real trouble once when my mother asked the age-old question, "How do you know you won't like it if you don't try it?" My answer was, "Because you cooked it." My back end still hurts after my father's arms got tired of using the belt . . .

Gee, GB, you didn't grow up in Amstetten, Austria, did you?

[Gaybutton]

Gee, GB, you didn't grow up in Amstetten, Austria, did you?

Who says I ever grew up?

[loeploh]

I would start to worry, if he didn't like to eat HOT DOG !!