Thai Food in Khobar

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Dinner in Khobar

Tonight I had dinner in Khobar with a friend I met who is from Bangladesh. He is a professor at the local university and has been in Saudi for about four months now. We ate at a Thai restaurant that was excellent. I was not brave enough to order from the spicy food part of the menu, but perhaps next time. The shrimp soup was really fantastic, but I’m not sure they deliver to Minneapolis. Bummer.

It was fun to talk to Manir, whose English is better than mine. We discussed our jobs, families, and experiences in Khobar. His wife and family are still back in Bangladesh, but will hopefully be joining him soon. To me, being away from home and family for three weeks is a very long time indeed. However, there are people here who are away from their family for years before they are able to reunite.

I was too late for the Aramco bus back, so I took a cab. I did remember to ask how much it would be before we took off (about $10). Manir said that I’d probably be the only Westerner on the street and he was right! We walked through some of the side streets and saw a lot of vegetables for sale. All was familiar to me except for a long tubular veggie. I asked Manir what it was and he said it was a radish. It occurred to me later that it must have been horseradish.

I would like to go back to Khobar again and spend some time in the shops. I feel like I’m now running out of time, but I will try to do what I can.

There is a three day weekend coming up soon because it’s an Aramco holiday. I asked one of the Participants what holiday it was and he talked with his friend for awhile in Arabic and came back with the answer of St. Valentine’s Day. I knew enough to know that he was kidding because V-day is another Saudi no-no. When they saw that I knew they were kidding, they burst out laughing. The real answer is that they are “make-up” holidays for when Aramco used to have time off at Christmas. Obviously, that doesn’t fly any more, so the days are interspersed during the year.

Hopefully I can get Esbjorn to take me some place interesting. I would like to see Oil Well #7, which is the first oil well that struck oil in Saudi Arabia.

P.S. Today was Coaching day, which means no Kim-style food and an order to Dominos Pizza (no kidding, it's delivered from Khobar). It was the same as the Dominos from home, except that they have Arabic on the napkins.

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Photos

"Before Hungry Gets You"
Dominos in Saudi. (If you look carefully, you might see the pizza stain on the napkin.) Proof of authenticity.

Comments

[Jessica]

Speaking of chains...
Come across any Paneras yet? :)

[TedTravel]

Panera
Sorry, Jess, I haven't stumbled across any Panaras. However, you would like the chicken kabobs (although I don't think they use pineapple on theirs!).

[sherrie]

Long, tubular radish...
...may have been daikon, Ted. Was it white? I worked in a grocery store for 9 years so I became very familiar with produce (boy, does that sound bad or what?!).

[TedTravel]

Horse Radish or Daikon?
I keep forgetting that my friends know EVERYTHING. First a bird expert, now a veggie expert. Who needs Google when you have such smart friends and relatives. :) Yes, it was white, so I'll go whith Daikon, even though I have no idea what a daikon is. It's Wikkapedia time.

[TedTravel]

Professional Blogging
Is there a career in blogging? That would be something interesting. The language thing is interesting, but keep in mind that when I spoke Arabic (and I had practiced the phrase), they looked at me as if I channeling some spirit. My French accent is enough to start a war. When I was in Paris and tried to speak French I actually had one person ask me to PLEASE talk English! Ouch. That hurt.

[Manir]

Daikon it is
It's called a daikon in Japan. I did not know the word has found a place in the English language.

[TedTravel]

Daikons
Apparently I didn't know that either, Manir! Of course I'm the one who wrote, "you're English is very good." But I'm blaming that on lack of sleep and too many hours working. Not knowing about diakons is just a lack of general knowledge on my part. Or lack of watching enough Iron Chef on the Food Network Channel.