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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3661 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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My co-founder and I are moving to Chiang Mai from our hometowns and want to move next weekend. I would appreciate any tips. We both realised that staying in our hometowns is not productive and Chiang Mai is the cheapest good place to move to. We calculate that we can be comfortable at a monthly burn of about 1-1.2k USD for two people if we share an apartment and eat at local vendors for every meal. The rent is about 500 USD or so since we want to live around nimman road.

I have never travelled outside of my nation so my first time heading out. Please do not hesitate to write what you feel, I am fairly new to this stuff. Also, I turned 24 on the 18th of July, which feels weird lol.

Chiang Mai has a kind of center, but generally it's quite spread out, and because Thailand is very hot this can be inconvenient if you're walking everywhere. You see tourists renting scooters but when I was there in February police were regularly stopping and citing them for various violations (riding tandem, no helmet, no license). The vendors renting are apparently very loosey goosey but the cops have their quotas. Tuk tuk taxis are also common but will add up, and aren't the safest. There's also currently a wave of businesses supported by selling marijuana in various strains and forms (eg gummi) which is a lotus trap for anyone who chooses to live there. I'd say buy a scooter and probably lay off the weed if you're looking to amp productivity.

I ate at tourist places but there are some really good places of that sort, selling the sort of international fare (quesadillas, gumbo, hummus and dolmata, etc.) that are sometimes very hard to source where I live. But again these aren't local shops. Local places for Thai people are cheaper but also spicier and by my own standards less sanitary.

I don't know CM as well as some of my friends but it's an historic area with a good music scene if you're into that. I will insert that Indians do not have the best reputation in Thailand due to the many cheapskate and entitled, presumptuous tourists that throng there, particularly in Bangkok. Some of these guys must be seen to be believed. I am not suggesting this is what you will be like, just giving fair warning.

gumbo

You can make your own gumbo fairly easily if you have access to fat and flour(or canned roux); once you figure out how to obtain roux the main obstacle is time(it takes 3+ hours). All of the ingredients seem like they should be accessible in Japan.

Oh to be sure, and I have made efforts to do so, even once emailing a restaurant in Foley Alabama to ask how the hell they made theirs (they stonewalled me but apparently taped my email to their wall).

My standard for a restaurant I'll happily go to is a place that makes something I either don't know how to make properly or don't often have the time commitment to make. Gumbo falls in that category. You're completely correct, however, my skills are just apparently weak or I don't have some secret ingredient to do it right.

Gumbo is one of the easier things to make in the kitchen. It's barely a step above "dump everything in the pot" chili. Isaac Toups' basic chicken and sausage gumbo walkthrough on youtube is a good start, the dish is very forgiving as long as you get the roux right. It's not complicated food, it's long-simmering food set aside to feed a large group of people. You can get everything done inside of 20min and then spend the day drinking beer or whatever while it bubbles.

Yeah as I say I've done gumbo several times but I don't think it ever turns out right. Maybe it's the roux as you suggest.

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