Thai Bamboo
11755 Wilshire Boulevard (just west of Barrington Ave)
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310.473.0047
If you are a food blogger, you may possibly know what I am talking about. Anything is possible, as my Daddy always said.
If you are a food blogger who posts about dining out and restaurant experiences a majority of the time, you most probably know what I am talking about. Daddy also said if there is a 50% or more chance, then it’s probable.
*breathe in*
*breathe out*
You decide to go some place for dinner because you know you would never blog about that place.
Why? Why would you do that?!?!
Because right now, you have a backlog of over 25 restaurants that are awaiting their Delicious debut, and about 25 restaurants that have already been blogged for the first time, but deserve a second witty, captivating, food pornographic review, but you’re tired of cropping and re-sizing photos and uploading them via Hello which craps out whenever it damn well free-software pleases, and come to think of it, you’re sort of sapped of all your creative writing ability (that is, if you had any ability to begin with) because how many different and clever ways can you say that the "sushi was sublime/melt-in-your-mouth/unctous," and you don’t want to add yet another restaurant to this imaginary “to-blog” list that you treat as if they had deadlines, creating more stress in your life as if blogging were a real job that pays even less than your hm, real job. You force yourself to leave your camera at home when you go to this never-to-be-blogged restaurant so that you won’t even be tempted to take pictures of food, because if you do take pictures, you know you will want to blog about it otherwise you will feel like you wasted disk space on your flash card to begin with.
Or maybe I’m the only freaky weird obsessive food blogger.
Yes! You do it, too! I know you do!
So you don’t take your camera, or if you’re really that attached (you weirdo), you take the camera, but leave the battery at home just to ease the withdrawal symptoms, and you go somewhere that, even though it’s the first time, you promisepromisepromise yourself and your friend that you won’t blog about it because if you plan to blog about it, even without your camera, you know will not pay attention to the dinner conversation, instead observing and mentally recording every single detail about the parking, signange, atmosphere, seating, service, menu and food to the point that it might be sort of embarrassing to your friend who will look like an uninteresting loser.
But.
Oh god. But but but but. But.
BUT YOU FUCKING BLOG ABOUT THAI BAMBOO ANYWAY!
You blog about it anyway because if you don’t, there will always be that tiny little nagging hole in your dining history and every time you drive by it, which will be often because it’s right there on Wilshire Boulevard at the base of an office building sandwiched between a Hong Kong Custom-Fit suit maker and some crazy martial arts studio that make you wonder what their “real” business is, you will remember that you ate there but never blogged about it, and you will feel incomplete because your mission when you started was to blog about all your dining adventures.
And even though you don’t have a picture because remember? you purposely left your camera at home so you wouldn’t have even gotten to this point of sitting down with “Blogger” pulled up on your laptop screen, you will do one of two totally unnecessary things because you refuse to post to your blog without an accompanying image because screw Sprite, image is everything.
tom yum kai, not from thai bamboo
you get the picture, right?
Either you will 1) recycle an old photo from a different restaurant that serves the same type of food so you can give the reader the general idea of what kind of food it was even though it has nothing to do with Thai Bamboo, and you may as well have picked up an image with “Thai+food” tag at flickr; or 2) you will draw a picture of you and your friend in the strange Miami Vice/fake bamboo decor of Thai Bamboo, yourself very unhappily eating the very poorly-executed dishes of a cuisine that you don’t love in the first place, making it that much harder for you to learn to love Thai food. The other figure in the picture has a smiley face just because he was sort of indifferent to the bland tom yum kai soup and sticky sweet, gooey with cornstarch, this-could-be-Panda-Express-if-Panda-Express-were-Thai noodle stirfry. But you don’t know how to draw “indifferent” in stickfigurean. You do both, because you know you aren't going to go back there to eat and take a picture even though the food is pretty cheap. You're not that desperate for a photo opp.
Oh God. Oh my God. I have a problem. I’m sorry. Someone please help me. Send a therapist. No, send a Chippendales dancer dressed as a doctor. Bearing prescription mini cupcakes. I think that might help.
** a year ago today, i didn't post. i must have been sick or something. weird. **
Catherine says
What's food blogging? I have no idea what you mean when you say you take things out with you even if you have no intention of using them but just knowing that you have it with you is comforting enough so you don't use it and prove to yourself that you do have the will power to just say no! and that makes you feel less crazy, otherwise if you didn't have it with you then perhaps you might be tempted to take extra measures to get your hands on something, anything else that will satisfy the itch. If that's what you mean, then yes, I think you could need some help. Perhaps start by weaning yourself from the camera. Work slowly from your superawsome but addictive digicam slowly down to Polaroid.
OK, I have to go, erm, wash my hair now...
peachiee says
Did you draw that sad yet adorable picture? Sarah, you've gone off the deep end!! J/K!
sarah says
cat: um, you mean like make your sister take pictures with her camera phone and email them to you later? cripes. i've never done that.
peachiee: there you are! and yes, that little girl with the high fashion pony tail, sad face, and "stylish shoes" is me. :)
adam: oh god. i've done that too. and i swear, i went somwhere once because i HAD to, and i didn't have my camera, and i think the food just didn't taste good to me. LOL!
rick james says
i like the artwork... but the detail on the shoes is a little amateurish...
i really can't tell if they're Anne Klein or Enzos... ;(
santos. says
>But you don’t know how to draw “indifferent” in stickfigurean.
i think the mere act of drawing in stickfigurean implies indifference.
"stickfigurean". ha. that's what i'm going to call the blinged out, paris hilton-wannabe anorectically skinny korean girls in my 'hood.
Anonymous says
I like that you pointed out your "stylish shoes." Did you take them off in the restaurant because it doesn't look like you have them on. How come you and your friend both do not have shirts on?
Anonymous says
I like that you pointed out your "stylish shoes." Did you take them off in the restaurant because it doesn't look like you have them on. How come you and your friend both do not have shirts on?
djjewelz says
Sarah, your therapist, Mr. LTJ Bukem will be available at Funktion (Vanguard) 4/19. You should definitely make an appointment to get this issue dealt with immediately ;)
sarah says
dcc: *gasp!* enzo or anne klein?!?! you offend me, dcc! thinking that i'd even wear such things! ;)
santos: hm. i guess i should have used a straight across line to make "indifferent" on my friend's face. he looks waaay to happy with his food (which he forgot wast it was and asked me if it was steaming pile of...something. LOL!)
anonymous: oh no, shoes stayed on, but i will say that my dad has no problem removing his shoes in ANY restaurant so he can sit indian style in his chair.
dj jewelz: whoa! ltj r0x my s0xx!!1!!1
really though, i may have to check that out. just heard a set recently from funktion...andy c? mcgq? ;)
djjewelz says
I still owe you carl cox and digger's sets from wmc ;)
peachiee says
Question: If you have a backlog of 25 unblogged restaurants, why move Thai Bamboo to priority #1? Is this an indication of how traumatized and disturbed you were by intentionally trying to not blog about it?
Anonymous says
Noodle Planet in Westwood has really good soup. always consistently good and cheap.
Maure says
i love that you got all dolled-up
for this etch-a-sketch, er, police artist rendering on this
post.
the ponytail is darling and the shoes, well - sexy, stylish and oh so suede.
but is your gentleman friend wearing coulottes, liederhosen
or bermuda shorts.
still you make a lovely couple
against the glamorous scene behind
you.
oh and let's head this off at this pass - there is nothing special at
all about trader joe's - maybe ten years ago but what with surfas, whole foods and many indie food-type establishments it's only the girls that bring idiots like me
back time and time again.
sincerely,
a jealous judas from julian
Daily Gluttony says
ROTF, that's all I have to say, sistah!
Oh, and don't mind DCCF with the Enzo's and the Anne Kleins. He's a guy. And straight. He don't know.
Neil says
How doi you manage to eat so much and still look like such a stick figure?
One thought --I'm always wary of taking photos private places like a restaurant. Doesn't everyone turn and look at you as you start photographing every dish? If I see someone using a zoom lens on their noodle soup in some Chinese dive on Wilshire, can I assume that it is you?
Dolores says
No dear, you're not the only freaky weird obsessive food blogger... :)
sarah says
dj jewelz: were you in sobe?!?!
peachiee: well, thai bamboo just happened to be next on the list - i am working my way through one by one...
anon: noodle planet! are you serious?!?! i don't know...i hate the parking problem in westwood.
maure: the real question is, why aren't either of us wearing shirts!??!
daily gluttony: okay, he's straight. that's excusable, then!
neil: oh, the wonders of trick sketchography, neil.
culinarily curious: i think actually, if you are a food blogger, you are, by default, freaky and weird :) normal food blogger? no such thing ;)