In the early ’80s, I set out to find the best restaurant in Bangkok.

But how? I went to the top hotel in Bangkok, the Mandarin Oriental , and, pretending to be a guest — one night would have extinguished my entire trip’s budget — asked the concierge.

He naturally referred me to the hotel restaurant. My ruse continued and I replied that I had been eating there and added, “Where do the wealthy Thais go for their special-occasion, spectacular meal?” Only then was I directed to a restaurant in a converted mansion and had a Thai meal unlike any other I had ever experienced in my sojourns in Thailand.

The problem was that it ruined Thai food for me back home or, for that matter, anywhere else. Since that day, I had never been able to truly enjoy a Thai meal here because they are all so dram

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