Cosmopolitan = Out of Touch

Utter hole-in-the-wall, but great spot for amazing intellectual conversation and fantastic food.

So, two of our counterparts from the Thai Embassy took a couple of my colleagues and myself to lunch the other day, and I had no idea what to expect.  I had been to the restaurant they suggested, Shada Restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall place two minutes from the Embassy (could totally walk there if it wasn’t 150° and humid), but the dish I ordered the first time I was there was nothing to write home about, so I was a little concerned.  We suggested a Thai restaurant we know and love, but they politely declined in favor of Shada.  Then our Thai friends ended up being about ten minutes late, the norm for Arabs, but a little surprising for Asian diplomats.  But, that was all I could find fault with for the rest of the two hours we leisurely enjoyed in the restaurant whose decorations and fish tank can only be described as bold (kitschy).