To ask about your very authentic dining experiences in the UK that have not been so authentic?

[hellokittymania]

Last week, I saw papaya salad on the menu and as I love papaya salad, I ordered it. I wish I had a picture of it. It was the noodles, onions, tomato, salad, and some very ripe papaya I told my friend not to take his tie wife there. Ha ha ha. They also had weasel coffee. Thankfully I didn't order that, as I think it may have been served with the weasel included.

So many of us have stories from overseas, but I just had to share that and I thought it was hilarious. Now, what are your stories from the UK? And, no, I am not being unreasonable for saying that sometimes, restaurants really do get it very wrong. 😂

Feeling stupid...... Never had papaya salad and probably wouldn't order it anyway, but what were you expecting/what do you think it should be? Genuine question, surely that is A papaya salad even if not the type of papaya salad you were expecting?

Here, this is the real one, usually it has crab as well. I was expecting this. I have ordered it from Singapore garden I think and it was pretty pretty close and very good. I have also ordered acar from one place and that was good too.

By the way, I was looking for a weasel coffee video if anybody wants to know what it is, but it’s really early in the morning and you’re all having breakfast if you are up. So I will save you and your stomachs. Ha ha ha The weasel eats the coffee beans, let’s put it that way it’s the coffee beans. Sorry I’m using dictation. The weasel choose the coffee beans and swallows them.

Wondering how authentic the 'tie wife' can be. Is she from Tieland?

Excelsior, I am visually impaired and I used to Tatian. Dammit! I use dictate. You will have to excuse the technology. It also wrote a book instead of salsa. I don’t know how it comes out with what it does. But when I say the country Thailand it gets it right when I say the word tie, it doesn’t. But yes, she is definitely from Thailand.

When it was lightning in London, dictation wrote rum balls and it had everyone on the thread laughing.

I had to Google weasel coffee (before I saw your update), it sounds rather bizarre!!

It’s very expensive, and it’s not as good as it said to be. There was a coffee scandal in Vietnam earlier this year, but usually I just drink the very cheap Street coffee. And there are plenty of places in London where you can find good Vietnamese coffee that does not involve weasels.

Urgh, I was really hoping that the weasel coffee was a typo too

Ha ha ha, sorry, no, that was not a mistake. I think in Thailand there is another animal coffee. I don’t remember which though, elephant maybe?

So - having looked at your link and several different videos, I see why you were disappointed if you were expecting som tam. Was it on the menu as som tam or as papaya salad? If it was papaya salad YABU, as it was a papaya salad. If it was som tam then YANBU. However the recipes I saw were all different, one had no crab, 2 had pickled crab, none had fresh crab, one had no peanuts, so there are obviously several accepted variations. Nevertheless I feel your pain - it is so disappointing to be anticipating one thing and to get something completely different. With me it is roast potatoes - you go for a carvery on a Sunday, the meat is wonderful, the veg is good, and then they serve Aunt Bessies type potato abominations, or perhaps worse, deep fried potato lumps. NOooooooo! These are NOT roast potatoes and should never be served with a roast dinner. The clue is in the name..... ROAST.

Think I'd rather have a coffee with a weasel than what it actually is!

Goddess, I think they did have the proper name, and the restaurant was pretty authentic looking. They had a lot of Caribbean and Jason dishes on their menu, so I thought, great! They even had a lot of drinks that were local to the countries of the food. Including the coffee. So I thought, wonderful! 😂😂😩 and then I was disappointed.

I feel your pain with the potatoes as well. I remember somebody posted a thread a while ago on disappointing food when people are traveling. Somebody on that thread had mentioned carrot cake in Singapore. She was expecting carrot cake, the desert. Carrot cake in Singapore it’s not carrot cake for dessert. It’s something else entirely, usually have it for breakfast

Civet coffee, I've heard it called. My sister referred to it as "squirrel sh!t coffee".

This is “carrot cake“

Melanie, a friend of mine brought it back to Australia the other day and she wrote that it was not as much as it was “crapped” up to be.

It’s the only place I’ve ever seen it sold in the UK actually, come to think of it.

I just googled it, and apparently you can buy it even on Amazon. And you can find at the Vietnamese chain Pho as well.

Visitors are often flummoxed in Norn Irn when they see a "soda" on the menu. A "bacon and egg soda" is a sort of bacon butty, made with local soda bread. Those expecting some sort of fizzy drink are confused.

Melanie, do you know in Vietnam, eggs soda is an actual drink. I would have gotten really confused, but I wouldn't have ordered and I think all the bacon and eggs soda. Just a thought. I don't like eggs anyway, so I won't try the egg drink in Vietnam. There is an egg coffee as well. It sounds disgusting.