LIFE

Trails from the riverbank

Life, Noel Maclean, Published on 06/12/2012

» Under the midday sun, the view from Trader Vic's multi-ethnic cuisine restaurant is of a broad reach of river flowing fast to the sea such as inspired Joseph Conrad's tales of hapless expats getting lost in translation. The Chao Phraya - River of Kings, if you will - feels steeped in history and continues to evoke an age of romance. Forgetting the condos rising along its edge and focusing instead on high-gloss rice barges turned gin palaces moored closer by, just the sight of it makes you feel like rowing out to a schooner moored midstream and setting sale for the fictional Vic's spiritual home in Polynesia. One might also imagine the legendary bon vivant stepping ashore and emerging between a riot of waxen foliage with his mates, like an earlier age Anthony Bourdain in search of exotic culinary sensations with which to treat his compadres on his eventual return home. The welcome, a Thai-style orchid garland hung around your neck in a thin rendition of the Hawaiian custom, adds more to the atmosphere.