Shrimp and ‘Escape to the Country’
This newsletter is late because I was too busy eating shrimp.
Welcome to the Double Feature! Each week I write one thing about entertainment and one thing about food. They’re not related, unless for some reason you think they are, in which case it was definitely on purpose.
I ate: Shrimp at Lotus of Siam
Very few dishes have stuck in mind the way the garlic prawns from Las Vegas’s Lotus of Siam have. I’ll be doing laundry, walking my dog, or some other everyday task, and all of the sudden I’ll have a vivid flashback to eating this shrimp. I have no qualms with calling this dish the best shrimp in the world.
To be clear, everything I ate at Lotus of Siam tasted incredible. But this shrimp dish transported me to another dimension. These prawns unlocked neuron pathways in my brain that had never been traveled before. I’ve now tasted new colors that exist on a spectrum the human eye is unable to see.
Chef Saipin Chutima and her husband Bill bought Lotus of Siam in 1999, and have been running it together ever since. In 2011, Chef Chutima won a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southwest, which she absolutely deserves, but it begs the question: why not a Nobel Prize? Does the UN have some kind of Key to the World that they could give her? Let’s get someone on this, she deserves it.
Lotus of Siam prepares its third-eye-opening shrimp by first peeling them, but crucially leaving the shell attached at the tail. They then deep fry the shrimp unbattered, leaving the meat tender, and the shells shatteringly crisp (per the Lotus of Siam website: “almost like potato chips”). The fried shrimp are then tossed with a light amount of a garlicky, savory-sweet sauce, topped with black pepper, and served to be eaten entirely, shells and all.
They’re so goddamn good. If you find yourself in Las Vegas anytime soon (as I, against my better judgement, have twice during the pandemic), please go eat these shrimp.
I watched: Escape to the Country
Escape to the Country is not so much a television show as it is a warm blanket. It leads the pack of what I call “bedtime shows” by miles: it is as soothing, unchallenging, and quiet as they come. Also, it’s from England, which means it’s sleepy as a matter of national law.
Each episode of Escape to the Country consists a city-dwelling home buyer seeking the titular “escape” going on tours of three homes in the country, guided by one of the show’s rotating hosts. Two out of the three houses meet the buyer’s listed needs and budget, but the host also takes them to a third “mystery” house, which usually has those same needs and price, but kookier somehow. The show’s closest American analogue is House Hunters, but Escape to the Country is both weirder and more natural than its American cousin.
For one thing, the people on House Hunters have often already bought the house that the show depicts them choosing. Producers stage the rest of the search process in order to shorten the production schedule. On Escape to the Country, rarely if ever does someone actually decide on buying one of the houses, it’s all about the tours. The show remains honest in that respect, but completely lacks any closure. Episodes often end with the host just shrugging to camera wondering what the buyer will do.
Escape to the Country also demonstrates the vast gulf between British and American sensibilities. Our common language makes it easy to forget that our friends across the pond have a vastly different culture from us, but watching Brits lose it over houses having “wood burners” will quickly remind you of that fact.
Frequently, the host will show the prospective buyers some kind of converted 1500s woodshed with 5-foot ceilings, no closets, and a price tag of a million pounds and the buyer will absolutely flip at the beauty of such a “character cottage.” In the US, selling someone a house like that would be a federal crime. It’s also great when a buyer on the show will be like “look at this view!” and the view is just a truly unremarkable empty field. The very thin cultural barrier makes watching the show feel delightfully strange. It’s home buying from another dimension.
Escape to the Country has another element of strangeness that’s a little more off-putting. The show’s premise, where city folk want to move to the countryside for some peace and quiet, looks a little bit like white flight from a certain angle. Taken with the fact that the show features mostly white buyers who in their intro segments will sometimes talk about their city undergoing “changes” recently, it can really take away from the show’s cute factor. Most episodes feel completely innocent, but it’s worth noting that some feel a little bit slimy. Also, Dabl, one of the places Escape to the Country airs in the US, airs frequent MyPillow ads. So that sucks.
Escape to the Country features strange people looking at strange houses in a strange land, all packaged with comforting (yet strange) hosts and little British (read: strange) geography/history lessons. If you’re looking to add some quiet surreality to your bedtime routine, you could do a lot worse.
Escape to the Country is available on IMDb TV for free, or on Dabl, a network you can watch for free with an antenna.
Thanks for reading The Double Feature! If you want my treatises on food and entertainment delivered straight to your inbox, consider subscribing!
Yaaassss! Our shrimp made the double feature!! WooHoo!!
I cannot imagine eating the shell with the shrimp. Willing to try it, but a little grossed out. But I WILL take your word for it next (?) time I go to Vegas.