PHUKET — Following earlier reports that up to 90% of the coastline property in the island of Phuket was actually controlled by foreigners through Thai nominees, another shocking report has surfaced claiming that up to 99% of American Breakfasts served in Phuket are, in fact, fraudulent.
According to the details of the report released today by the TAT, out of 1,073 restaurants in Phuket province which include American Breakfast on their menus, only 12 actually serve anything vaguely resembling the morning meals typically consumed by Americans in the United States.
Using the standardized template of items including eggs that don’t taste like fish sauce, ham that’s more than 1-mm thick, potatoes of some kind, sausage that’s composed of loosely ground pork in a skin casing or patty, and coffee that’s made from actual coffee beans, the survey found that less than 1% of the restaurants were able to deliver on even one out of the five marks.
In fact, only four restaurants in Phuket, all of which were international hotels, served a sausage that wasn’t actually a short CP hot dog with one end cut to resemble a meaty flower. Additionally, the closest thing to an American Breakfast found in Phuket was actually a British breakfast served at a pub.
The report went on to acknowledge the source of the problem as the widespread practice of using Thai “nominee” cooks and managers to operate restaurants that are legally registered as “Western.” Though strictly a legal practice, many in the expatriate dining community have called on the government to close loopholes in the system, including tightening regulations and enforcement on the use of the terms “American”, “breakfast”, and, “coffee.”
However, spokespersons for the Thai restaurant industry insisted that such over-regulation would harm business and cause the loss of jobs, and that such breakfast-protectionism was an obstacle to global competitiveness.
