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Of cabbages and condoms

Bangkok restaurant Condoms & Cabbages was started with the hope that it would popularise family planning.

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When Rashmi Das and her husband Suresh visited Bangkok last year, Suresh, a self-confessed foodie, decided to track down some of Bangkok’s more unusual restaurants. “I asked the man at our hotel’s reception desk to recommend a restaurant that is really unique. He blurted out, ‘Condoms and Cabbages’,” laughed Suresh. “I looked at him strangely because I thought he was either joking or hinting at something.”

The duo hired a taxi to take them to the restaurant (“I just about managed to tell the name of the restaurant to the taxi driver without squealing,” remembers Suresh) and they were convinced that the whole thing was a prank. But Cabbages and Condoms, or C & C as many call it, does exist. As they entered the restaurant, statues and trees decked in colourful condoms greeted Rashmi and Suresh. “Outside there was a sign which said ‘Sorry we have no mints. Please take a condom instead’,” said Suresh. “There was a Santa Claus made out of condoms, a bride whose gown was made out of condoms, Christmas trees made out of condoms … even a boy dressed in a Manchester United uniform made out of condoms! Even our bill was accompanied by a condom. It all felt so surreal.”

The restaurant’s website greets visitors with the tag line, “Our food is guaranteed not to cause pregnancy.” But the loud hints to safe sex and pregnancy at C & C are much more than a gimmick. The restaurant was founded by the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), a private, non-profit organisation. PDA was formed in 1974 to curb Thailand’s population growth which, at the time, was spiralling out of control. The restaurant was started with the hope that it would popularise family planning.

Although the menu is similar to that of menu Bangkok restaurants, C & C restaurant manager Khun Noppadol Sriruwat pointed out that the restaurant serves something called a Condom Salad. “The Condom Salad is clear noodle, which looks like clear rubber, vegetables, chillies and onions,” said Sriruwat.

Surprisingly, the place is frequented by many families. “Most of our guests are Western people. We get very few Asians. Children from two months old to teenagers also visit our restaurant with parents,” explains Sriruwat.

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