Don's pain-steaking work ...

The menu at Don's ... great, um, side dishes!

I love stumbling across a great story of human spirit, and here's one that'll melt your heart ...

Don was a rocket scientist. No, really, with NASA and everything, working on all their main space programs including the Gemini missions, Apollo program, etc.

Then he moved to central Thailand and set up a factory doing something unique with steel and some of the innovative technology he'd pioneered over the years in NASA. But come the big Asian meltdown in 1997 (the 'Tom Yum Goong Crisis' as it's called locally), his business crashed and burned on re-entry.

So Don moved to Phuket. And amazingly took many of his factory workers with him. And retrained them. To cook farang food. And serve. And he soon built up a successful steak house. Jing jing!

Don's Cafe, near Nai Harn Beach, also dishes up ribs, pizza, burgers and spaghetti. Then he set up a factory processing and wholesaling meat, sausages and pastries. Then he set up restaurants in Bangkok, Kunming (China), and Chiang Rai, situated on a fish pond just out of town.

Don's Cafe, on Golden Pond, Chiang Rai.

I tried the 200g ribeye recently. Wow! Tender.190 baht. That's less than 7 bucks. Wow! Cheap.

They say you don't have to be a rocket scientist to succeed in the food business. But clearly it helps ...