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Eating Out - Part 4

After about a year, I made a break for it and headed back to Joel, still sitting at the table, still completely unaware of what was going on. I put him right. Once we’d figured out how to switch on the burner, our broth was soon simmering nicely. Cheerfully, we emptied the bowl of food into the broth and licking our lips, inhaled the delicious aroma as we waited for it to cook.

It was then we noticed the other patrons stealing glances from behind their hands and smiling. That’s when we realized that other people were cooking and eating their food in installments. Quite obvious really – different meats and vegetables cook at different speeds so we’d just revealed once more, what neophytes we were. Oh well, before long we were pigging into this gargantuan meal.

But we didn’t just have volume to contend with. Remember I said tom yum soup was hot? Well this stuff was really hot. I mean, Chernobyl hot. Toilet paper in the fridge hot. I like my food spicy, and have shoveled down some blistering stuff in the past, but I have never eaten anything as hot as this. In moments we were each sweating, blowing our noses and talking in high-pitched, strained voices. And no matter how many dishes we ate, the level in the bowl just never seemed to go down.

Because Auntie wasn’t done with us yet. Every couple of minutes, she would appear at my elbow with yet another mountain of food. We took what we could but eventually, laughing, we had to push her away.

"No! No more food" we pleaded. But it was still a long time before she got the message.

I’m still not sure how they enforced the “charge for wasted food” bit, but we had a few bits and pieces swimming around the bottom of the bowl when hours later, fat, happy and clear of sinus, we finally rose and waddled away. Nobody called us back though, so I think we got away with it.

The girls were proud of us when we told them. No TGIFridays for a pair of seasoned travelers like us. But now I’m home, microwaved pizza in front of the TV just isn’t the same.

Photos of Taipei

Photos of Singapore

Eating Out - Part 3

Except when the soup arrived a few moments later, I was more than a bit disappointed. True, the bowl was enormous, and divided down the middle contained both chicken broth on one side, tom yum on the other. But that appeared to be it. Where were the prawns, chicken, fish, mushrooms and other delicious ingredients that typify tom yum? How could they call the other side chicken soup, when there was no chicken to be seen? Were we being stiffed because we were tourists, or what? This was so not what we’d planned.

"Let’s finish this, then try and find somewhere else" Joel suggested and resignedly, we began spooning the broth into our bowls.

"NO, NO, NO!" yelled Auntie and grabbing my sleeve, led me through the throng and into the restaurant proper.

That’s when I realized how this place worked. Our table was in fact a sort of outdoor grill, the bowl sitting atop a gas burner. Inside, we were free to choose from a smorgasbord of meats, vegetables, seafood and other less identifiable foodstuffs.

"You want this?" cried Auntie, pointing at a mound of mussels? "This?" at piles of shrimp. "This? This? This?" When we got to the meat section, she began to mimic the noises the animals made (or at least, made before they were sliced into small pieces) and that was worth the price of the meal in itself. On and on she went. It made no difference whether my answer was "Yes", "No" or "Just a little, please" she piled mountains of meat, seafood, vegetables, everything into an enormous bowl, the kind my Mum used to wash dishes in. It wasn’t long before I began to get really nervous about our ability to finish all this. Hungry though we were, this was a shit-load of food in any language.

A sign in English stated "Please do not waste food – we will charge for any leftovers." Charge how much? I didn’t know. Surreptitiously I began taking food out of the washing-up bowl and putting it back on the buffet, but faster than I could do that, Auntie kept shoveling the stuff back in.

I was starting to panic.

Eating Out - Part 2

Where to eat then? Chinatown, came the cry. That’s the place for two young(ish) rakes to be on a Singaporean weekend. Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones privy to this secret. Saturday night a few days before Chinese New Year and the place was hopping. I mean wall-to-wall bodies, little shuffling steps, noise, color, and not a seat to be had at any of the hundreds of restaurants or food courts lining the streets.

It wasn’t long before we gave up on our goal to find the "best" place to eat in Chinatown.

"I think we just need to find somewhere that has some open seats" said Joel.

It took a while, but eventually we managed it. I saw an empty spot at a sidewalk table and enthusiastically parked my bum. At the time, Joel was a few feet away and almost kept walking, the press of bodies being too thick for him to notice my absence. Fortunately he heard me yell as a few steps further and we would probably have never seen each other again.

In moments, Auntie was by my side. Very old, very small, but with an energy I didn’t even have in my youth.

"You want soup? Tom Yum soup? Chicken soup?"

I only heard the first part. I discovered Tom Yum soup in Thailand, many years ago. Very hot, sour, spicy and delicious, of all Asian food, it’s my very favorite.

"Yes, tom yum" I nodded enthusiastically. Excellent. I couldn’t believe our luck.

"Oh Joel, you’re going to like this!"

Eating Out - Part 1

"I think we need to call the girls" Joel said "and ask them the Chinese for 'No more food.'"
"No, we need to be more specific than that." I replied. "We need the Chinese for 'In the name of God woman, please stop bringing us food, we’re begging you!'"

We’d been spoiled, you see. For our week in Taiwan, and the first couple of days in Singapore we’d had a delightful harem of co-workers to guide us through every meal. Not only did they order for us, but they explained what we were eating, how to eat it, which implements to use for the process and a lot of the time, even spooned the food onto our plates for us, waiting on us like latter-day Geisha. Oh, I could get used to that life.

Every evening once the business meetings were done came the question

"What would you like to eat tonight?" At first they were concerned we’d be missing Western food but once we explained that we could get Western food at home, and were keen to try whatever they could think up for us, they were happy to show us the best that Asian cuisine could offer.

Oh boy. Vegetarian stuff, pastries, beef, mutton, poultry, fish and other seafood at every level of weirdness. Dumplings, rice and noodles. Chili crab, fish-head curry, bone marrow soup, o· bí-ko (pork blood and rice) and this is just off the top of my head. Korean, Japanese, Malay, Chinese – even French. Upscale restaurants, food courts, street stalls, you name it, we ate it. And it was all good. Unbelievably, deliciously, "Oh man, this is good" good.

Having been preceded by USAian co-workers who visited Singapore only to eat at TGIFridays (hurl) or via Room Service, the girls were thrilled to find Joel and me willing to tackle whatever they served up. OK, I baulked at the stinky tofu. And I’ve eaten durian and testicles before (the latter without realizing what they were until later) so they are both on my "Now I’ve done it I don’t need to do it again" list. But the rest, we attacked with gusto.

But now it was the weekend and we were cast loose on the town. We’d left Regina in Taiwan, Amanda and Serine were off on a business trip of their own, while Sha and Adeline were at home reacquainting themselves with their respective husbands. And in good conscience, we couldn’t ask Emi, the only single girl in the group, to spend her Saturday night with a couple of middle-aged guys.

So it was just us lads.