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.