I arrived at her hotel 15 minutes earlier than promised. Gosh, I was very anxious to see her after two years. See, I was in Central Viet Nam most of the time after 2004.
When I pressed the doorbell, she came to it immediately and started jumping up and down. She's still so funny! Anyway, she looked gorgeous; and still deserves to be crowned the mouthpiece for the wondrous benefits of yoga.
We sat down and yakked; then she showed me an article in The New Yorker written by some linguist called Evans, a missionary, who discovered some tribal people who speak languages with no quantifiers such as 'some', 'few', 'many', 'much' and so forth. I think there should be more languages like that...
I was extremely delighted and wasn't shy at all to receive what Chi Michelle brought me -- a bag of Folliet's and Tonkin's coffee and banh dau xanh (the dried green bean cakes)!!! I miss Ha Noi!
Folliet's coffee is more like American than Vietnamese style coffee but it's excellent. I couldn't be happier about Tonkin's because I used to drink it at a small shop beside the Julian Cafe- the most Japanese-looking cafe in Ha Noi- but it disappeared in 2002. I traced the address they pasted on the door after their close-down but only came to a desserted residential area with dogs! Cam on chi!
From Eu Tong Sen Street where Chi Michelle stayed, we passed by the Gobi dessert shop at the Central and then passed by the Padang to Raffles. On the way, Chi Michelle kept marveling the streetside flora. We really saw some lovely flowers, one of which has petals that felt like handmade paper (see below).
I'd have taken her to Sun and Moon if she preferred Japanese but soon, we reached the courtyard at Raffles, and we chose our place in the middle of the yard. The waitor, a Malay-Chinese Malaysian, approached promptly with the drink list and I baulked! I never knew Singapore to be so expensive! Every glass of wine cost SGD 20!
I picked a Pinot Noir and she, a Sauvignon Blanc. The snack, fried peanuts coated with batter was quite good. We asked for more when we finished.
When it was getting late, we went for our dinner. She likes Italian, and Prego is near. When we reached the restaurant,it was crowded. I didn't understand; I don't remember Prego to be the place for Italian food. No one talks about it.
We'd our bread with a tomato base dip.
It was OK. Then we ordered our soups- mushroom for us and they were OK as well. By the end, we picked a ravioli alle mantovana and it was rich and sweet.
Perhaps still edible. But after going through half of it, it seemed like we had too much and was finishing it because we didn't want to waste food. That summed up our Prego experience!
Chi, thanks for the great evening though. I hope you'll come again - we will go to a better place next time.
Food: 2.0/5.0; service: 3.0/5.0; ambience: 2.5/5.0; value for money: 2.0/5.0
No comments:
Post a Comment