Table Manners

Hey yo everybody! I have been quite busy as of late and subsequently have had no time to comment, reply, and write posts.  Thankfully though, the storm is beginning to calm towards the end of the year and my busy schedule in the past couple of months has left me an abundance of opportunities to conduct mental experiments on the smallest parts of our everyday lives.

Table Servicing

Thanks to my extra shifts for work, Pui has had the luxury of playing "let's pretend I'm a rich person" and has begun visiting more fine dining restaurants. Just in case some of you are unfamiliar with the term 'fine dining', I have comprised an inaccurate (but equally relevant...at least for this post) and mostly true definition.

Fine Dining - Pui's Dictionary of me

A process in which an individual (classified mainly by 3 categories*) decides to dress up nicely (with a collared shirt/dress sometimes even with a tie!) and dines (but of course ) at a fancy looking restaurant (complete with dim lighting, candles and maybe even a rose) with waiters and waitresses who actually respond to your needs and requests (who will also assist you in the multiple sets of cutlery whilst playing classical music, or of the likes, so long as it's not your usual radio pop). By the end of the meal, the individual will feel a shitload poorer.

*some of these people will believe they're moving up in the social world, some may think it's just a phase they're going through, while others, yet, believe this is an overcompensation or a desperate cry for help.

Any how, indulging into these modern society food traps, Pui began to notice an absurd pattern emerging. when you're just an average person, sucked into believing you're something a little more than that, you end up being forced to order things that you probably never intended. It's subtle, it's sly, but I've caught on! This is usually what goes down from the moment you step inside the restaurant:

Step 1
You walk into the store, dressed up in all your fancy clothes.

Immediately, the mechanized waiters/waitresses scan you up and down with their well equipped laser vision.

Then, they smile.

They smile because they now know how to squeeze every. last. drop. of penny out of you.

Step 2
You will be lured to your table, and a golden embroidered menu would be placed before you. All the while,  s m i l i n g . Always, always smiling.

Just fucking with you, why would it be gold embroidered? It would be crafted from 24 carot gold.

The prices wouldn't even be written in arabic numbers, not even roman numerals. They'll be in bars of gold, diamonds, jewelery and in some other restaurants, they have a special pricing list demonstrating pictures of body parts and/or organs.

Step 3
Amazed by the luxurious sounding names on the menu, and dumbfounded by perplexing pricing options, you will inevitably end up  ordering a 3-course meal tha tyou havent even heard of.

Then, your waiter/waitress will lean in close, with the eerie inhuman smile, and ask:

 

 

Taken by surprise you open the drinks menu up and try to quickily look for the cheapest drink possible, or you might even decline.

Well of course they would know. Just to not appear like an ignorant person, you take what they suggest.

Step 4
After successfully pressuring you into buying coffee/tea more drinks and desserts. The waiter/waitress finally decides to give you the bill.

You pay it...or you labour for the restaurant. But, before that, the waiter/waitress attacks again.

SUDDENLY you remember all the overly attentive table service you received from them.
Like how they lurk nearby until you've taken a few bites of your meal. Then they swarm you.

 What do you mean "How has my meal been?" or "How has everythign been?". Is it even socially acceptable to say no? Perhaps you decide to be challenging that day and look right in their eyes with a defiant "No". It's a trap.

You cower and succumb to it. There is no way you can say no. Quietly and shamefully, you smile and mutter a barely audible 'Yes, everything's been great!"

And so, you end up tipping them more than you normally would've. For those who don't normally tip. That's like infinitely times more.

These days, I constantly fantasize about heroically telling the waiters that everything is NOT OK. Flipping the table and demanding a free meal. Sadly, my fine dining explorations may be perfectly described by this exact line my friend said (as he swirls his overpriced wine in the glass): I don't know what good wine tastes like...but I feel classy doing this!

-Pui.x

Just a moment...

Amidst the busy examination period and assignment period of college/university life, I find it necessary that I had purchased a tablet earlier this year. Allowing me high resolution stick figures!

It's kind of like homemade cupcakes, not as exciting but it's homemade.

Unfortunately, I haven't really had enough time to play with it so my ability to draw on it is quite limited...heck even my ability to write properly is limited!

Anyhow, the other day I went to McDonalds to grab a bite.

Hand-drawn goodness.

I looked at the menu like most people do.

Resolution so high everything becomes wavy!

Then it hit me. Why do I do that? Surely everyone has been here enough times to know generally what McDonalds sell right? Perhaps it's me feeling like a grouch for eating maccas enough times to know what I want to order before setting foot in front of the counter. Perhaps tilting my head looking up at the menu creates the illusion that I do not constantly spend money on fast food chains. So I just kept staring blankly at the menu pretending to read it.

When suddenly...

At least you can now read my messy handwriting

 How dare he? The boy behind the counter accused me of stalling for time! Although rightfully so, I felt this was unacceptable. Does he not understand the embarrassment of attending a store so often that you can pick what you want to eat before you examine the menu?

But really, sometimes I look at the menu anyway even if I know what I want in a proper restaurant. What about you?





-Pui.x

Lazy Days

Although I have been using beautifully drawn long comics to describe my average life, I have decided to use photographs for this post. I believe this post rightfully deserves the photographs.

I believe that it is safe to assume that the majority of you have finished exams by now and of course, to de-stress after all those stressful days: after exam party! ...Or outings... I have chosen the latter. After all, what better way is it for people to bond and relax than through the mutual love for a good meal?

A Representation of One's Stress-Free Day

So to depict a typical "after exams stress free day", I have personally volunteered to reenact the entire process. And offered tips to avoid during days like these.

So like any other holiday, one would sleep in until the time for the miraculous "brunch", and that I followed suit, and woke up at 10:30. Did my toiletries, and felt pretty bright about myself...and felt pretty hungry. I halted and then contemplated my next actions, trying to depict as accurately as possible: the typical brunch of a college kid. Toast, was decided as the perfect median, and I think we all agree, that a typical Asian college student living in a Western country would have eaten this on a regular day of brunch.

However, I made a fatal tactical error. I had decided to make toast without the modern technological aid of a toaster. As someone who does not eat breakfast or brunch on a daily basis, or even a weekly basis, the following picture is what would happen if you leave a piece of bread in the grill for too long.

Hmmm burnt toast

Not cool. So this time I decided to babysit the grill so I can add the cheese on it to achieve my delicious brunch.

Perfect crispy golden brown toast with cheese

And it was successful.

Tip 1: Do not ever try to make toast without the aid of a toaster, and then forget about it in the grill for 10 minutes.

                                                                                                                                     

That same evening, there was a dinner event to celebrate the finishing of exams and a feeble attempt to destroy the trauma of the exams. We had chosen a HK style restaurant and ordered our respective dishes, a mixture of chinese, japanese, HK-style, malaysian, and italian cuisine.

My Dish. HK style

Chinese style omulet on rice.

I'm not actually sure which style this is, but if you look hard enough, there's a massive piece of chicken hidden there.

Unfortunately I only took a few photos to represent what was being devoured mercilessly at the dinner table that eventful evening. Fascinated by my dish (first picture), I had decided it was the most visually appealing dish out of everything that everyone ordered. However, with ever ups there must be downs, my precious friend decided to ruin my joy by telling me it looked like spew. Thank you, oh dear friend, but I've never spewed out spaghetti before in my entire short lived 19 years.

Tip 2: When one remains fascinated about the visual appearance of one's food, their friend would most likely ruin one's appetite out of sheer jealousy.

                                                                                                                                     

Proceeding dinner conversations, dessert was up at Pancake Parlour.

This delicacy costs $27.90 AUD

We told by the waitress that the 8 of us were very "involved" in devouring this delicacy.

I wonder why...

Tip 3: When sharing food, please do it in a civilized manner to prevent gazes of disgust and wonder from other tables.

                                                                                                                                     

If you have sincerely felt that this was a complete waste of your time. I apologise, but I, too, felt like my entire day was wasted, not to mention that I most definitely gained a few pounds.

So readers, what do you do when you finished exams and what kind of food do you like to indulge yourself in to relief the stress?

-Pui.x

ps. I'm trying to see how many different kinds of clothing that I can wear and not look disgusting.What do you think of this?

Me in a singlet...I don't think I'm buff enough

A Very Sad Day

During the exam period, for me I might include (as I'm sure most of you are still in this exam phase), I had no vehicle to use and had to get a good friend to pick me up and drop me off as we studied the same course. After a long day of studying at the anatomy lab at university, we decided to reward ourselves with a popular Asian drink: Bubble Tea. It's pretty much ice milk tea with 'pearls' (actually large black sago) but due to pop culture, many other variations have arose, such as flavouring of the milk tea, added jelly, pudding, fruit bits. For the sake of ease, the place we went to was known as Happy Cup

This picture was actually taken  by my girl to draw attention to the place known as "ONG ONG"

It did not look promising at all. Disregarding the many non 'bubble tea' related icons such as an obvious 'chuppa chup' hand bag and clothing in the background, they had also included a nonexistant place as a place of origin for 'bubble tea'. "ONG ONG" certainly does not ring a bell. Macau, yes, Taipei, yes. Ong Ong? After further contemplation I had realised this was meant to read "HONG KONG". Are you actually trying to destroy my place of birth and origin, my culture and my heritage?

After much expressed anger towards each other, my friend and I finally entered the shop to place our order.

Know the feeling when you are overwhelmed by your complete ignorance to the menu of a store you've never been into? Because the owners restaurants can't just simply write "Steak with seasonal beans with gravy"? They have to dress it up in fancy foreign languages until you have trouble identifying the actual dish. My attempted example is as of follows: "Thick juicy slice of calf leg sizzled baked fried then grilled with a hint of carbonet sauvingon, olive oil peanut oil and a dash of vegetable oil, cooked til al dante accompanied with seasonal salad, mashed potatoes and topped with chef's special gravy prepared with the finest ingredients". Can you even cook meet to be al dante? Is that not a term used to describe pasta? I'll save that for another post.

Back to the story, having been awestruck for several minutes, we finally decided to place our order: a 'sumo' and milk tea with 'love fruit'. We decided to pick them out of our curiosity, but we both secretly know it's an attempt to mix in well with pop culture. Bad choice. Sumo turned out to be green tea flavoured milk tea (so that's like double tea?) with red bean in it; love fruit turned out to be multi-coloured jelly. Ha. Pop culture.

Feeling rather dissatisfied, we went back into the car and began our trip home. At about half way (due to multiple distractions such as driving in circles as a result of our arguments about directions), my friend (who was driving at the time)  had finished her milk tea but still had her 'love fruit' stuck at the bottom.

Friend: I can't get my jelly out.
Me: Try move the straw over it.

At this point I laughed at my friend, and said that her sad days are of such simple worries; then proceeded to  raised awareness to problems in the third world countries like a good mature university student. But secretly I agree with her: The day your love fruit fails to love you is a very very sad day indeed.

Fellow readers, do you submit to pop culture? How sad are your very sad days?

-Pui.x