Wet Sunday Dinner

It’s a Sunday, so my daughter and I went to have dinner in a restaurant by the riverside. It is like a terrace overlooking a big river. By local standard, its considered a beautiful place. To my critical eyes, it’s just pretty because of glittery lights that adorned the trees and the reflection of the light in the water that make up it’s ordinariness.

The restaurant's motif is country style- the materials used were rustic; the floors made of rough wood and slabs, the railings made of bamboos. The tables were covered with checkered table cloths and the chairs, plastic. Some part of the restaurants is covered with roofs made of dry cogon leaves.

Since it was still the early hours of the evening around 6:00, there wasn’t much customers yet so we were able to choose a very nice spot of the restaurant- the open space terrace close to the railings with a better view of the waterway. The breeze felt good and the scene across was all a pleasant sight.

And so we ordered our food, our usual favorites- tomyung kung (shrimp soup with spices and lime), mosap (deep fried port dried in the sun) lap (ground pork with sweet basil leaves), khaithod (friend chicken), sticky rice, and somtam pulamay (fruit salad in sour soup). The girls who took our order smiled gracefully. They were so friendly and the service was generally okay.

As soon as the food arrived on our table, we started our Sunday dinner. The food was quite tasteful except for the shrimp soup. The shrimp was so soft and felt soggy in the mouth that I suspected it has probably been cooked and re-cooked many times before. Setting aside the shrimp soup food, everything was going perfect. The scene, the food, the people, the mood and the ambiance were great. Then all of the sudden the rain came....little droplets at first, then after a while, big drops of rain...People were rushing inside to the shades carrying their plates, their drinks and personal things. I was looking for help from the waitress but they were also busy taking off things away from the approaching rain. So we stood up and did the same. We stood up there waiting to be seated, holding plateful of food, drinks and other things. Some were even munching on their food while running for cover. I didn’t realized the comedy of it all till I was all seated again in a new table…I wanted to laugh but I saw their faces, no one finds it funny..We giggled instead.