Restaurant Review #2: HUONG
May, 28th
I have a friend who lives on Curtain road. I often drop in on him unannounced and sometimes he decides not to answer.
But I know he’s in because the lights are on and the windows are open. Sometimes I will wait it out in a restaurant and let him pretend to me that he’s just got home. On one such occasion, I took a seat in the Vietnamese restaurant, Huong, choosing a window seat with a good view of my friends apartment. The maitre d appeared to be of Indian descent, and I had to quickly scan the menu to see if I was in the right place. Looking around at my fellow customers, I noticed everybody in there was white, which is not a good sign for any restaurant, especially Asian. The waitress spoke to me in such a way that I thought she did not know the meaning of what she was saying. We exchanged some noises, a little bit of sign language, and some non-verbal body language.
I ordered the sizzling beef with coconut rice, as adding the price of the two together worked out to a nice round number after adding the 10% service charge (I am sedulous in my pursuit of streamlining my shrapnel situation). As I waited I gently contemplated pressing issues such as leaving the European union, and how long I could get away without washing my hair before it was noticeable. I could hear the sizzling dishes being dropped gracefully onto tables all around me, much like how the storks delivered babies in the animated, psychological-thriller, Dumbo. To say that it made me hungry was an understatement, but also not entirely accurate because I was already hungry. I salivated like a pavlovian dog, the thought of which reminded me of my mothers raspberry pavlova that she used to make for my Dad before their divorce.
And then my dish arrived. Something was wrong; My sizzling beef was not sizzling. This disappointment was something akin to that moment of distraction at the final hurdle of masturbation, when you accidentally think of something like a tax bill or the shower curtain whilst you orgasm. I looked at the dish, then I looked at the waitress, who said something that sounded like she had read it off the back of her hand. She was smiling nervously, as if to distract me from some heinous crime that had been committed with her complicity. I could smell panic. And beef. But I couldn’t hear any sizzling. It reminded me of when I was 3 years old, and my mother set two easels up back to back for me and my brother to draw on in the kitchen. Despite being only one year older, she entrusted him with real paint. On my side of the easel however, my access was limited solely to felt tip pens. This would set the tone for mine and my mothers relationship for the next 3 years. Further, the coconut rice just looked like regular rice with coconut shavings on top. Physically and mentally, it was a bad start.
I used my chopsticks for as long as was necessary to prove my competency to staff and surrounding customers, before switching to a spoon. It gave me a much needed feeling of superiority among my cutlery-wielding country men and women. This was by far my favourite part of the meal. Unfortunately it did not linger. When I was handed the bill, I hadn’t factored in the 12.5% service charge, which had thrown my calculations wildly out of sync. I paid with a note and was fated to spend the rest of the day lugging around loose change in my pocket, like a walking charity collection box.
Was it the worst meal I’ve ever had? No. Would I go back? No. But maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe my food doesn’t need to make a sound. Maybe coconut rice is just regular rice with coconut shavings on top. As I leant back in my chair and gave my stomach a pat, I peered out the glass just in time to see my friend at his window. Got him, I thought. It hadn’t all been a waste of time after all.
