Life section
When my hostesses didn't show up...
Out For Lunch
I decided to treat myself anyway, at the fancy restaurant. It was a most
pleasurable experience and I found out something that may prove useful
IT WAS half an hour after the appointed time, and my hostesses, the two lovely Melwani sisters -- Tara and Shabnam -- still hadn't shown up.
Don't blame me for being self-conscious, but this was Au Jardin Les Amis, the upscale restaurant that is housed in a converted two-storey black-andwhite bungalow inside the Botanic Gardens, and I was seated alone at a table meant for four out on the air-conditioned balcony upstairs.
The other four tables on the balcony were taken up, and the people were already tucking into their main courses. Just to do something, I had finished a roll and my glass of Chilean chardonnay.
I thought I should call Shabnam to check if they were on their way, and it was just as well I did.
"Oh dear," she said when she found out that I was at the restaurant. "Didn't you get Tara's messages? She couldn't make it. She had left messages with your office yesterday.
"I was trying to reach you this morning, but you've even changed your home number."
Not to worry, I told her, we'll have lunch next week.
She asked me for my new home number, but flustered, I couldn't recall it.
After putting down the phone at the reception downstairs, I decided that I would treat myself to lunch at the restaurant anyway. But certainly not in the balcony or the main dining room upstairs -- it would be pretty awkward to be eating alone there.
The bar downstairs was empty, so I asked the receptionist if I could have my lunch in there. She explained why I couldn't: No food is allowed to be served in a smoking area. The restaurant could get into trouble for serving lunch in there, if caught.
She pointed to a lone table on the verandah instead. ''What about here?"
But the verandah is not sealed and air-conditioned. It was a hot day.
Patrick, the restaurant's assistant manager, came downstairs just then. He hesitated for only a moment when told about what I wanted. Then he said: "No problem, we'll set you a table in the bar."
Au Jardin serves a three-course lunch. I ordered its signature terrine of foie gras for appetiser and the chicken confit for the main course. Randy, the sommelier, recommended a glass of riesling (Fritz Haag, vintage 1998) to go with the foie gras.
In the end, even though the very new-economy Patrick had said: "I can take some risks", I opted to have my lunch on the verandah.
And it turned out to be a most pleasurable experience. To be dining on fine cuisine, amid the greenery, under a clear blue sky, one collected oneself quickly enough. I was relaxed, happy.
I can rarely be this relaxed when I have company for lunch or dinner, especially if it's a business affair. I find it hard to eat and talk at the same time, more so when my allergic nose acts up -- which is often, when I get anxious. But I do enjoy the conversations; I just eat less in company.
Alone, I could breathe easy, and eat my food slowly. It's quiet time too, just you and your thoughts. Ideas for column topics often come to me during my solitary lunch hour, away from the office.
"Only wimps eat lunch," Gordon ("Greed is good") Gekko said in the Oliver Stone movie, Wall Street. But wimp or not, I cherish the lunch hour -- it's for me the still mid-point in an otherwise harried day.
Patrick insisted that I had the dessert, when I said I wanted only coffee. So I demolished gently the work of art on the plate that was timbale of oranges, yogurt cream and lime sorbet.
When I had my coffee, Patrick told me something I didn't know before, that there is a small side balcony upstairs which can fit in only a table for two, and that many proposals have been made there successfully.
"So, you must also come here to make your proposal," he said.
Well, no wonder. I've been to all the wrong places. But first, I shall return for lunch with my two lovely "errant" hostesses.
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