Saturday, September 10, 2011

Adventures in Lunch

            Thursday and Friday were highlighted by our lunch adventures. Other than that they were very similar to Tuesday and Wednesday.

            They of course started our with a quick breakfast, then a quick jaunt down my alley to meet Anna, where will hailed a cab and were on our way. However on Thursday, I don’t think the cab driver had any idea where he was going, either that or he knew exactly what he was doing and was avoiding traffic, but it sounds much more exiting to say he was crazy. He seemed to be avoiding all major roads, and we thought for sure that we would be later then yesterday, but surprisingly we got there right at 8 and the fare wasn’t even too high! Friday was much smoother. So on to lunch, on Thursday a group of us decided to stray from the plan and go to a different restaurant, this one was still very close to the school, located on the second floor of a building about a 2-minute walk from the school. But the plan doesn’t like to be strayed from, and we were punished by it, even by Friday we had stilled not learned our lesson, but we’ll talk about that later. So it started out harmlessly enough, we got the menus, ordered drinks, and then food, normal stuff, after about 5 minutes some of it started to show up at the table, so, knowing we only had about 15 more minutes we began to eat. 5 minutes later 4 people had not gotten their food, no big deal they could eat fast right? Wrong. 10 minutes later nothing had shown up, 2 people finished and had to head back so they weren’t late. And the rest of our food had not shown up, mine had and I shared it with someone who didn’t have any, so now we decided it was time to go, and with 4 people with no food we paid for what we received and were on our way, only 5 minutes late. After school another group of us decided that we wanted to checkout a fast-food place called Lotteria, a McDonalds substitute, since there are none in country. But there are an obscene amount of KFCs though, and apparently there are also pizza huts, but I have yet to see one. So back to Lotteria, their burgers are…. Interesting, a good size, but the cheese is a bit peculiar. But we were just glad to have some “American” food. One thing about fast food restaurants in countries out side of America is they tend to be quite a bit fancier then ones back home. In Vietnam, every fast-food restaurant I have seen so far has had at least 2 stories, sometimes 3, and inside they are just generally nicer. So after my burger I got a cab and went on home. So now lets jump forward to Friday, as you may recall, I told you that the plan doesn’t like to be strayed from, keeping that in mind I will continue. Still not having learned our lesson, we decided not to go to the normal lunch spot, but went instead to a little fast food burger stand near it. It was called “1 minute burger” which should have been an indicator, but I didn’t think it through. So we ordered our burgers, they were already sitting in a small glass box, and then the worker took them and put them in the microwave, great, microwaved old burgers, mmm… So then we took them back to our school. I couldn’t eat mine, 3 of us just through them away after 1 bite. First of all, the patties were tiny, and had an untrustworthily look to them, 2nd, they were swimming in warm mayo, and there was no ketchup. The first and 3rd I might have been able to deal with, but throw old warm mayo burger, and its game over. They should have named the restaurant Lottaria, except substitute the lott with di. So we ended up just walking to a nearby KFC after school.
Classic

            So this Monday, the 12th, is the holiday called the mid-autumn festival, which is in correlation with the full moon, it is also a festival for the children. Also, as previously mentioned, they serve moon cakes as well, because they’re celebrating the new moon. Also tomorrow, Saturday, I am meeting with the director of the Ha Noi youth football league, to discuss ways that I can help them out while in Ha Noi. Ok I lied, I am writing this on Saturday afternoon and I already met them, but lets pretend I’m not. But you’ll enjoy reading about Saturday, it’s a doosy. 



3 comments:

  1. ...but I didn't think it through -- love that!
    yuk! old warm mayo burger -- yep that's a recipe for "di aria" for sure -- good move to toss them.

    ok. waitin' for the football story.

    lol mm

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  2. Hi John!

    A moon cake is a small (see previous post for size) and is eaten during the mid- autumn festival. It has many different varieties and ingredients, but most of the time it has a filling of beans, fruit or green tea flavor.

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