June, 1997 (continued):
Loyal readers will recall I was in Singapore for the first time, to conduct a series of radio seminars.
Between the two seminars on Wednesday, Esther and Kai Jin took me to lunch with a few of their colleagues to a very non-touristy Chinese restaurant — located on the second floor of, of course, a shopping center.
This is the kind of restaurant I love: no decor to speak of (it felt like a small cafeteria), no pretensions, almost exclusively local customers.
Our waitress — probably one of the owners — was an older Chinese woman with one very noticeable bad eye and not much charm. She asked what we wanted to order, and to the first half dozen or so choices she replied, “Don’t have it today.”
Finally I suggested that she tell us what they did have, and we took it from there. The food was quite decent.
That evening I found myself among a dinner party of a dozen or so RCS executives and guest speakers in a private dining room at the Marriott Hotel.
I know; eating at the Marriott sounds about as adventuresome as eating at McDonald’s. But both the setting and the cuisine were traditional and very gracious Chinese, and the food was great.
They kept bringing course after course, and I (not wanting to appear ungrateful) just kept eating and eating.
The dessert was really wonderful: Honeydew Sago, a mixture of honeydew, berries, and coconut milk.
One of my fellow diners again was Esther Leet, who was most anxious to get home in time to see her favorite TV show: The X-Files.
In an earlier episode of this exciting chronicle, I mentioned that — based on the one episode I had seen — I found that show to be incredibly dumb.
To make matters worse, when I decided to give it a second chance while stuck with nothing else to watch in a Vienna hotel room, they showed the same inane episode I already had seen. (It’s the one about million-year old insects escaping from an illegally cut tree and weaving huge cocoons around humans.)
I shared my disappointing X-Files experiences with Esther, who insisted I should give the show another chance.
So when I got back to my hotel room after this wonderful dinner, I turned on the TV. There was The X-Files.
The same million-year old insect episode.
(Is that the only episode they’ve ever filmed?)
