Chitt Bhardwa

We celebrated my birthday with a very small group of people in some of our old haunts.  I can’t say it was the best night I’ve ever had: Aleisha was running late, and so the full day of cooking I’d done in preparation for our trip was catching up to me; it was raining a little bit (weather plays such an important part in our happiness, doesn’t it?  It still amazes me after two full years here); they didn’t have us on the guest list at Jewel; and we ran into some awfully rude b!*&h at night’s end.  Not an all-around great show, but there were some pretty funny parts…

When we arrived at Jewel, we were told we weren’t, “on the list”.  Keep in mind it was about 6:15 pm on a Saturday (who goes out then?  Turns out: no one!) and there were twenty-three people inside the bar, twelve of whom were employees.  We chose the best table, sat down at it, and told the man who was frantically searching for our reservation that when Chitt Bardwha actually showed up, we would gladly move for him.  Chitt didn’t make it to the bar in the hours between when we arrived and when Happy Hour ended.  Thankfully though, many a cocktail did arrive and we were pretty intoxicated when we left.

On our walk to Little Korea (is that what it’s called?), we passed by this beauty at the Prince Charles Cinema: it’s a Quentin Tarantino Marathon next Saturday.  Frank and I were in (we’ve since purchased our tickets and are quite excited about staying out so late in the city!  Lame!). 

We moved on to the Korean restaurant we like the most.  The owner exercised the best example of Korean Shame when she admitted she gave up our table because we were soooooo late.  Luckily, however, reminded a co-worker, there were plenty of seats downstairs that we could call our own.  Winning.  Korean is the best, isn’t it?  I can’t get enough of it.  Though it’s certainly not the same as it was back in The Old Country, it’s…I don’t know…charm? just makes it so amazing.  I feel the same way about it as I did about eating a burger at that expensive burger joint in Beomgye: like I was eating food from home.  Though it was never quite right (just like this Korean isn’t quite right), it’s still a warm reminder of what once was the norm.  And that’s so nice sometimes, isn’t it?

We hit up the Walkabout after that: what a strange place.  It wasn’t great and I nearly got into a bar fight with a married Englishman, when an old, messy Aussie with a big, loud guitar started playing on the stage.  It was then that the night was oooookay. 

Until we had an unfortunate incident with somebody that one of us used to know.  To protect the privacy of the innocent, I won’t get into it.  Suffice it to say that we used the Carrie Bradshaw line, “We have to get out of here immediately” that is commonly referenced when a big fool of oneself has been made.  That was not the case on Saturday night, but al the same, we had to get the hell out of dodge.

We stumbled out onto the street and came across a sign that made us giggle: 

“Models

1^st, 2^nd Floor”

Frank couldn’t resist the urge to see just what was going on up there.  Who does a casting call at this time of the night?

Insert a conversation I had with Steven on Sunday night over a romantic dinner.  He asked me what we found when we ascended the stairs to investigate, laughing our heads off all the while.  I reported that there were two doors at the top of a staircase and that it sounded like some funny business was going on behind said doors.  He then informed me that “models” was the common term used for prostitutes and that we’d inadvertently knocked (yes, we knocked on the door, a little drunk off our faces) on the door of one that was most probably manned by an angry Asian man.  Oh my.  Feeling like a complete div now, but at the time, it was pretty hilarious. 

As a token, we of course took the sign reserving the spot for Chitt.  After all, he didn’t need it.