we went out last night for dinner and bar-ing. the plan was to go to penguin cafe, a place in malate that everyone that i knew who had been there loved. so we decided to go out to eat and then to the penguin and then see where the night took us. we were young! it was a 3-day weekend! glory was to be ours!
we head to cafe havana, a place with live salsa bands, theoretically authentic cuban food, and a laid-back atmosphere. i’ve been here before and have generally liked it.
before, i didn’t have mojito or cuban sandwiches.
the mojito tasted more of sub-par lemon-lime pop than the minty, rummy, sweet refreshing goodness of a mojito. perhaps in cuba they make mojitoes with generic lemon-lime pop? i’ve not been so i have no way of knowing for sure… but if so, cuba’s going to have to readjust their recipe, because that crap was not nice.
strike one against cuba.
the cuban pork sandwich. i’ve had these in mongolia at a restaurant owned by an ethiopian woman and a cuban chef. i thought their sandwiches of delectible roll, chucks of marinated pork, and sauce were authentic. but it appears that there is also a school of cuban sandwich that is made on a george foreman grill–with the plate that makes all sandwiches into sealed greasy triangles. it was okay for a ham and cheese sandwich your mom make you when it is cold outside and she doesn’t want to dirty up lots of pans, but for a cuban sandwich? no. the pumpkin soup was pretty good, though i’m always partial to pumpkin soup and extremely partial to almost anything that has crispy bacon in it. the sweet potato fries were unsalted which at first perturbed me, but then i realized i probably eat enough salt in general and this let the flavor of the actual potato come through.
strike two against cuba.
the music was loud and became painful when the band drifted on stage. we left shortly after because 1) my friend detests salsa as much as i detest reggae and 2) we did actually want to chat with each other as there was no dancing as yet happening.
we headed over to the penguin cafe, with the lads in the group being swarmed by sticky children thrusting bundles of roses in their faces for them to purchase for the pretty ladies. the children completely avoided all of the women, knowing that the men were the easier prey. or at least thinking so. one guy, who has only been here for about a week, had such a look of disgust on his face and said, i hate children. they are all dirty and smelly and disgusting. all over the world.
he didn’t buy any roses.
penguin cafe was legitimatly hyped up. if i lived in that neighborhood, i would be there every day and become best friends with the pretty waiters and sample every single thing on the menu and go to all of their live shows. there is a windowed porch and then the interior of the restaurant and an upstairs. we sat on the windowed porch, which was all traditional-style couches and chairs that are low to the ground so my friend mike who is very tall and lanky had to fold himself grasshopper style in order to sit down. they had tvs being used as objects of art and in general the feeling was comfortable and cool and friendly. we were there for a while and then various people started yawning. the electric reggae band hadn’t quite gotten started and we all tend to get up very early during the week for work, so none of us were fully prepared. i’d even taken a nap during the day (no judgement! i get up at 5am every day, even on my days off because i can’t sleep in !) but still couldn’t keep in the yawns. so we left in order to walk around a bit and wake up.
we wandered around the neighborhood for a while, squeezing ourself through the crowds of people who had decided to spend this most romantic of holidays trying to either score a bar girl for themselves, get their date drunk enough to finally agree to a threesome, or both. we ended up at mike’s apartment in a beautiful old building in the neighborhood and ate pretzels and crunch bars and talked about our wiis.
i’m such a teenage boy. it is ridiculous. maybe not teenage, since i don’t have scantily clad girls plastered to my walls, but i may be a twelve year old boy. alongside being a 33 year old woman. which means that i love syrah AND the movie DeathRace. i can speak intelligently about development while worrying that i can’t beat Slash on my guitar hero. i still regret never having learned to skateboard or breakdance. i’m already planning on being a fucking crazy-ass old lady who pinches young men’s bums and wears absurd hats with her jeans. but for now i’m rather conservative and concerned about being age-appropriate. am i old enough to go full-on balls to the wall crazy old lady? not cat-smelling crazy old lady. nor jane seymour’s cougar crazy old lady. (and i really am curious as to the age limits on being a cougar. at what age are you one? how much younger than you does the object of your desires have to be? and what do you call the crazy old men who date younger ladies? panthers? bull elephants? macaques? blue-footed boobies?) but crazy old lady who like scales walls and goes and talks to hobos in parks in japan and climbs the great wall for a month.
apparently, i also think all crazy old ladies are rich.
which means i can’t be a crazy old lady yet, as i’m clearly not rich.
time for me to go practice the ukulele now.
