Who ordered the ambience?

One goes on vacation, normally, to alter one’s state of mind and body, to either relax or to venture out and try new experiences, be it sightseeing, engaging in a favorite sport or sampling exotic cuisine.

So it was in this state of mind that I, along with Maria, a good friend, took my four children (ages 13, 11, nine, and seven) around the eastern back roads of British Columbia for some countrified adventures. We went to the Mission Hill Restaurant in Kelowna, an al fresco terrace, perched on a cliff overlooking a huge lake. The restaurant design was ultra-modern and minimalist — utilizing local stone in slate and gray and furniture in brown and black to highlight the glorious surrounding vegetation and the backdrop of the mountains that bordered the lake. The tables were draped in crisp white linen.  The waiters wore black ties and starched aprons and were as efficient as commissioned officers in a war zone.

Ours sat us down, gave us menus, and enumerated the specials. As the children perused the menu cards I snuck a look at my 11-year-old son whose food repertoire usually consists of Jollibee chicken and spaghetti, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Shakey’s cheese pizza. His idea of “fine dining” is the above, served on a real plate with metal flatware, instead of the Styrofoam containers and plastic utensils.

I saw his forehead wrinkle several times as he read the menu. He looked at me, sighed like he had just lost a sizeable fortune, and said, “These names don’t even sound like food. They sound like some bad disease or something. What the heck is ‘duck confit’? (He said it pronouncing the “T” at the end of confit). A duck having a seizure? Like a fit?

“It’s pronounced congfee,” I said. “It’s French.” 

“Okay,” he said with just a sprinkling of sarcasm, “now it sounds more like a fungus.”

He was obviously not a happy boy at that very moment. Maria and I decided on ordering one of each dish listed on the limited gourmet menu and having the waiter set them in the middle to be eaten family-style by the six of us: two adults and four children.

The breadbasket arrived first — and it wasn’t free, mind you. “Artisan bread,” they called it, baked in their very own ovens, made from wheat grown in their very own fields. I offered my son some and he said, “Why does the bread look funky?” he asked, spotting the bits of olives amid the bread’s cavities. I didn’t answer, not wanting to turn him off. He took a bite and spat it out immediately. “That wasn’t fun,” he announced. So I crossed my fingers and hoped that he would have a more pleasant experience with the main dishes.

When they finally came, one after the other, and were set down on our table, my son took a quick look at each one and registered an expression of horror on his face. “What happened to the rest of the duck? This here is just one skinny leg. And the short rib has meat the size of my fist. That other one is cough medicine-looking green pasta. And that other one — that salmon looks botanical!”

“What do you mean, botanical?” I suppressed a giggle.

“It’s got plants all over it; it’s botanical. I’m gonna die here. That’s not even food. It might become food when it grows up but right now it’s little tiny servings that won’t stuff a bee and cost millions, enough to buy a country filled with Lego.” My son, a fast food devotee, who has the appetite of a hungry stevedore, was bellyaching. 

Maria, labored to explain to him the merits of fine dining and the concept of ambience. “But this is why it costs much to eat here.  You’re supposed to take in the beauty that surrounds you. That’s what you call ambience. You’re supposed to take time and appreciate the presentation of each dish, consider the work that was put into each one before finally tasting and savoring every bite. Look at the waiters; they give excellent service here. They take good care of us.”

“Still,” he grumbled, “I don’t like this place.” Later, it was obvious that he enjoyed the food, but was engaged in a fight with his siblings most of the time over portion control. “I really don’t like this place,” he repeated at the end of the meal, just in case we missed it the first time.

The next day, we had a late start, and lost track of time. We were famished so we stopped at the first restaurant we chanced upon after some sightseeing. We inspected the menu displayed in a glass case on the wall while my son stuck his face forward to get a better look. He was as eager as we were. He let out some grunts and sighs, though, after reading every item on the list. When he was finally done reading, he raised both his hands close to his face so that his palms were by his ears, shook them violently and shouted, “I hate ambience! I’m gonna have to order 20 plates of something just to get full!”  Everyone at the restaurant, which was jam-packed, turned to look at us. But we were all hungry so our stomachs prevailed.

It turned out that the servings in that place were generous so he turned into a happy boy. But Maria took the opportunity to explain to him the intricacies and the politics of restaurant choice and dining.

She said to him, “Better get used to these things. When you grow up you’re going to be taking your dates to places like this.”

His eyes grew to the size of ping-pong balls and his voice turned an octave higher. “Who’s gonna pay? Me?”

“Always! So work real hard,” she added. “The trick is to eat a lot before you go on a date to restaurants with nice ambience and itty-bitty food portions.”

“But why would I wanna do that?” my son asked.

“Because the girl has something you want.”

“No way, never. I don’t want anything from girls.”

Maria instantly came back with, “Trust me, girls always have something you want!”

While he contemplated this last statement with terror on his face, my 13-year-old daughter, Isabel, asked, “Why do boys always have to pay?”

Maria and I looked at each other and had to take a minute to get our bearings. She saved me; I was stunned and clueless. “Because you’re gonna have to be cooking for them for the rest of your life after you get married. So you girls,” she addressed my three daughters, “when you grow up and go on dates always order the most expensive thing on the menu. If your date blinks, he’s not worth it. He fails the test.  If he smiles, he merits a second date.”

The three girls looked us with blank stares.

Isabel looked to me for a comment and said, “Why do boys have to take you to expensive restaurants anyway?”

Maria stepped up again and said, “It’s part of the dating process.  They boys want to make a good impression on the girls, show them a good time, and show them they can afford it so they must be hardworking. They show them that they chew with their mouths closed and they don’t burp out loud. They take girls to pretty places with nice ambience to get them in a nice mood and hopefully they become good looking in their eyes.”

  The girls erupted into giggles but my son still had the look of someone who had just seen a ghost.

Isabel looked at me again and asked, “Is it true, Mom? Did boys do that to you? Dad, too?”

I knew I had to temper Maria’s absolutes right then, so I said, “Well yes, of course. But there was this one time I won’t forget. This one boy, whom I knew could very well afford to take me to nice restaurants took me to a cheap place with zero ambience but which served excellent sisig, because he knew it to be my favorite.  And for dessert, instead of taking me to some chi-chi place with expensive pastries, he surprised me with a box of donuts — my favorite as well. It was quite nice.”

I saw the dreamy look on the girls’ faces as I ended my last sentence. But Maria was quick on the draw once more.

“Forget that. You girls can go get your own sisig and your own donuts. I’m telling you, the boy has to take you to where there’s nice ambience before you give him a second date, period.”

From out of nowhere, my son, who had been quietly listening to all that banter, quipped yet again, “I really hate ambience.”

Yes, the art of old-world courtship may be entirely lost on the Facebook generation.  But let me tell you, a dinner date in a restaurant with — yes — nice ambience, gets the girl every time! On the other hand, some sisig and a box of donuts will sometimes do the trick just as well.

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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com or visit my blog at www.fourtyfied.blogspot.com.