Lost Childhood Restaurant

Great. The weather and now the décor match my mood. Perhaps the gods are punishing me for being a jealous and miserable chicken shit. I look at my friends and I see happy, shiny people and I wonder how come they get to be my friends.


“Are you sure this is the place?,” Lester asked. “Yeah, I think so, but they changed from Chinese to Japanese,” I said. “You think so?,” mocked Rigor, “we've traipsed all over Baguio looking for a restaurant where you ate 'the most delicious chicken curry' when you were five years old and that's the most sure you're going to get?” “Gimme a break! I was five years old as you said, and all I could remember is that we turned left from off of Session Road and you could immediately see the doorway and formica tabletops that looked like wood.” “I think they're real wood,” “whatever, let's just go in, I'm so hungry I could eat that St. Bernard we saw in Mines View.”


I looked around and I felt lost. This was The Restaurant, but not the restaurant of my childhood. Cheap formica, spoons and forks dunked in glasses with hot water, white plates at the ready with folded napkins at the center were all gone. It was replaced by those clean, austere lines favored by the Japanese. Now I would never get to taste that chicken curry ever again.


“Huy, you're looking glum again. You don't look pretty when you cry. Plus, it's not crying with you, it's more like a dog howling when he sees kamatayan,” Rigor ribbed. “Hoy, bakla, I'm just letting out all those negative feelings slash aura when I cry. What's the use of crying when I can't get rid of them?” Lester interjected with his favorite topic “you know what? Linda Goodman said to just take a shower to get rid of all the negative aura.” “Yeah, and she also said a lot of tosh about eating yellow foods, red foods at certain times and you will live forever, and the last I heard, she's dead,” I said. “She's not, she's still publishing those sign chorchor!” “Hello, the book says Linda Goodman's sign chorchor, she's not the author, she just started it.” Rigor said “people, before you discuss the Art of War, let's go order. They've got 'good fatty ramen here'.


Look! Bacon in a ramen! Bacon's one word that would prevent me from being a vegetarian. I'll order that. Sorry, moaning Ramona, I don't see chicken curry listed anywhere.” “Yeah, I knew as soon as I saw the décor, no need to rub it in, Mr. Rigor Mortis. I'll just have what you've ordered.” “Me too,” said Lester, “I think coming to Baguio so soon after your Dad... We should have gone to a different place, created a different set of memories.” I silently agreed with him. All the places we've gone to were different. I came here expecting to go back to a place where I was so happy with my Dad, thinking that maybe if I could see this place I could recapture part of that happiness. What is happiness anyway? What the fuck does “the world is my oyster” mean? All my dreams vanished because all my dreams were tied up with one person. All the cliches that people mutter to console me mean nothing in the end. If it were not for Lester and Rigor forcing me to go, I would have been content to curl up in my bed and just let sleep be my oblivion.


The ramen arrived and the waitress placed it just so that it looked like it was bathed in its own spotlight. The bracing steam enveloped us and the warmth of the soup killed the cold that the weather instilled. I took a sip and realised how famished I was.