Thoughts on eating, singing, and shopping

Eric's Thai friend, Ply, is back in town for business. It's been our tradition to take him out to a different Filipino restaurant everytime he's here, and as we've already sampled Dencio's, Gerry's and Gilligan's Island, we decided to bring him to Kamayan in Megamall last night.

I hadn't been to any Kamayan branch in ages, so I was really shocked surprised at different it is now from how I used to remember.

Us Pinoy Gen-Xers know of Kamayan as a chi-chi place, the kind where you can hold family gatherings as well as proudly bring balikbayan or foreign guests so that they can experience the best Filipino food in an equally good ambience. Sunch, unfortunately, was not the case last night. The place was haphazardly crowded, it was dirty (there were huge and ugly stains on the seats' upholstery), the service sucked, and the food sucked even more. The restaurant also had a group of singers who went from table to table serenading guests. While they had pretty nice voices and played well, they just contributed to the noise and made it hard to talk to each other.

Maybe we should've just bought Ply to Jollibee.

***
Back to the restaurant singers... They would usually ask the guests in every table for "special requests." I found they had a pretty interesting repertoire, because they were able to sing old Spanish classics like Besame Mucho...to current hits like Orange & Lemon's Pinoy Ako. Which could also very well be called "Song of the Night" because that was what was requested by every other table! It was a treat to hear it played and sung for the first time (I really love the lyrics and for the life of me cannot understand why it would be the theme song of Pinoy Big Brother), and I found it funny when I heard it played the second time... but by the fourth and fifth time, it got to be annoying

Yes, now I have Last Song Syndrome and I can't get that damn song out of my head.

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Have realized that it's no fun shopping with a tourist who's from Bangkok. Usually, when someone from a different country arrives, they're all so overwhelmed at how cheap (but of good quality) everything is here that shopping becomes a fun, whirlwind activity. But of course, it's a different case when you're talking to a Thai, because obviously, Bangkok has loads of better stuff. And the stuff we have here are cheaper over there.

So which begs the question.... when will get to go to Bangkok?!