Sunday, December 11, 2022

yesterday was Tom's birthday party

My buddy Tom's birthday is tomorrow the 12th, a Monday, but Tom elected to celebrate on a Saturday, so a varied group of us met yesterday at around 6 p.m. at an Indo-Nepali restaurant called Pooja (뿌자/bbooja in Korean; the Sanskrit word puja means "worship"). This is apparently Tom's favorite restaurant; he told me that he goes there around once a month. Among the other arrivals were Tom's wife and son. Aside from them, I was only vaguely familiar with one or two of the other guests, so I ended up making many new acquaintances. As I've said many times before, this sort of situation is very uncomfortable for me, but I somehow made it through the evening without flipping out and destroying the place. Here are some photos of the food and the people:

samosa-chat, basically cut-up samosas drenched in yogurt, hot sauce, and green sauce; a bit oversauced, but good

I was really looking forward to the chicken biriyani I'd ordered—my first biriyani ever. It ended up being simpler than I thought it would be, compared to the many YouTube videos I'd seen showing the complex manner in which biriyani is normally prepared, but it was still good: spicy chicken, rice, and cashews all baked together in a pot. A tub of yogurt arrived before the biriyani itself; as it turned out, you were supposed to spoon some yogurt over the spicy rice to help balance out the flavors. I also ordered garlic naan (flatbread), which I dipped in the tub of yogurt.

two decidedly non-Indian dishes: a side salad and a vegetable dish done up ggakdugi-style

the birthday boy himself, looking regal and ridiculous

Tom's friend Vivian started off as Tom's student a couple decades ago. She's now a mom with a son who is about the same age as Tom's own son. She teaches Chinese and, although she started off learning US English, she lived in England a few years and lost her American accent in favor of an English one. I sat across from her at our long table, and she seemed nice. Gave me a hug as I was leaving.

a better view of the birthday cake (berry saeng-cream)

I felt bad for Tom's friend Mi-a, who sat to my right. Mi-a had to wait a long time for her meal to come out; the food generally came out slowly because there was apparently only one chef in the kitchen that night. Mi-a is vegetarian; she ordered a veggie curry and allowed me to taste a bit of it. It was quite good. I'm not averse to vegetarian dishes that are done right, and most Indian vegetarian dishes are quite tasty. Alas, Mi-a ended up eating only a third of what she'd been given. Vivian (pictured above) couldn't finish her tandoori chicken, although she and a guy diagonally across from me—dude named Darrell—managed to polish off most of a bottle of Absolut vodka. Darrell turned out to be blessed or cursed with a loud, effusive personality, and the vodka only made him louder as the night went on. 

Tom's boss at the university, a woman named Don (sic), sat directly to my left. Beyond her was an English guy named Matthew, who sounded like a bit of a raconteur as he rattled on with this and that story. Diagonally to my right, there was a Canadian guy named Angelo, whom I'd met before (we'd all gone out to Incheon), and an older Korean gentleman (the name escapes me) who was a lawyer Tom has worked with in the past. Way at the front of the table sat Brian, whom I knew as a KMA-era acquaintance (remember I used to work for KMA? no? here's a refresher). All in all, people were gabby, so I didn't have to try too hard to hold up my end of the conversation. Mi-a showed me some cell-phone pics of one of her many trips to America; one place that charmed her was in Naples, Florida—a car museum called Revs.

Eventually, it was time to leave. I had given Tom a copy of my homeschooling book with an envelope containing W500,000 inside it because, as I said in a note, it didn't seem right for Tom to have to pay for his own party. (Tom sent a voice message today to say I'd more than covered his expenses.) Vivian, for whatever reason, gave me a hug as I left. There was plenty of handshaking to go around, and that was that. While it was a nice gathering, I did feel the urge to breathe, like a claustrophobic leaving a crowded elevator. Confession: I was tired and my back had been aching earlier in the day, so I almost didn't go to Tom's party. In the end, though, I elected to honor the invitation. While the restaurant Pooja might have fallen down, a bit, in certain aspects of its service, it was overall not a bad place to eat. It didn't give me the same favorite-resto vibe it had obviously given Tom, but I'd go back there if asked.



1 comment:

John Mac said...

I'm impressed that you remembered everyone's name. That's always the first thing I forget.

I can relate to your discomfort in that scenario (at least until that vodka kicks in!), but you seem to have handled it well. It's good to get out of the comfort zone now and then.