Most measly man, meagre meal, much money

P1030672In this most spectacular setting my heart was heavy when I took my first glimpse inside the courtyard of the ‘restaurant’. There were two fierce barking dogs and a man with a mean face and no volume control. His dialect was unintelligible even to Peter, who hitherto had prided himself (not wrongly) for guiding us through some of the more complicated transactions to get this far. Once inside the fleapit room that was the ‘restaurant’ itself we were reassured by the emergence of a menu. Ah! we thought, there must be a comely cook who arrives to transform the place into a warm and welcoming evening retreat come sunset.

How very very wrong we were. The menu was entirely redundant. The gobbing man (for he did this with alarming frequency) was pointing to the fresh veg in his garden – and shouting, better that we might understand him. My recce of the village had revealed nowhere else to stay, we were imprisoned with this moron and his exceptional sense of humour. (maybe he didn’t understand, but I knew he was taking the piss when everytime he looked at me he shouted Ni Hau and laughed – like it was the only word I knew – ha ha – bloody hilarious).

The meal was eventually served, it was getting dark. It consisted of veg he cut from the patch next to the ‘restaurant’ and fried egg. Nice. (actually it was reasonably tasty, but his price of Y30 each, on top of his room price of Y180 was just ridiculous). While we ate he served himself his own dinner too. I have seen lots people eat, different styles of food in many different countries – his particular style, I can report, was unique. Every mouthful was greeted with a painful groan, each involved extremely loud slurping and there was continued phlegming and gobbing throughout. The only escape was to laugh, which we did. Then half way through this grotesque interlude my friend Peter rang me and it was a blessed relief to be able to share the experience with someone else. Mr Gobby made us pay then (although quite how he thought we would escape past the dogs (tunnel? I did think about it, but there was no exercise horse in the courtyard) and out into the night I don’t know). In all a desultory ‘restaurant’ a mean man and an all round piss take of our foreigner dollar. We saved the day by laughing – a lot and thankfully, although a ridiculous price, the room was plenty comfortable enough. (Mr Gobby’s ‘restaurant”guesthouse’ Wenhai Village 12/13 July)

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