That nice boy is now officially the waterboy.
It’s a bottle of water.
And I didn’t even see it coming. I shake my head. I had not recognised that he is the kind of guy who, at a luncheon with friends, would order a pitcher of water, when everyone else just wants to get drunk. After that, no one will dare order a beer, in fear of passing off as a lush, lunch devolving into silence as we sit quietly drowning in our individual glasses of tepid tap water.
I am not an idiot. It did not appear out of thin air. While my ample gesticulations and I went to cool off in the ladies room, my date must have felt pity for me and come to the conclusion that “a glass of water might do me good.”
Waterboy, the type of guy to get intoxicated by the concept of hydration (drunk off his own words, of course, not off something tangible). We get it, you hydrate, we’re not dumb or masochists, no one forgets to drink for three days.
In that instant, this charming man lost all his charisma points. That bottle of water he ordered behind my back is no mere flask. It is a raised and transparent middle finger to my decision-making abilities. It is a paternalistic initiative that states that I am a girl and thus I “can’t hold my liquor.” It is the impulse to hit the brakes while we are speeding down the highway of fun because he thought I couldn’t take it, proof being the amount I spilt. And will he even dare to…
This water bottle bummer is the guy at the table who tells you that, “you know, if you drink anything else, you will ruin the taste of the food, and that is a shame.” YEAH, IT’S A SHAME THAT THEY MADE JURASSIC PARK SEQUELS BUT WE ALL GOT OVER IT, AND THAT’S FINE, RIGHT?
He actually pours me a glass of water.
Waterbore, the type of guy who tries to pass off Parisian tap water as an elixir rather than a sign of his own stinginess. He doesn’t divide the bill by the number of people present, he separates it all to make sure he doesn’t get ripped off. And you politely wait as he fumbles around his phone to open his calculator app.
Is he going to get me a straw now, or are we good?
You wait politely because, let’s be honest here, diner with a water
Oh. He does.
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enthusiast is always too long. Tonight, the bore wonder is this young man with magical eyes who will sleep alone, a 1.5L bottle of water soberly placed by his bed. I’ve got an early morning meeting tomorrow. I really should be going.
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BAO down to their Esteamed Buns If you want to taste a pork belly gua bao by BAO London, you have to earn it. You must arm yourself with patience. But once you have entered one of their three addresses, the waiting line is but distant memory. Launched in 2014 by the enthusiastic trio of Erchen Chang, Shing Tat, and Wai Ting Chung, the concept’s popularity quickly flooded the city’s markets, before they decided to settle down in Soho and Fitzrovia. But dining at BAO is an experience that is not limited to the extreme
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clean-up attempt. As I sit down, my gaze falls upon a most bizarre sight. Transparent and slender, it stands centre stage on the table that has been neatly cleaned up by a barman who is surely no stranger to the vagaries of the wine smelling socially incompetent. An insult. The purchasable-in-bulk glass avatar of a blond bombshell who looks down at you. If it were a human being, it would eat healthy seeds and wear beige.