A taxi and some delectable bar food

The other night Ben and I got off work and hailed into a taxi to go for some drinks.  Ben jumped into the front seat of the cab to tell him where to go and the cab driver was a husky middle aged man with a snarly face and a smoker’s voice.  Ben gave him some directions and we were off.

We hadn’t even driven 50 feet when the cabbie decided this would be good time to start singing.   

And when I say singing, I mean fully serenading Ben is a booming, husky voice complete with dramatic hand gestures and awkward eye contact.   We’re pretty sure he does this to everyone that gets into his cab in case they are recruiters for China’s version of The Voice.  He wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to get discovered.  (Or he does this whenever he has foreigners in his car because he knows that we have no idea how to tell him to shut up.)

Here’s a super crappy video of him singing.  You can’t see him but you can definitely hear him.  Awesome.

I had heard about a Chinese bar in Ben’s neighborhood that has live music on week nights so we went there to check it out.  It was a cool space with interesting art and a band (probably Pilipino, almost every bar in China has a  Pilipino band).  We made our way through a lot of upper class Chinese to sit on this cool loft and of course we were followed to our table by two over attentive staff members.  It’s typical in China for the servers to hover next to your table and stare at you until you order.  This time one of the hoverers seemed to be a manager, which kind of makes feel a little pressure, like you have to hurry up and order because he’s standing there waiting for you!   We were fumbling fast through the drink menu when Ben said, “Can I just order tea?”    

Manager: “You can only order tea if you have cake too.  They are together.”

Ben: “Uhhhh…well…ok, that’s fine. I’ll just do that.”

A few minutes later they brought me my beer....and this is what they delivered to Ben:

 Now I thought that the crumpets, scones, and tiny little teapot covered in country roses and warmed by a small candle was the greatest bar food I'd ever seen...but Ben was a little self-conscience.  I'm not sure if we made a bigger spectacle by being the only foreigners in the entire building or by sitting there with a full tea service laid out in front of us at 9:30 at night.