Mango Chicken Adventure

Ok, so the 7 of us took a taxi into town to have dinner together as a team. Karen suggested the restaurant Tu Anh because they have the best mango chicken. We showed the taxi driver the business card of another restaurant named Wild Sunflower which Karen knew was a few doors away on the same street, since we didn't have the business card for Tu Anh. It turned out that where the driver dropped us off, we had to walk past Wild Sunflower to get to Tu Anh. But why would that be a problem, you may ask. Well, we know the owner of Wild Sunflower, and he is always standing out in front of his restaurant inviting (persuading, pulling, begging) guests to come in. There are a few restaurants of the same sort on this small street, and all of the them do the same to compete for the same western customers who often walk this street because it's recommended by the Lonely Planet.

Sure enough, we ran into the owner of Wild Sunflower and he asked us to come in. Karen had to turn him down skillfully, saying that we have had other plans for the evening. After exchanging a few words and polite smiles, we walked on and got to Tu Anh. We opened the door and walked in. It's a small little restaurant with about 6 small tables, and there were customers at three of them. The woman owner, very open, friendly, and talkative, greeted Karen in a loud voice from the back of the restaurant. Seeing that there may not be enough tables for all 7 of us, Karen said to the owner, "Do you think there is enough room for us?" The woman responded with a big smile, "Sure!" She then told her assistant in Vietnamese that she had to go show us to our room and will be back. She opened the door, and asked to follow her out. We were all wondering what was happening. While she was taking us across the street and up a small street, we were asking one another if she had an overflow room, and how she would bring the food to us all the way from her restaurant. We kept on following the woman until we got to a building, where she entered and was greeted by another woman. She said something to that woman in Vietnamese, and I caught enough of the conversation to start realizing that she had just taken us to a hotel. Then I thought maybe she wanted to put us in a small room and would bring the food to us. Karen then told her that it was ok, and that we could just order the food first and then walk around while waiting for the restaurant to clear. Now, the restaurant owner was puzzled, wondering why we talked about eating at the restaurant. Then I told her in Vietnamese that we came to her restaurant to eat dinner, not to look for a hotel room. At that point, she broke into loud laughter, screaming that she heard the word "room" from Karen and thought we had wanted a hotel room for the night. We all had a good laugh walking back down to the restaurant.

We all learned an important lesson from that incident--avoid using the word 'room' at a restaurant unless you're really looking for a room for the night. It was also wonderful that a restaurant owner actually took us to a hotel herself--what service!

We all had mango chicken, except me. I wanted to be different and ordered lemongrass chicken instead.