I love food, and I live in Bangkok, and I am young and hip. And my daddy is rich. So I'm going to open a hip restaurant in Bangkok for young people with my rich daddy's money. Now, you must possess passion. Luckily, passion I have in droves! If I were a plant, my friends tell me, I'd be a passion fruit tree. Imagine that! That's how much I love food! I might even venture as far as to call myself a highfalutin gourmandiser.
So yes, it is only natural that I open a restaurant. Seeing as how, you know, I love food and all. But I will call it a bistro, or a boulangerie, or, at the very least, a cafe. They have those in Paris, you know, and Paris is fancy. And fancy is good.
So what type of food will my young, hip restaurant serve?
Well, what kind of food do I like? Why, all of it! And I don't just like it! I love it! I love Mexican food, I love Indian food, I love French, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Turkish, Korean. I love fish and chips, and after-dinner mints, and Brazilian barbecue. I love jam and ham. I love beefy beef steaks and mooncakes and milkshakes and purple grapes.
So, because I love every kind of food, I'm going to serve every kind of food. There will be a menu as thick as a weightlifter's thigh. I'm going to take delicious foods, delicious on their own, and I'm going to smash them together with so much contrived force that there will be a mouthfeel explosion of deliciousness. There will be so many mouthfeels. It's going to be ridiculous. They say two wrongs don't make a right. Which means that two rights must make the resulting right doubly right. Right?
"Fusion," they call it. Look at me, using industry jargon already!
I'm thinking, like, spaghetti tacos. Squid-ink fried-chicken ravioli. Tartare sauce tartare. Foie-gras-caviar pizza -- oh man, speaking of, I'm going to put foie gras on everything. That's a little trick I've learned. I'm going to force-feed the geese myself, in fact. Would that be foie gras faux pas? (Note to self: Google "ethics of self-goose torture.") Regardless, that stuff is so fancy. Fancy is so good. Now, about my minions. Oh, sorry, I mean my staff!
I'm going to have a huge staff. They will be cordial. Around 45,000 uniformed humans, each with a specialised task.
There will be chefs, and hostesses and busboys and waiters, of course. But there will also be fork handlers. Spoon wranglers. Knife bearers. I will hire a tiny man to perch on your shoulder, like a vulture, and gently dab your lips with the damp corner of a cloth napkin.
As discerning dining parties dine, they will be treated to in-house entertainment. Well, I was thinking about mimes, because there are tons of mimes in Paris, and Paris, being fancy and all, is good. But then I thought, what do the people want the most? And the answer came to me, like an angel in a dream, and at once I knew.
Get this: jazzed-down cover versions of popular songs. I'm going to hire a marginally skilled guitar player, and then I'm going to suss out the most mediocre of mediocre singers, who will in all probability wear too much make-up. And a little hat. Together, this duo will acoustically perform popular songs, but, like, much slower. Lady Gaga's Poker Face, Bruno Mars's Uptown Funk, the beautiful guy from Maroon 5 and the song that he sings. Just because the music is slow, though, doesn't mean it has to be soft. No, this music is going to be ear-splittingly loud.
You thought you were going to have a conversation with your discerning dining partner over lunch? Think again! I didn't spend Daddy's money on this in-house entertainment system for nothing. They're going to play it loud, honey. And you will not even be able to hear yourself chew.
No, you will hear nothing but the sweet, sweet sounds of a poorly composed, poorly performed cover of Timbaland's Apologize.
Now, the duck-breast-infused cherry on top of the salmon foam reduction sundae: the establishment's location.
You, as a young, hip, rich Bangkokian, are well aware of the inherent goodness of fancy. And what are the fanciest places on Earth? Shopping malls, of course! They sell so many fancy things in shopping malls these days. And fancy things are often expensive. And expensive means money. And money, my friends, is way fancy. Money, perhaps, is the best thing of all.
Besides physical appearance, na ka.
Adam Kohut is the subeditor for Guru magazine.