In my (not so) humble opinion, I reckon that one can accurately measure the health of the economy by the number of waiter-sung “Happy Birthday” moments in a certain type of restaurant over the course of any one evening. This rule, let’s call it Zoë’s Index of Disposable Wealth Demonstration by Means of Public Humiliation, gives a rather accurate overview of how a town or city is wearing the current economic woes. The theory behind it goes that richer feeling families go out to eat more, are more likely to celebrate birthdays in public and in the kind of place where one receives a special song, and more likely to want to demonstrate their happiness too.
Obviously there are some complexities to be borne in mind here – day of the week, the menu and the dress code can all be indicators of how disposed the clientele or indeed the waiters are to sing in the first place. And I’m fairly sure that it only works on this side of the pond, a smack in the mouth being the proper English response to someone singing at you in public. But generally the index works quite reliably.
In the Bahamas, for instance, the waiters at our local steakhouse Seafire do a bang up job of singing really quite enthusiastically to the nearest gorging supersized family, with added stomping and menu thumping. I would expire on the spot in a small grey puff of pure embarrassment, but it seems to go down quite well with the majority of recipients. But on Saturday night there were zero birthday moments. None whatsover! It was really extraordinary – on an average Tuesday in off season you can normally expect at least four interruptions to your dinner. Couple this with the emptiness of the marina itself (just a few over-neoned charter yachts) and the lack of queue at Jonny Rockets (hot-dog emporium and staple diet for tourists on Paradise Island) and news of economic misery is all but ensured. But the emptiness of the restaurant did ensure an absolutely delicious steak, all black and blue and bloody, great mashed potatoes, very efficient service and a perfectly acceptable creme brulee. When times are tough it’s apparently time to eat steak.
I don’t really have an awful lot say about the food at Rosa Mexicano – it was alright, if you like that kind of thing. The guacamole arrived on a cart of its own, a sort of hostess trolley as envisioned by a caveman if he were to execute his design in fake logs. The avocados were pounded (right there and then! Gosh!) in a faux-rustic pestle and mortar and plonked on the table in a faux-rustic way. It ticked all the guacamole boxes. We chose grilled main courses, which came with various textures of pureed beans and were ok. The management completely failed to manage our expectations of the Pinguino dessert, billing it as a fancy chocolate cupcake filled with hazelnut mousse but actually presenting us with Dunkin Donuts leftovers. The icecream was nice. The service was pretty gay by which I mean that, as the only woman at the table with three reasonably presentable guys, the waiter forgot my order by the time he’d finished taking theirs. The big news, though, was that only one very half-hearted Birthday Moment happened for the entire meal. I’d be selling on the non-farm payrolls if I were you.
