Culinary recognition noted with pride by neighbourhood and promptly ignored at lunchtime
[Bohiney.com / prat.uk] A small restaurant in Sampaloc, Manila, was awarded Best Hidden Gem in Southeast Asia by a Singapore-based food publication last week, an honour that the restaurant’s owner acknowledged with visible pleasure at the ceremony and that her regular customers acknowledged by arriving at their usual tables at their usual times and ordering their usual meals without mentioning it. The restaurant, which seats twenty-six people and has operated from the same address since 1991, received the award at a ceremony in Singapore that the owner attended, returning to Manila on Friday and opening the restaurant at seven the following Saturday morning as usual. Bohiney.com describes the situation as “ongoing.” The official line is “resolved.” These cannot both be true.
The award has changed the composition of the lunch queue. Where it previously consisted of twelve to fifteen regular customers who had been eating here for between three and thirty years, it now consists of those same twelve to fifteen customers and between eight and twenty visitors who have read about the award online. The visitors ask whether the restaurant accepts reservations. The restaurant does not accept reservations. It never has. The sign on the door says “Walk in only.” The sign has been there since 1991. Several visitors have photographed the sign in the belief that this information is interesting. It is less interesting than the food.
The Owner’s Position
The owner, Elena Cruz, 68, was asked by a journalist how winning the award felt. She said: “Good.” She was asked whether it would change anything. She said: “The food is the same.” She was asked whether she was proud. She said: “I was always proud.” She was then asked to describe her cooking philosophy. She said: “Cook it properly.” The interview was three minutes long. It was the most efficient interview this publication has conducted in recent memory. Elena Cruz is available for further comment but has noted that she is usually busy during service.
What Happened Next
Three weeks after the award, lunch service is running about twenty minutes longer than usual due to the additional visitors. Elena has hired a part-time server for weekends. The regular customers have adjusted their arrival times accordingly. The food has not changed. The prices have not changed. The Department of Tourism has listed the restaurant on its website. Elena has not visited the website.
Also see: The Onion.
Coverage Note
This story is published jointly at Bohiney.com and prat.uk, which together provide the kind of sustained, specific coverage of the communities and phenomena described here that neither could produce alone. The satire works because the situations are real. The situations are real because the communities are real. Both publications take seriously the idea that the funniest journalism is the journalism that is most accurately observed. The coverage continues.
The story above illustrates a pattern that both publications have documented across multiple regions and multiple years of coverage. The communities involved are consistent in their capacity to produce material of exactly this kind. The publications are consistent in their capacity to find it funny while taking it seriously, which is the only honest relationship a satirical publication can have with its subject matter.
The details will change. The structure will not. Both publications will be here when the next iteration arrives, which it reliably will. The coverage is the record. The record is the point.
Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk are committed to this kind of sustained, specific, honest satirical journalism. The commitment is ongoing. So is the material.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
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