The Most Anti-Social Restaurant

The moment we came back to Hong Kong, my brother had to go to a work function.  For some reason, they decided to hold their Chinese New Year Dinner two weeks after the fact.  So I was left to find dinner on my own.  I was pretty tired after our flight from Melbourne so I decided to go to the interesting ramen restaurant that my brother had taken me to before we left.

This restaurant is utterly fascinating.  It's the most anti-social set-up I have ever experienced.  There are 3 or 4 rows of booths that look like library cubicles.  Every person, regardless of whether you're alone or in a group, has to sit at one of the booths.  Each booth has a call button and a faucet where you can dispense your own water.  The back of the booth has a bamboo screen that partially hides the corridor in between the rows.  You fill out the sheet for your custom bowl of ramen, including how you want your noodles cooked, how oily you want the broth to be, how you like your green onions sliced (thin or thick), how much of the spicy sauce you want to add, how much garlic you like, etc.  Then you press the button on your table and a server shows up at your booth, but you don't get to see their face because of the bamboo screen.  The only way you can tell them apart is that they wear their name tag on their belt.  They take your order, say something in Japanese, bow really low so you can see it, and then walk away.  Minutes later someone else returns with your order, says something Japanese and bows again, then lowers the screen all the way down so you can eat in privacy.  Here's the crazy part: almost everyone orders a noodle refill.  In order to do that, you take the little coloured tray that they give you, place it on top of the button, then press the button so a little music starts to play.  Someone raises the screen, takes your coloured tray, and disappears.  They come back moments later with a bowl of noodles that you then add to your bowl of broth and continue eating.

This is what it looks like:

When you're done eating, you just take the copy of your sheet from the little box on the right side of the table and bring it to the cashier to pay.

For those of us who find ourselves awkwardly eating alone: Best.  Idea.  Ever.

"Now I'm four five seconds from wildin', and we got three more days 'til Friday"