Bee renewed her US visa today and since the US Embassy is near our office, we decided to meet for lunch at SM Mall of Asia. I told her to pick the place as she would get there earlier than I would. She picked Hooters.
Hooters isn't inside Mall of Asia. It's located at San Miguel by the Bay ... those buildings outside Mall of Asia on the stretch referred to as the Esplanade. Those boxy one story buildings are restaurants, and they all face Manila Bay. A lot of them used to be located along Roxas Boulevard.
When Hooters opened around April or May, the guys at the office checked the place out. They were expecting to see women like the ones you'd see in pictures of Hooters in the US, either through magazines or the internet. They were disappointed.
I thought the guys were exaggerating until I went inside myself. Every waitress there, though wearing the expected tank tops and short shorts, was of the petite build and none have memorable bodies or faces. I saw more sexy girls in the Car show held at the World Trade Center every April.
The girls are very friendly though. They always ask if there's anything more we'd like to order ... that if I stayed there longer I would find it annoying. The girls do some kind of dance every hour or so... which reminds me of the SM supermarket employees breaking into the Papaya dance every hour. Cute to watch ... but I wouldn't want to be doing that kind of routinary job. According to Bee, the ambiance was different from the Hooters in the US she'd been to ... the US outlets were more darker inside.
An American restaurant, the food Hooters serve is limited to sandwiches, soup, salad, and chicken wings. Bee wanted steak but it's not on the menu. Being the Hotel and Restaurant Management graduate that she is, and having worked in a number of similar restaurants (she and the restaurant manager actually used to work together in another restaurant), Bee couldn't help but pass judgement on the food: the chicken wings isn't good, neither is the caesar side salad (the vegetables in the one I ordered either weren't fresh or got damaged in handling/delivery... those in the table next to us probably agree as they barely touched their salad), and the hamburger buns weren't the best kind. Bee still considers Chili's burgers one of the best she's tasted. But I don't think Chili's has outlets in Metro Manila anymore.
Bee and I spent more than an hour talking. When we stood up to leave, I realized that she wasn't driving and that her driver had been patiently waiting for her outside. I asked if he had eaten lunch. Bee said he's full as he'd already eaten a lot while waiting for her at the US Embassy.
Bee dropped me off at PNB, and she was surprised to see another Hooters outlet beside us. We decided to meet next week and watch a movie.
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