A Paella Night

Just a few weeks after I leave for the UK, one of my flamenco classmates will move out of her house in Tokyo and start her marriage life in the south of Japan. So, our class will become even smaller after September.

Under the name of leaving parties, we decided to have dinner twice (could have more, but we’re busy for other things as well, you know): the first one in a Spanish restaurant, and the second one in… well, another Spanish restaurant (just a coincidence). For the second gathering, we will invite our teacher as well, but for the first one, on last Friday, we just had a whale of time only by ourselves.

The restaurant’s appearance was rather like a warehouse, but the food was gorgeous. I honestly think it’s the best in Tokyo, and my classmates would agree. It was a pity that they didn’t have a flamenco show on Friday. Instead, they were playing a series of pop music (not necessarily Spanish) throughout the opening hours and it was quite noisy. Still, we could manage chatting and having fun.

All of a sudden, our chatting was disturbed by an ear-splitting yelling from all the waters. We couldn’t get what they shouted, but it was soon followed by a burst of even louder music. Oh gosh, what’s going on? Covering our ears with our hands, we looked at each other.

Then two waters came along holding one huge paella pan in their hands. We assumed that it was for our table, as we ordered the rice dish. But they walked pass our table, so we wanted to know to which table the gigantic pan would be taken instead. Somebody else must have ordered the same, delicious-looking dish then. But the waters also went through other tables, sometimes tilting the pan to show the inside to each table. We could see the artistic shape of the scorching Spanish sun, displayed with beans and tomatoes, on the yellowish rice. Just when the waiters had gone with the iron pan, the loudness of music went back to normal.

After a few seconds, we burst into a laugh… It was only a show! After all, the waiters’ shout was the announcement of the paella being ready and the holly parade was going to start off.

Back to our chatting for a while, we came to realise that our paella hadn’t come after the parade. Some of us said that the worshiped pan had been served for other tables. But an idea came into my mind… Was it a real dish? So I said, ‘What do you think if that paella was a sample?’

Another burst of laughter – we then remembered that the dish didn’t look ‘hot’ at all, proved by the waters holding the panhandles in their bare hands, and actually, none of us saw the steam which was supposed to be given off from a freshly cooked dish. Oh dear…

Later, our paella was finally served and we enjoyed the exquisite taste, but we didn’t get any beans in it! Well, well…

During our pleasant dinner, the girls who are staying in the class gave me a surprise present. They also gave the same thing to the other girl who is also leaving. We unwrapped our common presents, and there was… a paella pan! They said that they wanted to buy something to make an impact on us. Yeah, it certainly did! Now, I’ve got even more stuff to send off to London… But it was a wonderful present.

Anyway, the dinner was wonderful, and more importantly, we had a lot of laughter that night. I’m going to miss the girls with whom I’ve shared such a happy time as well as the passion for flamenco. Flamenco arts are so profound and it’s a long, long way to go until we ‘master’ them, but we know we’ll never actually do… Still, my classmates and teacher have helped me a lot with motivating myself to keep practising. We promised to meet up in Spain some time next year. Yeah, let’s make our plan come true! I just hope I’ll be able to continue working on flamenco…