Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 154 - 151: The Lost Face

The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant runs three trips a day, and the amount of food served on each trip is different, as is the duration of the trip.

A four-course lunch, two hours, from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.

A three-course early dinner, from 5:45 PM to 7:15 PM.

The five-course late dinner takes the longest, from 8:35 PM all the way to 11:30 PM at night.

Regardless of the session, it’s always a leisurely meal, even the early dinner of just an hour and a half.

The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant has a very complete Western menu, ranging from appetizers and starters to main courses and desserts, the full gamut.

When seriously considered, the menu offerings can be called Australian cuisine.

At least in terms of ingredient selection, it’s very local.

Some of the more classic starters include Tasmania Atlantic Salmon and Pepper Crusted Kangaroo.

There’s also the most frequently ordered main course, Victorian Farmed Eye Fillet.

If there’s an insurmountable shortcoming with the Tramcar Restaurant, it would have to be the small "kitchen" space the restaurant can’t overcome.

With limited cooking space in the "kitchen," the dishes on the menu appear in set meals, leading to less variety, and many of them are prepared in advance.

The chefs only need to perform the final heating and temperature control on the tram.

However, since its inception in 1983, the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant has made many improvements to the preparation and heating of its dishes, so the flavor doesn’t suffer just because they’re made in advance.

It’s the same principle as the preparation of meals in an airline’s first-class cabin: ingredients are limited, and the cooking method is restricted, but the quality of the meals cannot be affected.

The simpler the reheating of the meal is, the more it tests an airline’s dedication to its food service.

Although every airline has hired very renowned chefs to design the meals for their international first-class cabins, there is still a huge chasm between the good and the poorly made first-class food.

The quality of the dishes offered by the Tramcar Restaurant is definitely above the average level of Western restaurants in Melbourne.

If there are six people dining at lunch, they can sit in the same row; although there is a small aisle in the middle, it’s not a problem for the six people to chat with each other.

But today’s lunch party consists of seven people, so they have to be split between two tables upfront and in the back.

The high-backed seats of the Tramcar Restaurant make it difficult for people sitting at the front and back tables to chat with each other.

Because of choosing the Tramcar Restaurant, Yan Yan’s graduation lunch was bound to be one table for three and another for four.

The normal arrangement would certainly be to have four parents at one table and three juniors at another, which was Bao Bao’s initial plan.

But after seven people boarded the Tramcar Restaurant, this most normal arrangement began to seem quite abnormal.

The table for three, with each person having spent a long time abroad, naturally had no problems.

But at the table for four, aside from Yan Dabang who had thoroughly studied mechanical English, the other three individuals were strangers to the twenty-six letters.

Regrettably, the menu wasn’t written in mechanical English. After getting the menu, Yan Dabang didn’t know how to speak up, let alone how to order.

Although the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant operates with set menus, that doesn’t mean there are no choices within them.

Starters must be chosen, main courses must be chosen, and most importantly, the tramcar restaurant had a rich list of drinks and wines to choose from, and that definitely required one to make their own selections.

Not long after boarding, Aunt was the first to leave her seat at the four-person table and went to sit with Yan Yan’s table: "Sitting with them, I won’t know what we’ve ordered later on. I might as well sit with you guys."

Bao Bao also started to feel that the previous "table separation" arrangement was somewhat unreasonable.

"Perhaps I should go sit with Uncle and Auntie," Bao Bao said, putting his idea into action.

At first, Yan Yan thought Bao Bao’s arrangement was sensible but then realized there was another issue upon further thought.

Bao Bao wasn’t quite suitable for sharing a table with the conservative Yan Dingbang.

Yan Dingbang was still clueless about Bao Bao’s real situation; otherwise, he would definitely have subjected Bao Bao to a "moral and ethical" education.

Yan Yan didn’t want Bao Bao to endure two hours of awkwardness.

Yan Yan quickly stood up and went to the other table to switch places with Yan Dingbang: "Uncle, why don’t you and Aunt go and vet Qi Yi for me?"

Qi Yi had already successfully passed the scrutiny of Uncle and Aunt in the morning; revisiting it in-depth could only be beneficial.

After all, Yan Yan’s catch was the proverbial "child from another family." There was no fault to be found in Qi Yi’s resume from childhood to adulthood.

Such a person definitely needed to undergo extensive scrutiny.

The dining car moved smoothly along, steadily following the tram tracks. Outside the window, the Melbourne scenery streamed by like movie scenes before the eyes of everyone dining at the tramcar restaurant.

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After the final seating arrangements were agreed upon, the two tables started to chat separately.

"When Yan Yan goes to Florence, Yan Yan’s dad and I will want to find a nice restaurant to eat at, and we’ll have to trouble you to translate for us," said Lu Bingran, seriously doubting Yan Dabang’s proficiency in spoken English after today’s ordering fiasco.

"You’re asking me to translate, and I’m more than happy to do it. Not only do I get to chat with Uncle and Aunt, but I also get to enjoy a feast."

"However, that means I’ll be mooching meals all the way from Uncle and Aunt’s house to your anniversary candlelit dinner.

Uncle Yan will get a headache seeing me and won’t want me around when he’s showing off his cooking skills at home anymore," said Bao Bao, who still rather enjoyed mooching long-term at Yan Yan’s home.

For someone living abroad like Bao Bao, what’s rarer is a simple, home-cooked meal.

After all, the chef at a restaurant outside may not even be up to the standard of her own cafe. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

"I’m not used to it yet, ordering isn’t something you have to do by talking, you can just point with your finger.

Bao Bao, make a Chinese-English version of your cafe’s menu for me, I’ll study it.

Give me a week, and I’m sure to get this sorted out.

Now that Yan Yan is still around, she never gives me a chance to order for myself," said Yan Dabang, unable to stand the "disdain" from his wife.

Yan Yan’s dad felt it necessary to regain the face he just lost in front of his wife in a short time.

Yan Dabang refused to believe that this small menu was tougher to crack than those complicated manuals for mechanical equipment he faced in the past.